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There was a Wee Wifie

Fieldworkers
Date 27 November 1976
Track ID 39852
Part 1

Track Information

Original Track ID

SA1976.256.B13

Original Tape ID

SA1976.256

Summary

'Tap' was the word for a woman's bun of hair. It occurs in the song beginning, "There was a wee wifockie, she gaed to the fair," in which a woman gets her bun cut off. Mrs Smith thinks the 'tapman' in the song might have been a wig-maker who cut off women's long hair. Mr Smith's version of the song, which he sings, is different from that in the book 'Eighteenth Century Scottish Poetry', which doesn't have the chorus. He always knew it as a song, not a poem. His aunt used to sing it. She had many other Scots songs too.

Item Notes

Transcribed in School of Scottish Studies. 2 verses with chorus. The book referred to may be 'Scottish Poetry of the Eighteenth Century' (ed. George Eyre-Todd, 1896, 1971).

Non Scottish Recording Location

Australia

Non Scottish Recording Location

Astràilia

Language

English, Scots

Collection

SoSS

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good