J. F. Campbell Collection > Popular rhymes of Scotland

166 POPULAR RHYMES OP SCOTLAND.
Down i' 'e park ! down i' 'e park ! down i' 'e park !
Is't fat ? is't fat ? is't fat ?
Come try ! come try ! come try !
So in Galloway ; but thus in Tweeddale : —
Sekito says, there's a hogg dead !
Where ? where ?
Up the bum ! up the bum !
Is't fat ? is't fat ?
'T's a' creesh ! 't's a' creesh ! *
THE MUIRHEN.
* A circumstance worth recording occurred in Selkirkshire,
when the black grouse became plentiful. It was formerly
believed that the muirhen, as the female of the red grouse
was called, had in her wild and muirland nature somewhat
of the spirit of the " sons of Jonathan the son of Eechab ; "
and as she kept her young aloof from the haunts of man,
and from all human cultivation, so neither could she ap-
proach his dwelling, nor eat his grain herself. That of old
this has been the case, I make no doubt, because I well re-
collect when such a thing was unknown in that district ;
and this belief was corroborated by a proverb in ancient
rhyme, namely —
The muirhen has sworn by her tough skin,
She sal never eat of the carle's win ;
and doubtless she long and unaccountably kept her oath.
.... Now the muirhen makes as light of the oath of her
ancestors as the descendants of Jonathan the Rechabite now
do ; and any day in October may be seen coveys of them,
mixed with the black grouse, on the stubbles, seated on the
* I am not aware of any rhjiiung reference being made in Scotland to the
owl. The eccentric natm-alist Waterton, in a cm'ious paper on this animal
(Essays on Natural History), says the only kind thing he has ever heard pro-
ceeding from the peasantry respecting it is the following, to the time of
• Cease, rude Boreas : '—
Once I was a monarch's daughter.
And sat on a lady's knee ;
But am now a nightly rover,
Banished to the ivy tree.
Crying hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo,
Hoo, hoo, hoo, my feet are cold.
Pity me ; for here you see me.
Persecuted, poor, and old.
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