Waukrife Minnie- (Scot) 1825 Cunningham/Cromek
[From: "The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern" Volume 2, p. 244-245. Two stanzas of "Waukrife Minnie," published in 1825 but older given by Alan Cunningham, supposedly from tradition. The following text with two stanzas is from Cunningham. Cromek gives a slightly different stanza than Cunningham's second- see at bottom on page.
R .Matteson 2018]
Burns says he picked up this song from a country girl in Nithsdale, and never met with either it or the air to which it is sung elsewhere in Scotland. I have heard it often sung in my youth, and sung with curious and numerous variations. One verse contained a lively image of maternal solicitude, and of the lover's impudence and presence of mind. The cock had crowed, and
Up banged the wife to blow the coal,
To see gif she could ken me—
I dang the auld wife in the fire,
And gaur'd my feet defend me.
Another verse, the concluding one, made the lover sing as he went down the glen—
0 though thy hair were hanks o' gowd,
And thy lips o' drapping hinnie;
Thou hast got the clod that winna cling,
For a' thy wakerife minnie.
I believe it to be a very old song—and I feel it to be a very clever one. There is much life and rustic ease in the dialogue; and the lover's exclamation—
O weary fa' the wakerife cock,
May the foumart lay his crawin!
is particularly happy. It has been imputed to Burns, and is every way worthy of him; but it was well known on the Nith long before the great poet came to dwell on its banks. I have often heard the person sing it from whose lips Burns wrote it down.
* * * *
Footnote from "Select Scottish Songs, Ancient and Modern, Volume 2"
By Robert Hartley Cromek, 1810
* The peasantry have a verse superior to some of those recovered by Burns, which is worthy of notice.—Ed,
O though thy hair was gowden weft,
An' thy lips o' dropping hinnie,
Thou hast gotten the clog that winna cling
For a' you're waukrife minnie."