Jimmy MacBeath (1894–1972) was a Scottish Traveller and Traditional singer of the Bothy ballads from the north east of Scotland.
Jimmy MacBeath (pronounced the same as Macbeth) was born to a family of Scottish Travellers in the fishing village of Portsoy, Banffshire, Scotland.
Working as a kitchen porter, begging and at seasonal fruit picking, he set about tramping the roads of Scotland, England, the Channel Islands, and Nova Scotia.
He was part of the last generation to sing traditional songs in bothies, along with John Strachan, and Willie Scott, In the 1920s he travelled the roads with Davie Stewart, who was also a singer, and who played the bagpipes and accordion.
In 1965, along with many other traditional singers and musicians, he appeared at the first of the national folk festivals held at Keele University.
A number of the songs he sang has been passed on to singers involved in the early times of the Folk Revival in England and Scotland e.g. "The Keach in the Creel" and "Tramps and Hawkers".
Peter Kennedy's collection Folksongs of Britain and Ireland (1975) included 13 of Jimmy MacBeath's songs.
There is no way of knowing whether this is a centuries-old ceremony, or a scam dreamed up in the 19th century to prevent outsiders from getting work as horsemen.