Re: Burns, coming through the rye


Subject: Re: Burns, coming through the rye
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Fri Jul 20 2001 - 11:28:05 GMT


    'Gin' (pronounced with a 'hard' g) is Scots for 'if'
    - or even, in certain contexts, with a definite quality
    of longing: 'would that'.

    It opens at least two other marvellous Scots songs.

    'Gin I were a Baron's Heir.'

    and - one of the bravest, lightest, most dashing,
    of all the songs of home-sickness:

    'Oh, gin I were whar Gadie rins, where Gadie rins.
    At the foot o' Bennachie.'

    (Bennachie being a handsome hill in Aberdeenshire
    & Gadie the small brook - 'burn' - that dances sparkling
    in the morning sun along its southern limits.)

    In the words of M. Caine: Not many people know that.

    Scottie B.

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