TOCHER, THE

A cow and a calf,
An ox and a half,
And forty guid shillin's and three,

Is not that enough tocher
For Alastair's dochter,
The lass wi' a bonnie black e'e?
________________________________________________________

Moffat 50 TSNR (1933), 20, with music; M. notes that the
last line is sometimes sung "The lass wi' a lang pedigree"
[probably a theft from Lady Nairne's song "The Laird o'
Cockpen"]. This is a version of the 2nd stanza of a song
("Jumping John") contributed to the Scots Musical Museum (II,
1788, 145, no. 138) by Burns, said by Stenhouse (Illus. 129) to
be "a fragment of the old humorous ballad [about JJ], with
some verbal corrections", which ballad has not been
identified. Kinsley (Burns III.1263) finds this 2nd st. to
have the air of a traditional fragment, and the first ("Her
daddie forbad" etc.) to be by the bard, based on a song in
Herd (II.68-9).
The Museum tune is the English Joan's Placket, an antecedent
of the pipe tune Cock o' the North [see note to "Auntie
Mary"], but Moffat's is entirely different, and may come from
his mysterious MS. collection mentioned in his preface.

@Scottish @kids
filename[ TOCHER
MS
APR99
mudcat.org

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