The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #92595   Message #3000998
Posted By: Abby Sale
06-Oct-10 - 10:39 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req/ADD: McGinty's Meal and Ale (Thompson/Kemp
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: McGinty's Meal and Ale (Thompson, Kemp)
I see I've never explained this. Sorry. On croaking this out the other day, I was asked for the reference so I'd better get my pigs in a row. Since few are likely to read this, I can pretty safely thank that group now for not stoning me for it, though I believe the group leader was considering tar and feathers about the 18th incoherent verse.

It was writen by George Bruce Thompson and submited to Grieg's column in the Buchan Obsever about 1910. It was printed in Folk Songs of the North-East by Gavin Greig as "M'Ginty's Meal and Ale." I took the title and words from that 1963 Goldstein book of facsimiles of the newspaper series. In The Greig~Duncan Folk Song Collection, Vol. 3, p. 508 (song #630) and also in Norman Buchan, 101 Scottish Songs, 1962, it's given as "McGinty's Meal-an-Ale". The inestimable Emily Lyle, editor of the Greig~Duncan volume, wrote me that the copy in Thomson's own hand reads "McGinty." It is unknown whether Greig or Greig's publisher used the common abbreviation "M'Ginty."

I also failed to include my glossary - deeply sorry about that. I do see that several words in the song are a tad obscure.
===

0 Meal-an-Ale = party
1 mixter = mixture
2 beef-brose = beef soup
3 sowens = fermented oat-flour porridge
4 sautie = salty
5 bannocks = griddle oatcakes
6 pess = Easter
7 tinkies = tinkers (travelers/"gypsies")
8 howe = hollow
9 jinkies = high-jinks
10 butt = around
11 hoose = house
12 heelster-gowdy =topsy-turvey, head-over-heels
13 skyrl = screech (of the bagpipe)
14 teuchit = peewit or lapwing
15 ashet = serving/carving dish
16 dreepin' = cooking fat
17 peel't = scraped
18 croon = pate
19 haud = hold off
20 greetin' = weeping
21 skyelf = shelf
22 ricklin' = rattling
23 kirnin' = churning (thrashing)
24 piz-meal = pea meal
25 yirnin' = rennet
26 gollach = a beetle
27 tricle = treacle
28 girnin' = whining
29 soss = soggy mess
30 Syne = in a while
31 fan = when
32 tuggit = tugged
33 ruggit = were rough
34 tatties = spuds
35 backet = basin/bucket
36 spurtles = porridge stirrers
37 gar = make
38 claw = scratch
39 yokin' = working [I think]
40 fou = full (drunk)
41 dokin = dock leaf (a thing of no value)
42 eely pigs = oil jars
43 jeely pigs = jam jars
44 hidet = hid
45 roset = resin
46 harl't = threw at
47 troch = trough (ie, as if he'd been stuccoed)
48 barley bree = whiskey
49 widder = widow
50 keegerin' = messing about
51 dubs = mud puddles
52 gyang = go
53 na weel = not well
54 thegidder = together
55 doot = doubt
56 anidder = another