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Song

Written by
Publication date
1792
Language
English
Comments
This ballad is collected in the Roud Folk Index as Roud 31 under the name above, but is known under numerous titles, including "The Trees They Do Grow High", "Young and Growing", "Bonny Boy Is Growing", and "Lord Craigston". Its original publication was under the name "Lady Mary Anne".

In most versions of this song, a daughter complains that her father has betrothed her to a boy several years her junior. (Depending on the version the groom is as young as 12 years old.) The couple have a child and the boy dies -- all before he has ever left his teens. Despite the girl's initial reservations about the union, she is brought low by her young husband's death.

Some believe this song is based on the marriage of young Lord Craighton to Elizabeth Innes, who was several years older than him when they wed. He died in 1634 some three years after the marriage. Undoubtedly, at least some lyrical variants do refer to this marriage, but the scholarly consensus is that the song long predates Craighton's marriage as child marriages were relatively common in the Middle Ages and there are much earlier similar historical cases.
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Versions

written by English

Title Performer Release date Info
1956
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1957
September 1961
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1961
1963
1963
October 1964 Live
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December 1968
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1988
August 16, 1995
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June 2000
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October 2004
2005 Released more than 10 years after its recording
2008
October 3, 2010
February 2011
September 2011
June 10, 2013