Here’s another As I Rode Out in lovely performance by Kate Rusby with Cathy Jordan and the band Dervish. This version was made famous by Plantxy in 1073 and supposedly comes from the singing of the great Paddy Tunny.

We learned this sad and beautiful song from the singing of Paddy Tunney who lives in Letterkenny, Co. Donegal. He has described it as dating back to the days of the famine, when any bit of property at all was enough to tempt a man to jilt his true love in favour of the lassie with the land. - Andy Irvine

As I Roved Out

As I roved out on a fine May morning
To view the meadows and flowers gay,
Who should I spy but my own true lover
As she sat under yon willow tree.

I took off my hat and I did salute her,
I did salute her most courageously.
When she turned around, well the tears fell from her,
Sayin’, “False young man, you have deluded me!

“A diamond ring I owned I gave you,
A diamond ring to wear on your right hand.
But the vows you made, love, you went and broke them
And married the lassie that had the land.”

“If I’d married the lassie that had the land, my love,
It’s that I’ll rue till the day I die.
When misfortune falls sure no man may shun it,
I was blindfolded I’ll ne’er deny.”

Now at nights when I go to my bed of slumber
The thoughts of my true love run in my mind.
When I turned around to embrace my darling,
Instead of gold sure it’s brass I find.

And I wish the Queen would call home her army
From the West Indies, Amerikay and Spain,
And every man to his wedded woman
In hopes that you and I will meet again.