How Dan, Dilly Dow
How dan, dilly dow, Hey dow, dan, Weel were ye’re minnie. An’ ye were a man.
Ye wad hunt an’ hawk, An’ hand her o’ game, An’ water your daddie’s horse When he cam’ hame.
How dan, dilly dow, Hey dan, floors, Ye’se lie i’ your bed Till eleven hours.
If at eleven hours You list to rise, Ye’se hae your dinner dight In a new guise.
Laverocks’ legs, And titlins’ taes, And a’ sic dainties My mannie shall hae.
A cheery and comforting lilt, indeed, with its promise of plenty. Much superior to the next, which bears in its bosom the hollow and unwelcome ring of a “toom girnal”—a sound no child should ever know. It is yet a lilt familiar to the nursery:—