The Lum Hat wantin' a croon

I am really surprised never to have heard of Dr David Rorie until yesterday.

Just as we were leaving Iain Anderson's house yesterday morning he  mentioned a recitation he had heard of a poem called "The Lum Hat Wantin A Croon" and I thought it was such a wonderful title that I looked it up when I got home.

It is actually a song , the words of which were written by David Rorie in the late 19th century.   He then found a tune for it and it gained considerable popularity, being sung (allegedly)  by Scots at the Siege of Ladysmith and in the trenches during the 1st Word War.

David Rorie seems have been a fascinating individual, on the one hand editing learned Scottish medical journals and on the other collecting and publishing the folklore of the mining communities in Fife which he served with great distinction.    His two volumes of poems in Scots are energetic though they do betray their time , with an inevitably "coothy" ( in fact classic kailyard)  approach to subjects.   There are lots of his poems on the Scotstext site, which is a great resource.

Anyway, here is a recording of Ray Fisher singing the song at an event in Edinburgh in the early 1960's and the words are below.

All it remained for me to do was to find a picture to go with it, and as the burns all around us are still "big wi spate" (and will be even more so when the heavy rain forecast for tonight arrives) I thought something a wee bit stylised might do the job.

The lum hat wantin' a croon

The burn was big wi’ spate,
An’ there cam’ tum’lin doon
Tapsalteerie the half o’ a gate,
Wi’ an auld fish-hake an’ a great muckle skate,
An’ a lum hat wantin’ the croon

The auld wife stood on the bank
As they gaed swirlin’ roun’,
She took a gude look an’ syne says she:
‘There’s food an’ there’s firin’ gaun to the sea,
An’ a lum hat wantin’ the croon.’

Sae she gruppit the branch o’ a saugh,
An’ she kickit aff ane o’ her shoon,
An’ she stuck oot her fit — but it caught in the gate,
An’ awa she went wi’ the great muckle skate,
An’ the lum hat wantin’ the croon.

She floatit fu’ mony a mile,
Past cottage an’ village an’ toon,
She’d an awfu’ time astride o’ the gate,
Though it seemed to gree fine wi’ the great muckle skate,
An’ the lum hat wantin’ the croon.

A fisher was walkin’ the deck,
By the licht o’ his pipe an’ the mune,
When he sees an auld body astride o’ a gate,
Come bobbin’ alang in the waves wi’ a skate,
An’ a lum hat wantin’ the croon.

‘There’s a man overboard!’ cries he,
‘Ye leear!’ says she, ‘I’ll droon!
A man on a boord? It’s a wife on a gate,
It’s auld Mistress Mackintosh here wi’ a skate,
An’ a lum hat wantin’ the croon.’

Was she nippit to death at the Pole?
Has India bakit her broon?
I canna tell that, but whatever her fate,
I’ll wager yell find it was shared by a skate,
An’ a lum hat wantin’ the croon.

There’s a moral attached to my sang,
On greed ye should aye gie a froon,
When ye think o’ the wife that was lost for a gate,
An auld fish-hake an’ a great muckle skate,
An’ a lum hat wantin’ a croon.