Jeannie Hutchison SA1980.03.14
What with Thelma’s baby and others present, it’s difficult at first to hear Jeannie’s words to this old dandling song. The tune is the well-known Reel of Stumpie which many Whalsay fiddlers could play.
Hap and row, hap an row, hap an row the feeties o’it; [cover and wrap up]
I never kent I hed a bairn until I heard the greetins o’it.
Hap an row etc..
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Here are a couple of verses from Robert Burns’ The Merry Muses of Caledonia:
Hap an row, hap an row, hap an rowe the feetie o’t
I thocht I was a maiden fair, till I heard the greetins o’t;
My faither was a fiddler fine, my minnie she made mantie-o [loose gowns}
An I mysel, a thumpin quean wha danced the reel o Stumpie-o
And another version:-
The wife put on the wee pan, To boil the bairn’s meatie-o;
Out fell a cinder And burnt a’ its feetie-o.
Roud Index no. 7252.