The Scots drinking song 'A Wee Drappie O't' is, erroneously ascribed to Scots poet, Robert Tannahill.
I've recently had to annotate if for something I'm doing - here is what I've found out.
"There is no evidence that this was written by Tannahill, but in our copy of Robert Ford's 'Vagabond Songs and Ballads of Scotland' (vol. 1), (Alexander Gardner 1899), Ford's note to it reads:
......."Not less successful is the present contribution to the social programme, by an unknown hand, which happily is better described as a temperance than as a bacchanalian song. It is sung to the air of another good song, of the same class – 'Sae Will We Yet'."
A handwritten annotation beneath this note by the former owner of our set of Ford, William Walker, reads, "By the same author", thus attributing this song to Walter Watson (1780 – 1854).
William Walker was an authority on the Scots ballads, a correspondent with Francis James Child on the Peter Buchan controversy and almost certainly would have been familiar with the provenance of this song.
Ewan's error in attributing this song to Tannahill, probably picked up from his father, from whom he learned it,seems to have become accepted throughout the revival."
Jim Carroll