Help: the tirlie-wirlies did what?

Subject: the tirlie-wirlies did what?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 11:33 AM

I am trying to work up some Scottish stuff for a gig at some Games, and I think the song "Dainty Davie" would work. However, I am stumped by the first line, which says that "all the tirlie-wirlies o'd." It is supposed to by about a man whose death occurred in 1706, so this is not a modern song.

The editor, Ewan MacColl, says that a tirlie-wirlie is a whirligig. (Isn't that helpful?) In my part of the world, a whirligig is any garden ornament that spins, and I find it hard to picture a fortified home from before 1706 having a little windmill or a spinning blue jay in front of it. So what's a tirlie-wirlie, really?

And what were the tirlie-wirlies actually doing when they "o'd"?

Subject: RE: Help: the tirlie-wirlies did what?
From: GUEST,Dita (at work)
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 02:09 PM

Ah yes, Ewan at his most helpfull. Why give a simple explanation when you can provide something even more obscure and pass it off as clarfication?

Tirlie-whirlie is an ornament or nick-nack.

Whirligig is a complicated ornament, design or diagram.
(Perhaps it could be used for a (unhelpful)complicated footnote, as in "That was a whiligig o' a footnote Ewan wrote for that song."
love john.

Subject: RE: Help: the tirlie-wirlies did what?
From: GUEST,Dita (at work)
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 02:20 PM

leeneia,
Having just looked the song up on the database, I would suggest a translation along the lines of -

In and through the window shutters,
And all the ornaments overturned.

Hope this helps you make sense of it now.
love,john.

Subject: RE: Help: the tirlie-wirlies did what?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 03:09 PM

OED gives several possibilites for Whirligig, whirling, whirly, etc.

"The Whirligig" is a tune in the Dancing Master from 1651. Perhaps you may find something reasonable in the ditty for the following tune. Murray on Saltspring has it (if that earthquake didn't shake it to pieces).

X:1
T:The Whirlie Wha
S:Airds 'Airs', III, (1788) M:6/8
K:D
A|\
A2d d>cd| e F>GF E A2d d>cd| e F>GF E A|\
d2a a"tr"fd| Bgf g>ec| d>ed d f>ed d>ef| eGF E<(dc)| d3 d2:|]

Subject: RE: Help: the tirlie-wirlies did what?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 04:23 PM

I get it. The tirlie-wirlies were inside the room, on or near the windowsill, and he upset them when he came in. Perhaps there was a table covered with bric-a-brac and he crashed into it in the dark, the way people are always doing in P.G. Wodehouse novels.

I didn't want to bring it up earlier, but another kind of "whirligig" is a certain maple seed which has twin fins which set it swirling in the air. Do those grow in Scotland?

Subject: RE: Help: the tirlie-wirlies did what?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 05:44 PM

Sorry I forgot again, GUEST above was me.

Subject: RE: Help: the tirlie-wirlies did what?
From: okthen
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 07:00 PM

The sycamore tree has that type of seed, I don't know if it grows in Scotland, but it does south of the border.

cheers

bill

Subject: RE: Help: the tirlie-wirlies did what?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 07:21 PM

okthen, one of the many things I learned from Mudcatters is that the American maple and our sycamore are the same species of tree (Acer) - just a shame (as I learned in another thread) that we don't have the sugar maple and the right weather...

Jon

Subject: RE: Help: the tirlie-wirlies did what?
From: GUEST,Dita (at work)
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 08:15 PM

Leeneia,
Yes, that's the interpretation of the song as I read it.
We have the Sycamore/American maple. When I was young we called the seed helicopters. We used to collect them and throw them in the air to watch them twirl down. Hell, we din't have computers in those days, and had to make our own entertainment.
I also have a whirlie-gig, like a giant spider's web in my back garden, to hang my washing on that one day in summer when it's not raining.
love, john.