Hi,

The song titled, The Wakeful Mother, echoes the standard "How old are you" lines with different questions and was collected from Martha Crosbie about 1788.

A WAUKRIFE MINNIE.

"I picked up the old song and tune from a country girl in Nithsdale. I never met with it elsewhere in Scotland." (Robert Burns)

I. 'Whare are you gaun, my bonie lass?
Whare are you gaun, my hinnie?'
She answer'd me right saucilie:
— 'An errand for my minnie!'

II. 'O, whare live ye, my bonie lass?
O, whare live ye, my hinnie?'
'By yon burnside, gin ye maun ken,
In a wee house wi' my minnie!'

III. But I foor up the glen at e'en
To see my bonie lassie,
And lang before the grey morn cam
She was na hauf sae saucy.

IV. O, weary fa' the waukrife cock,
And the foumart lay his crawin!
He wauken'd the auld wife frae her sleep
A wee blink or the dawin.

V. An angry wife I wat she raise,
And o'er the bed she brought her,
And wi' a meikle hazel-rung
She made her a weel-pay'd dochter.

Richie