Volume II, song 192, page 200 - 'Auld Rob Morris' - Scanned...
Volume II, song 192, page 200 - 'Auld Rob Morris' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)
Verse 1: 'There's Auld Rob Morris that wins in yon glen, He's the king of good fallows, and wale of auld men. Has four score of black sheep, and four score too; And auld Rob Morris is the man ye maun loo.'
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 first record of this piece is in the Blaikie Manuscript (1692), under the title of 'Jock the Laird's Brither'. It was then published by Allan Ramsay in his 'Tea-Table Miscellany' (1724-7). It was noted in here that not all the words were original and that the stanzas had been altered. It does not say whether Ramsay did this and for what reason. The original, during the 1720s, was attributed to David Rizzo but there is no evidence to substantiate this link.
Volume II, song 192, page 200 - 'Auld Rob Morris' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)