Subject: ADD Version: Wee, Wee German Lairdie
From: Joe Offer
Here's a version from The songs of Scotland, ancient and modern, edited by Alan Cunningham (1825)
THE WEE WEE GERMAN LAIRDIE.
Wha the deil hae we got for a king
But a wee wee German lairdie?
And when we gade to bring him hame
He was delving his kail-yardie:
Sheughing kail, and laying leeks,
Without the hose, and but the breeks;
And up his beggar duds he cleeks—
The wee wee German lairdie.
And he's clapt down in our gudeman's chair,
The wee wee German lairdie;
And he's brought fouth o' foreign trash,
And dibbled them in his yardie.
He's pu'd the rose o' English loons,
And broken the harp o' Irish clowns,
But our thistle top will jag his thumbs—
The wee wee German lairdie.
Come up among our Highland hills,
Thou wee wee German lairdie,
And see the Stuarts' lang-kail thrive
We dibbled in our y'ardie:
And if a stock ye dare to pu',
Or baud the yoking o' a pleugh,
We'll break your sceptre o'er your mou',
Thou wee bit German lairdie.
Our hills are steep, our glens are deep,
Nae fitting for a yardie;
And our Norland thistles winna pu',
Thou wee bit German lairdie:
And we've the trenching blades o' weir-
Wad prune ye o' your German gear—
We'll pass ye 'neath the claymore's sheer,
Thou feckless German lairdie.
Auld Scotland, thou'rt o'er cauld a hole
For nursing foreign vermin;
But the very dogs o' England's court,
They bark and howl in German.
Short while they'll fawn and lick thy hand—
We come wi' target and wi' brand
To sweep them frae the southron land—
Thou wee wee German lairdie.
The idea of this song is old, so are the three starting lines; all the rest is modern. The poverty of the Elector of Hanover, and the laborious industry with which he strove to maintain the external show of worldly splendour, formed a theme for the Jacobite bards both of England and of Scotland. I have before me a copy of a scoffing ballad, which was chanted through London on the arrival of George the First. Had the monarch understood our language, the song must have given him a very mean idea of Jacobite satire. Its burthen is German poverty and English abundance, and the wonder which our wardrobes and dinner tables excited in the royal minds of the strangers.