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A boy sings a song to warn Travellers that they are in the h...

Date August 1954
Track ID 3817
Part 1

Track Information

Original Track ID

SA1954.101

Original Tape ID

SA1954.101

Summary

A boy sings a song to warn Travellers that they are in the hands of burkers.

Geordie Stewart tells a true story that happened to his mother's great-great-grandmother, on the West Coast. She was a pedlar and her husband was a real tinker, who mended tin. One night they approached a large isolated farmhouse for lodgings. A girl shut the door on them, but they tried again, and a man let them lodge in the barn. He snecked [latched] the door from outside. They saw a lad's face at the skylight, and he warned them away with this song:

Ochanee, lads, I darena tell,
But if I was you, lads, I'd rise and run.
Do you see that bottle o chloroform?
It will be your death, oh, before the morn.

They realised that they were amongst burkers. They abandoned their goods and escaped through the skylight. In the morning they went to a keeper's house, and he took them in. It turned out to be his loon [son], who worked at the farm, who had warned them. The police were called, and the burkers denied everything, but the boy was missing. Later the keeper found his boy dead at the foot of a dry wall, and the murderers were caught.

Item Notes

A very similar story is told and song sung on tape SA1954.097.A9 by Betsy Whyte of Fraserburgh and her daughter Elizabeth.

Recording Location

County - Aberdeenshire

Parish - Aberdeen

Village/Place - Aberdeen

Language

English, Scots

Collection

SoSS

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good