Digital Tradition Mirror

Jock, Speak, and Sandy

Jock, Speak, and Sandy

     Jock, Speak, and Sandy,
       Wi' a' their lousy train
     Round about by Errinborra,
       We'll never meet again.
     Gae head 'im, gae hang 'im,
       Gae lay 'im in the sea;
     A' the birds o' the air
       Will bear him companee.
     With a nig-nag, widdy- [or worry-] bag,
     And an e'endown trail, trail;
                     Quoth he.
     ________________________________________________________

     Jamieson [1825, per Gomme I.228]; also Ford CR 72.  A
     rhyme repeated by a player in the game of "Hornie
     Holes", (Roxburgh) described thus:

     A game in which four play, a principal and an assistant
     on each side.  A. stands with his assistant at one hole,
     and throws what is called a Cat (a piece of stick, and
     frequently a sheep's horn) with the design of making it
     alight in another hole at some distance, at which B. and
     his assistant stand ready to drive it aside.  The bat or
     driver is rod resembling a walking-stick. [The rhyme] is
     repeated by a player on the one side, while they on the
     other are gathering in the Cats, and is attested by old
     people as of great antiquity.

     The game is also called "Kittie-cat"; Gomme compares
     "Cat and Dog, "Cudgel", "Tip-cat".  Worry-bag seems to
     be a nonce word, but widdy-bag might be a bag made of
     withies, soft pliant twigs.
MS
APR99

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!

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