Farwell to Tarwathie
George Scroggie

Farewell to Tarwathie, adieu Mormond Hill

And the dear land of Crimond, I bid you farewell

I'm bound all for Greenland and ready to sail

In hopes to find riches in hunting the whale.

Farewell to my comrades, for a while we must part

And likewise the dear lass who first won my heart

The cold coast of Greenland, my love will not chill

And the longer my absence, more loving she'll feel.

Our ship is well-rigged and she's ready to sail

The crew, they are anxious to follow the whale

Where the icebergs do float and the stormy winds blow

And the land and the ocean are covered with snow.

The cold coast of Greenland is barren and bare

No seed time nor harvest is ever known there

And the birds here sing sweetly o’er mountain and dale

But there's no bird in Greenland to sing to the whale.

There is no habitation for a man to live there

And the king of that country is the fierce Greenland bear

And there'll be no temptation to tarry long there

With our ship bumper full we will homeward repair.

"Farewell to Tarwathie" is a very significant song for me. I fell in love with it and Judy CollG when I first heard it back in '70 on her Whales and Nightingales album. It's the first truly Scottish song I remember. My mother had an album of international music that included "Wearin' o' the Green", "British Grenadiers", "Wayfarin' etc. but I do not remember anything specifically Scottish. rm very glad Alex chose to include this in his collection.

For those that remember Judy's rendition, it was accompanied with a track of humpback whale song. My mother was very ford of the song and often asked me simply to play the whale song. While Alex chose to exclude the whales, he did include pipes, mandolin ard whistle, something Judy did not have. After all, hers was acapella.

While generally presented as a Traditional song, my research indicates it was written by George Scroggie in the mid 19th century. Oddly, he was not a whaler, nor even a seaman, but a miller that lived near Aberdeen.