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Description: | Chorus and Verse 1: 'An' O, my Eppie My Jewel, my Eppie! Wha wad na be happy Wi' Eppie Adair! By love, and by beauty, By law, and by duty; I swear to be true to my Epie Adair! By love, and by beauty, By law, and by duty; I swear to be true to my Eppie Adair.'
The 'Scots Musical Museum' is the most important of the numerous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections of Scottish song. When the engraver James Johnson started work on the second volume of his collection in 1787, he enlisted Robert Burns as contributor and editor. Burns enthusiastically collected songs from various sources, often expanding or revising them, whilst including much of his own work. The resulting combination of innovation and antiquarianism gives the work a feel of living tradition.
There is often a story behind the characters that inhabit the songs in the 'Museum'. Some hail from Greek mythology and others have been inspired by real people. Unfortunately, little or no information is known about the character of Eppie Adair. The tune, however, is known to have appeared under the title 'My Appie', in James Oswald's 'Caledonian Pocket Companion' (1759). | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 | Publisher: | National Library of Scotland | Temporal: | 1787-01-01 - 1803-12-31 | Source: | Burns Scotland | Identifier: | Volume III, song 281, page 290 - 'Eppie | Go to resource |
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