J. F. Campbell Collection > Popular rhymes of Scotland

MISCELLANEOUS PUERILE RHYMES. 287
called [John Thamson] : A' friends and brethren are invited
to the burial on Tyesday niest, at twa o'clock.'
Lingle, lingle, lang tang,
Our cat's dead !
What did she dee wi' ?
Wi' a sair head !
A' you that kent her,
When she was alive,
Come to her burial
Atween four and five !
An Annandale version g-ives the other sex, and assigns a
much more dignified and deadly disease than headache —
Oyez ! oyez !
I let ye to wut,
That our cat Gilbert's
Dead o' the gut ! &c.
That is, the g-out. In a district of, Galloway the funeral
invitation itself has been jocularly versified —
Highton and Howton,
Croglenton and Powton,
* * * [other places forgot]
Come a' down to the yirding o' the lang blacksmith,
r the drap o' the day, when the harrows lowses.
The following" verse is familiar to the boys in every pro-
vince of Scotland : —
When I was a little boy, striking at the studdy,
I had a pair o' blue breeks, and oh but they were duddie !
As I strook they shook, like a lammic's tailie ;
But now I'm grown a gentleman, my wife she wears a railie ! *'
It is said that it bears reference to the first Callander of
Craigforth, near Stirling, who was originally a poor black-
smith, but rose in his profession, and ultimately acquired a
large fortune in an extraordinary way. James VI., when
residing in Stirling Castle, having run in his debt, he fol-
lowed him to London to crave payment ; and the charge
being in Scots money, it was paid in sterling by mistake ;
* That is, a night-rail.—' You tie your apron al)out your neck, that you may
say you have been kissed in a night-raiV— Ward's London Spy. Mistress
Sarah Stout, the Quakeress, wore a night-rail when drowned.— See State
Trials.