Cock Up Your Beaver

Various types of beaver hat

Cock Up Your Beaver is a song and poem by Robert Burns, written in 1792.[1] It is written in Scottish dialect and the beaver refers to a kind of hat.

It was based on an older song, published as "Johnny, cock up thy Beaver". It is widely claimed that this is found in The Dancing Master, a collection of folk tunes published by John Playford of London in 1657.[2][3] However, this is disputed by Scottish music scholar John Glen who states it first appears in the 1686 edition of "The Dancing Master".[4]

It was originally published in 1792 in volume 4 of the Scots Musical Museum[2] and again in 1821 in a compilation by James Hogg, with four verses and musical notation of a tune.[5]

The original version was English, and ridiculed Scotsmen who settled in London after the accession of James VI to the throne of England,[6] possibly satirizing the costumes of highland chiefs entering the lowlands. [7]

The song, hand-written by Burns, is in the Scots Musical Museum.[2][3]

A piece entitled Carolan's Variations on the Scottish Air "Cock Up Your Beaver" is composition no. 204 in the oeuvre of Turlough O'Carolan.[8]

References

  1. ↑ Iain Macdonald. "BBC - Robert Burns Works - Cock Up Your Beaver". Retrieved 2009-08-24.
  2. 1 2 3 Johnson, James (1792). Scots musical museum. Edinburgh: James Johnson. p. 319.
  3. 1 2 James Johnson; Robert Burns; Stephen Clarke; William Stenhouse; David Laing; Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe (1853), The Scots Musical Museum: Consisting of upwards of six hundred songs, with proper basses for the pianoforte (Vol. 4), The Scots Musical Museum (New ed.), W. Blackwood and Sons, p. 301
  4. ↑ Glen, John (1900). Early Scottish melodies: including examples from mss. and early printed works, along with a number of comparative tunes, notes on former annotators, English and other claims, and biographical notices, etc. Edinburgh: J. & R. Glen. p. 160.
  5. ↑ James Hogg (1821), The Jacobite relics of Scotland: being the songs, airs, and legends, of the adherents to the house of Stuart, 2, W. Blackwood, pp. 127, 128
  6. ↑ Robert Burns; Robert Chambers; William Wallace (1896), Robert Chambers; William Wallace, eds., The life and works of Robert Burns, 4, Longmans, Green, p. 342
  7. ↑ Allan Cunningham (1825), The songs of Scotland, ancient and modern; with an intr. and notes
  8. ↑ O'Sullivan, Donal: Carolan: The Life Times and Music of an Irish Harper, 1st of 2 volumes, page 277 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958); new edition in 1 volume: Cork: Ossian Publications, 2001; ISBN 1-900428-76-8 (hardback), 1-900428-71-7 (paperback)

External links

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