I don't think I've ever posted a song from a very nice songbook I picked up in Howth, at the north end of Dublin's D.A.R.T. rail line. the book is Where Songs Do Thunder: travels in Traditional Song, by Paddy Tunney (Appletree Press, Belfast, 1991), pages 182-183. The song is NOT in heavy Scots dialect, which means I might be able to sing it without making myself look foolish.

THE CORNCRAKE AMONG THE WHINNY KNOWES

The lass that I love best of all is handsome, young and fair
With her I spent some happy hours along the banks of Ayr
With her I spent some merry hours where scented clover grows
And the echo mocks the corncrake among the whinny knowes.

We loved each other dearly; disputes we seldom had
As constant as the pendulum, our hearts beat ever glad
We sought for joy and found it where yon wee burnie rows
And the echo mocks the corncrake among the whinny knowes.

You maidens fair and pleasure's dames drive to the banks of Doon
You'll dearly pay your every cent to barbers for perfume.
But rural joy is free to all where scented clover grows
And the echo mocks the corncrake among the whinny knowes.

Oh, the corncrake is now away, the burn is to the brim
The whinny knowes are clad wi' snaw that tips the highest whin
But when cauld winter is away and summer clears the sky
We'll welcome back the corncrake, the bird o' rural joy.

Tunney's notes: It is interesting that Ford, when he published his new and approved edition of The Vagabond Songs and Ballads of Scotland, and included The Corncraik therein, should apologise in a footnote for mentioning a comcrake - beautifully feathered and most melodious of birds - in a love song....

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I think I'd agree with Ford about the bird's unmelodious and unromantic call - (click for a great video)