"I Once Loved a Lass", also known in Scotlandas"The False Bride",[1] is a folk song of the British Isles.[2] The age of the song is uncertain, but versions of it date at least as far back as the 1680s.[3] Although widely believed to be a Scottish song, the earliest record of it is from Newcastle upon Tyne.[3]
The song has been widely recorded since being popularised by Ewan MacColl. His rendition of the song began:
I once loved a lass and I loved her so well, I hated all others [that] spoke of her ill, [And] now she's rewarded me well for my love, She's gone to be wed to another
The song's theme is of unrequited love and some interpret the ending as implying death or suicide. Ewan MacColl wrote in the notes to his 1956 album Classic Scots Ballads:
Although MacColl was born in England, his parents were Scottish and he was familiar with Scots dialect. His recording of the song was in attempted Scots. Some others have sung in a native variety of Scots, such as the recordings by the Clydesiders or Hannah Rarity.
There is also some sarcasm in the lyrics with the line "Now she's rewarded me well for my love" to describe the object of the narrator's love choosing another man to marry.
One verse in the song uses some imagery that many listeners struggle to interpret, referred to as "the oldest riddle in Britain".[4]
In Richard Farina's song "Birmingham Sunday", the verse is:
OnPete Seeger's album Live in '65, he asks the audience whether anyone knows the meaning of the verse. For her album that contained a recording of the song, Irish singer Karan Casey gave the name Ships in the Forest after this particular verse. An article in a Kelowna newspaper suggested that the strawberries refer to a Celtic clan who were known as "les gens de la fraise" (the people of the strawberry).[4]
