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Description: | Verses 1 and 2: 'As I was a walking all alone, 'Between a water and a wa', And there I spy'd a wee wee man, And he was the least that e'er I saw. His legs were scarce a shathmont's length, And thick and thimber was his thighs, Between his brows there was a span, And between his shoulders there was three.'
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.
John Glen (1900) writes that this tune is more famously known under the name, 'Bundle and Go'. Stenhouse (1853) notes that the tune was first published in David Herd's (1732-1810) 'Collection of Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs' in 1769. Glen points out that the song's publication in 'The Scots Musical Museum' was the first time that the lyrics and music had appeared together. Glen further writes that the tune is also to be found in Aird's 'Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs' (1782), though under the song title, 'I'd rather have a piece than a kiss of my Jo'. | 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 IV, song 370, page 382 - 'The wee | Go to resource |
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