jean and edna ritchie sing four marys

Eerie, how alike they sound!!

This is pure singing, no gimmicks just talent. I would love to visit the Appalachian area of America and hear more of the old music that has its roots in my homeland Scotland

I love that you love this song, but actually it's an americanization of a Scottish song (sorry, but as a Scot I've really got to claim it for us ha ha). only best wishes.

well remember if you learn your history the scottish came to the appalatian area like 500 or so years ago and settled in the mountains where they were isolated from the rest of civilization til' the 1920's where they started to introduced their music to the east coast and thus the term and the birth of (country music) so it's not an americanization of the song it's just ages of scottish music that found its way into america

This is an anglizised version of this song, When I learned it at school 55 years ago the first verse was as follows,
Yestreen the queen had four marys
The nicht she'l hae bit three
there was mary Seaton, Mary Beaton, Mary carmichel and me

Well, my Dad said HIS grandparents used to sing in in the older language. I guess we got "Appalachianized" over the years. First of our ancestors landed (perhaps in Virginia) from Scotland in 1768. Jean

Interesting reply Georgpickow, Its great to hear the auld music is still around in all forms . I,m glad Im not the only auld fogey on youtube. Cheers Tommy

Aye, that's the version I ken.

There are all sorts of variations on these songs. Nobody sings them the same way. Interesting, isn't it?

thank you