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Description: | Verse 1: 'I coft a stane o' haslock woo, To mak a wat to Johnie o't; For Johnie is my only jo, I lo'e him best of onie yet.' Chorus :'The cardin' o't the spinnin' o't The warpin' o't the winnin' o't when ilka ell cost me a groat, The taylor staw the lynin' o't.' To 'coft' is to buy something, while 'staw' means stole. Of the measures used in these lyrics; a stone is 14 (imperial) pounds; an ell 37 inches; a groat is 4 (old) pence.
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.
Although not attributed to Burns in the 'Museum', which itself is not always a reliable guide, this song is now believed to have been penned by him in 1795. The melody to this piece was first recorded in Margaret Sinkler's 'Musik Book', in 1710, entitled 'Queensbury's Scots Measure'. It was then republished by James Aird in 1788 in his 'Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs'. The name had changed, however, to 'Salt Fish and Dumplings'. | 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 437, page 449 - 'The Card | Go to resource |
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