Rwan, you'll have seen the version in Barke's essay on "pornography & Bawdry in Literature and Society" [a very pompous title, that!] in the Smith-Barke-Ferguson edition of The Merry Muses of Caledonia (1959 etc.), which is the same as Bob's above. The "Barnum & Bailey" version is in Nicht at Eenie (1932), 33, with music, whence Montgomerie, Scottish Nursery Rhymes (1946), 95.[This has no mention of unmentionables.] Nicht at Eenie has another, ibid., which may be the original of that one, namely "Sister Mary had a canary Whustled "The Cock o' the North." It whustled for hoors & frightened the Booers, And won the Victoria Cross. A long time since I heard just a fragment of what may be another version,:- "Auntie Mary had a canary Up the leg o' her breeks" [Leslie, Fife, circa 1940 maybe]. But I don't see what the ensuing rhyme would be.
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