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Description: | Verse 1: 'In Scotland there liv'd a humble beggar, he had neither house, nor hald, nor hame, But he was weel liked by ilka bodie, And they gae him sunkets to rax his wame.' 'Sunkets' are 'provisions' and 'to rax his wame' is 'to stretch his belly or stomach'.
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.
According to John Glen, in 'Early Scottish Melodies' (1900), 'The tune of this old ballad was contributed to the Museum by Robert Mackintosh, alias 'Red Rob,' a well-known musician in Edinburgh in the latter part of the eighteenth century.' Glen points to the similaritries between the melody provided here and the last two bars of the Irish tune entitled 'Boys of kilkenny'. A popular and humorous ballad, it seemed a natural choice for inclusion in the 'Museum'. | 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 V, song 423, pages 435 and 436 - | Go to resource |
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