Andrew Poleson & Anne Poleson                                                                 SA1977.105.8-10

A fine dancing tune known to a number of fiddlers around  Shetland  and one for which Andrew, as well as his wife Annie, could sing some of the associated words.  Since Andrew so often enriched the tune with the extra sounds of ringing strings it is not always easy to disentangle the essentials of a tune from his playing, but his diddling of the tune has  made the melody readily apparent.  The words apply only to the second half of the tune leaving one wondering what words might have been sung to the first half.  Bekka Hill is in Mainland Shetland, lying along the west flank of Sandsound voe.  The following are Annie’s words:-

If I had another tuppence I would buy another gill
I would let the fiddlers play Da Boanie Lass o’ Bekkas Hill.

Update  February 9th 2016.
An email from Dr David Hughes in Durham – one of the first to consult this site now that it is public –  has drawn my attention  to the Geordie song Byker Hill and Walker Shore .  It is  apparently a miners’ song with a text containing the following:

If I had another penny
I would have another gill
I would make the piper play
‘The Bonny Lass of Byker Hill’
       Byker Hill and Walker Shore
       Collery lads for ever more
       Byker Hill and Walker Shore
       Collery lads for ever more

When I cam to Walker wark,
I had ne coat nor ne pit sark;
But now aw’ve getten twe or three,
Walker pit’s deun weel for me.
       Byker Hill and Walker Shore
       Collery lads for ever more
       Byker Hill and Walker Shore
       Collery lads for ever more

 These words come from John Bell’s Rhymes of the Northern Bards: being a curious collection of old and new songs peculiar to the counties of Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, and Durham, which he  published in 1812. Could this be the  source for our Shetland dance song, or is it the other way round?
( See Roud no. 3488 for other versions.)