Volume IV, song 328, page 338 - 'O'er the moor amang the...
Volume IV, song 328, page 338 - 'O'er the moor amang the heather' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)
Verse 1: 'Comin' thro' the craigs o' Kyle, Amang the bony blooming heather, There I met a bonie lassie Keeping a' her yowes thegether'. Chorus: 'O'er the moor amang the heather, O'er the moor amang the heather, There I met a bonie lassie keeping a' her yowes thegither.'
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 left this very personal comment on this composition in his friend, Robert Riddell's copy of the 'Museum'. 'This song is the composition of a Jean Glover, a girl who was not only a whore, but also a thief; and in one or other character has visited most of the Correction Houses in the West. She was born, I believe, in Kilmarnock. I took down the song from her singing as she was strolling through the country, with a slight-of-hand blackguard.' The tune to this song is thought to be older than the words as it was in publication in 1760 when Jean was only two!
Volume IV, song 328, page 338 - 'O'er the moor amang the heather' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)