Volume IV, song 362, pages 372 and 373 - 'The Shepherd's...
Volume IV, song 362, pages 372 and 373 - 'The Shepherd's Wife' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)
Verses 1 and 2: 'The Shepherd's wife cries o'er the knowe, Will ye come hame will ye come hame; The Shepherd's wife cries o'er the knowe, Will ye come hame again e'en jo. O what will ye gie me to my supper, gin I come hame, gin I come hame, O what will ye gie me to my supper, Gin I come hame again e'en jo.' 'Knowe' means 'knoll' and 'jo' means 'dear one'.
The 'Scots Musical Museum' is the most important of the numerous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections of Scottish song. When the engraver James Johnson started work on the second volume of his collection in 1787, he enlisted Robert Burns as contributor and editor. Burns enthusiastically collected songs from various sources, often expanding or revising them, whilst including much of his own work. The resulting combination of innovation and antiquarianism gives the work a feel of living tradition.
The lyrical pattern to this comic, pastoral song consists of a shepherd answering his wife's questions. Stenhouse (1853) claims that the song might have been originally sung to the famous melody for the song called 'The Country Bumpkin', with Burns adapting the lyrics to this tune. In his book, 'The Songs of Scotland Prior to Burns with the Tunes', Robert Chambers (1862) claims that fragments of this song and melody can be traced back to Herd's 'Collection'. John Glen (1900), disputing the claims of Stenhouse and Chambers, writes that the tune for this song does not appear in any publication prior to the publication of 'The Scots Musical Museum'.
Volume IV, song 362, pages 372 and 373 - 'The Shepherd's Wife' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)