Glen Collection of printed music > Printed music > Scots musical museum > Volume 5

419
CCCCLXXV.
BANNOCKS 0' BEAR-MEAL.
This fine old tune was originally called " The Killogie ;""
but the words beginning " A lad and a lassie lay in a Killo-
gie," are inadmissible. In 1688, Lord Newbottle, eldest son
of William Ker, Earl of Lothian, afterwards created Earl of
Ancram and Marquis of Lothian, wrote a satirical song on
the Revolution, which was adapted to the same air. It was
called " Cakes of Crowdy." A copy of this curious produc-
tion may be seen in the first volume of Hogg's Jacobite Re-
liques. Another song to the same tune, beginning " Ban-
nocks of bear-meal and bannocks of barley," is still sung, but
it possesses little merit. Burns wrote the stanzas in the Mu-
seum in the Jacobite style, in which he interwove the latter
title of the song with the new words.
Cromek, in his " Nithsdale and Galloway Songs,"" has the
following remark : — " In the Scots Musical Museum there
is but one verse and a half preserved of this song. One is
surprised and incensed, to see so many fine songs shorn of
their very best verses for fear they should exceed the bounds
of a page. The editor (Cromek) has collected the two last
heart-rousing verses, which he believes will complete the
song." Here they are :
And claw'd their back at Falkirk's fairly,
Wha but the lads wi' the bannocks of barley ?
Wha, when hope was blasted fairly.
Stood in ruin wi' bonnie Prince Charlie,
An' 'neath the Duke's bluidy paws dreed fu' sairly,
Wha but the lads wi' the bannocks o' barley ?
If Cromek, or his Nithsdale friends who furnished him with
the old songs for that work, had only looked into the Mu-
seum, they would have observed, that the chorus is repeated
to the Jirst strain of the air, and the two remaining lines to
the last, — so that Burns' words are quite complete, and re-