Volume II, song 191, page 199 - 'Hooly and Fairly' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)

Verse 1: 'Oh! What had I a do for to marry; My wife she drinks naithing but sack and canary, I to her friends complain'd right early: O gin my wife wou'd drink hooly and fairly hooly and fairly, hooly and fairly O gin my wife wou'd drink hooly and fairly.' 'Hooly and fairly' means slowly and gently in Scots. 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. Burns made a note on this song in his personal commentary on the collection, 'it is remark-worthy the song 'Hooly and fairly', in the old editions of it, is called 'The drunken wife o' Galloway', which localises it to that country'. This illustrates that even collectors at the time were interested in the history of the songs and were aware that this was not always a clear-cut subject. Robert Riddell, a friend of Burns and another 'Museum' commentator recorded an alternative set of stanzas written by the Advocate Robert Sinclair in 1779, which was on the political theme of Lord North. There is another alternative melody to the piece entitled, 'Faith I defy thee'.

Collection

Scots Musical Museum

Inventory Number

4503387

Title

Volume II, song 191, page 199 - 'Hooly and Fairly' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)

Object Type

PhysicalObject

Measurements

- 130 x 211 mm