I am trying to work up some Scottish stuff for a gig at some Games, and I think the song "Dainty Davie" would work. However, I am stumped by the first line, which says that "all the tirlie-wirlies o'd." It is supposed to by about a man whose death occurred in 1706, so this is not a modern song.

The editor, Ewan MacColl, says that a tirlie-wirlie is a whirligig. (Isn't that helpful?) In my part of the world, a whirligig is any garden ornament that spins, and I find it hard to picture a fortified home from before 1706 having a little windmill or a spinning blue jay in front of it. So what's a tirlie-wirlie, really?

And what were the tirlie-wirlies actually doing when they "o'd"?