My daughter has a nursery rhyme tape which lists the following rhyme as 'trad'. Completely incomprehensible is what I call it, but never mind.

"The herring loves the merry moonlight
And the mackerel loves the wind
But the oyster loves the dredging song
For it comes of a gentle kind."

A brief web search (love that Internet) demonstrates that this comes from Sir Walter Scott's The Antiquary - where a character sings it, it's described as 'an old ballad' and many verses are related. (See below)

But I'm none the wiser, and have no source, or tune (the tune on my daughter's tape is modern), or any more information. It seems unlikely but possible that it forms a major plot thread in the novel - but in any case I don't fancy trawling through any more Scott ever. Can anyone help?

Alison Scott

******************

The song:

The herring loves the merry moonlight
The mackerel loves the wind
But the oyster loves the dredging sang
For they come of a gentle kind.

Now haud your tongue, baith wife and carle,
And listen, great and sma'
And I will sing of Glenallan's Earl
That fought on the red Harlaw

The cronach's cried on Bennachie
And doun the Don and a',
And hieland and lawland may mournfu' be
For the sair field of Harlaw.

They saddled a hundred milk-white steeds
They hae bridled a hundred black
With a chafron of steel on each horse's head
And a good knight on his back.

They hadna ridden a mile, a mile
A mile but barely ten
When Donald came branking down the brae
Wi' twenty thousand men.

Their tartans they were waving wide
Their glaives were glancing clear
Their pibrochs rung frae side to side
Would deafen ye to hear

The great Earl in his stirrups stood
That Highland Host to see
Now here a knight that's stout and good
May prove a jeopardie

What wouldst thou do, my squire so gay,
That rides beside my reyne,
Were ye Glenallan's Earl the day,
And I were Roland Cheyne?

To turn the rein were sin and shame
To fight were wondrous peril
What would ye do now, Roland Cheyne
Were ye Glenallan's Earl?

Were I Glenallan's Earl this tide
And ye were Roland Cheyne
The spur should be in my horse's side
And the bridle upon his mane.

If they hae twenty thousand blades
And we twice ten times ten
Yet they hae but their tartan plaids
And we are mail-clad men.

My horse shall ride through ranks sae rude
As through the moorland fern
Then neer let the gentle Norman blude
Grow cauld for Highland kerne.