A song in cant warns a Traveller not to drink drugged tea gi...
Track Information
Original Track ID
SA1979.30.A2
Original Tape ID
Summary
A song in cant warns a Traveller not to drink drugged tea given by people in league with burkers.
Stanley Robertson introduces a story that he was told by his grandfather, who learned it when he was young from the man, by then old, to whom it happened.
A young Traveller stopped at a bawdy house near Banchory to ask for a night's lodgings in the barn. The people there were in league with the burkers, who supplied them with drugs to knock out their victims. The woman of the house fed the man well and gave him tea, but a Traveller lad, who was a servant in the house, sang a warning song, telling him in Romany [sic] to eat the food but not to drink the tea:
Pipe how the [hashie govels?],
Pipe how the [hashie] hahs,
Shan cowl, shan [pottie?],
Bing avree an feck awa.
Hah aa the hantle's habben,
Hah aa the hantle's hah,
Feck the neddies tae yer [naggin?]
But dinnae sloch the hantle's slab.
The woman just thought he was singing in Gaelic for his own amusement. The Traveller poured away the tea and pretended to be tired. He was locked in the barn and the burkers were sent for. He broke out of the barn and escaped just in time.
Item Notes
'Burkers' were named after the notorious Wiliam Burke, of Burke and Hare, hanged in 1829.
A very similar story, with a Scots song, is told by Betsy Whyte on SA1954.97.A9.
Vocabulary:
'pipe' (spy, watch) is slang
'hash' (food) is slang
'shan' (bad) is cant, possibly from Gaelic
'cowl' or 'cowal' (man) is a cant or slang word, generally derogatory
'bing' (come, go) is cant
'avree' (away) is recently recorded as cant, especially in North-East Scotland
'feck' (get, obtain) is slang
'hah' (eat) is cant
'hantle' is a Scots word used in cant to refer to ordinary people, non-Travellers
'habben' (food) is from Romany
'neddies' (potatoes) is cant
'sloch' (swallow) is Scots
'slab' or 'slob' (tea) is cant.
See:
'Romano Lavo-Lil. Word-Book of the Romany, or, English Gypsy Language' (George Borrow, 1874)
'A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English' (Eric Partridge, 8th edn revised Paul Beale, 1984)
'The Scottish National Dictionary' (available online [[http://www.dsl.ac.uk]], accessed May 2020)
'Folk Songs of Britain and Ireland' (Peter Kennedy, 1975)
Recording Location
County - Aberdeenshire
Parish - Aberdeen
Village/Place - Aberdeen
Language
English, Traveller Cant (Scots/Romani)
Genre
Collection
Source Type
Reel to reel
Audio Quality
Good