battle of Dumblane (Sheriffmoor), after the action was over, a Scots officer in Argyle's army observed to His Grace that he was afraid the rebels would give out to the world that they had gotten the victory. Weel, weel," returned His Grace, alluding to the foregoing ballad; "if they think it be na weel bobbit, we'll bob it again." O'er the Muir amang the Heather. O, vow! an' I had her, O'er the muir, amang the heather, A' her friends should na get her Till I made her lo'e me better. The Moudiewort. (p. 3): Kirk wad let me be.-Tradition in the Western parts of Scotland tells this old song, of which there are still three stanzas extant, once saved a Covenanting Clergyman out of a scrape. It was a little prior to the Revolution, a period when being a Scots Covenanter was being a Felon, one of their clergy who was at that very time hunted by the merciless soldiery, fell in, by accident, with a party of the military. The soldiers were not exactly acquainted with the person of the Rev. gentleman of whom they were in search; but from some suspicious circumstances they fancied that they had got one of that cloth and opprobious persuasion among them in the person of this stranger. "Mass John," to extricate himself, assumed such a freedom of manners (very unlike the gloomy strictness of his sect), and among other convivial exhibitions, sung (and, some traditions say, composed on the spur of the occasion) "Kirk wad let me be," with such effect, that the soldiers swore he was a d-d honest fellow, and that it was impossible he could belong to these hellish conventicles, and so gave him his liberty. an The first stanza of this song, a little altered, is a favourite kind of dramatic interlude at country weddings in the south-west parts of the kingdom. A young fellow is dressed up like an old beggar ; a peruke, commonly of carded tow, to represent hoary locks; old bonnet ; a ragged plaid, or surtout, bound with a straw-rope for a girdle; a pair of old shoes, with straw-ropes twisted round his ancles, as is done by shepherds in snowy weather (p. 4); his face disguised as like wretched old age as they can. In this plight he is brought into the wedding house, frequently to the astonishment of strangers who are not in the secret, and begins to sing : He is asked to drink, and by and by to dance, which, after some uncouth excuses, he is prevailed on to do, the fiddler playing the tune, which here is commonly called " Auld Glenae "; in short, he is all the time so plied with liquor that he is understood to be intoxicated, and with all the ridiculous gesticulations of an old drunken beggar, he dances and stagg(ers) untill he falls on the floor, yet still in all his ri(ot), nay in his rolling and tumbling on the floor, with some or other drunken motion of his body, he beats time to the music, till at last he is supposed to be carried out dead-drunk. (p. 5): Wat ye what my Minnie did? Wat ye what my minnie did, If ever I marry, I'll marry a wright.-(See this tune in Oswald). If ever I marry, I'll marry a wright, He'll set up my bed, and he'll set it up right. &c. *Glenae, on the small river Ae, in Annandale; the seat and designation of an ancient branch, and the present representative of the gallant, but unfortunate, Dalziels of Carnwath. Lass, an' I come near ye.-(See this tune in Aird's " Selection of Airs and Marches.") Lass, an' I come near ye, Lass, an' I come near ye! Little wats thou o' thy daddie, hiney. (Sometimes called Elsie Marley.)- O little wats thou o' thy daddie, hiney, - (p. 6): The King o' France he rade a race. (Oswald & Macgibbon's Collections, now altered into a modern reel called The lass o' Loncarty) The King o' France he rade a race Out o'er the hills o' Syria, His eldest (sic) has followed him, They were sae high, they were sae skeigh, Naebody durst come near them, O; But there cam a Fiddler out o' Fife That dang them tapsalteerie, O. Rob shoor in hairst. (See this tune in Oswald's and other Collections.)— O Robin shoor in hairst, I shoor wi' him ; Fient a heuk had I, Yet I stack by him. &c Jockie's gray breeks.-Though this has certainly every evidence of being a Scotish air, yet there is a well-known tune and song in the North of Ireland, call'd "The weaver and his shuttle, O," which though sung much quicker, is, every note, the very tune. Corn rigs are bonie.-All that ever I could meet of old words to this air were the following, which seems to have been an old chorus: O corn-rigs and rye-rigs, O corn-rigs are bonie, And where'er ye meet a bonie lass, Preen up her cockernony. The Posie.-It appears evident to me that Oswald composed his "Roslin Castle " on the modulation of this air. In the second part of Oswald's, in the three first (p. 7) bars, he has either hit on a wonderful similarity to, or else he has entirely borrowed the three first bars of the older air; and the close of both tunes is almost exactly the same. The old verses to which it was sung, when I took down the notes from a country girl's voice, had no great merit. The following is a specimen : There was a pretty May, and a-milkin' she went, And she has met a young man a-comin' o'er the bent; With a double and adieu to thce fair May. O whare are ye goin', my ain pretty May, Wi' thy red, rosy cheeks and thy coal-black hair; What if I gang alang wi' thee, my ain pretty May, Saw ye nae my Peggy. The original words, for they can scarcely be called verses, seem to be as follows, a song familiar from the cradle to every Scotish ear : Saw ye my Maggie, Saw ye my Maggie, Saw ye my Maggie, Linkin' o'er the lea? High kilted was she, High kilted was she, High kilted was she, Her (coa)ts aboon her knee. (p. 8): What mark has your Maggie, What mark has your Maggie, What mark has your Maggie, That ane may ken her be? (by). &c. Though it by no means follows that the silliest verses to an air must, for that reason, be the original song, yet I take this ballad, of which I have quoted part, to be the old verses. The two songs in Ramsay, one of them evidently his own, are never to be met with in the fireside circle of our peasantry; while, what I take to be the old song is in every shepherd's mouth. Ramsay, I suppose, had thought the old verses unworthy of a place in his Collection. Fy, gar rub her o'er wi' strae.-It is self-evident that the first four lines are part of a song much ancienter than Ramsay's beautiful verses which are annexed to them. To this day, among people who know nothing of Ramsay's verse, the following is the song, and all the song that ever I heard :-- Gin ye meet a bonie lassie, Gie her a kiss and let her gae ; Fye, gae rub her, rub her, rub her, An' gin ye meet a dirty hizzie, Fye, gae rub her o'er wi' strae. (p. 9): The Lass o' Liviston.-The old song, in three eightline stanzas, is well known, and has merit as to wit and humour; but is rather unfit for insertion. It begins : The bonie lass o' Liviston, Her name ye ken, her name ye ken, -- The lass o' Patie's Mill. In the Statistical Account of Scotland this song has been claimed by a Clergyman in Shire as belonging to a place in Ayrshire and his parish, and by the Clergyman of Galston as belonging to that country. The following is the fact : Allan Ramsay was residing with the then Earl of Loudon at Loudon |