The King is back in the frame!

The Scottish National Dictionary says "the word appears to occur first in 1508 as a nickname in the form of 'gabirlenzeis', of obscure origin". Variant spellings given are "gaberlun(y)ie, -loon(z)ie, -loony, -linzie, -lun(j)i". Ramsay (see above) is also quoted as having printed the song in his Tea Table Miscellany. Sir Walter Scott also used the word, in "Antiquary" (1816), "Here or yonder - at the back o' a dyke, in a wreath o' snaw, or in the wame [belly] o' a wave, what signifies how the auld gaberlunzie dies?"

The Dictionary also says that the Gaberlunzie Man was a game. "The players seated in a semi-circle, each went through the motions of playing a different musical instrument, generally with considerable gusto and extravagance. They could choose anything save the fiddle, which was played by the Gaberlunzie Man as he stood at the centre...Suddenly he would change from the fiddle to an instrument of one of the players, who would then immediately take to the fiddle...It must be an old game, for my grandfather told us that his mother (born in 1786) was taught it by her grandfather".