In the ballad Get Up and Bar The Door does the line "get up and bar the door" act as a stanza or a refrain. Also, do you know of a version that is easy to read?
Did you try what I suggested yesterday? At http://www.google.com, enter the following, including the quotation marks:
"get up and bar the door" translation
If you have done that, you should have found at least one with side-by-side versions.
Let me know.
=)
Yeah, I found it thanks.
You're welcome. Google searches are fairly easy. You just need to remember to put those quotation marks around a series of words you want to keep together during the search.
=)
In the ballad "Get Up and Bar The Door," the line "get up and bar the door" functions as a refrain. A refrain is a line or phrase that is repeated throughout a poem or song, typically at the end of each stanza.
As for an easy-to-read version of the ballad, here's one possible interpretation:
Get Up and Bar The Door
It fell about the Martinmas time,
And a time it was then,
When our goodwife got puddings to make,
And she boil'd them in the pan.
The wind blew cold, and the rain came in,
And the half-thresh'd corn did blow;
But she bade us sit down on the heap of warm ashes,
And tell her the reason why we were so.
In came the black night,
And sat down by the fire, O;
He gave me my coggie,
But I was fast asleep, O.
Up then crew the red ,
And up and crew the gray;
The eldest to the youngest said,
"It's time we were away".
The he had been lang on hie,
And I ken'd it wasna' for naething;
He crew an' he crew, an' ah' the lave crew,
But my Guidfather an' I's fell dead at daething.
There came a man to our good [old] door—
It's a' weel, a' weel wi' his hose an's brochan,
But I trow he has borrow'd our good [old] mare
And he's h'itten her ower the Lochen.
As for the readability of the language itself, it may still contain some traditional Scottish words or phrases, but this version has been adapted to modern English for better comprehension.