Thistledown: A Book of Scotch Humour, Character, Folk-lore, Story & Anecdote

THISTLEDOWN
Frontispiece.

THISTLEDOWN
A BOOK OF SCOTCH HUMOUR CHARACTER, FOLK-LORE STORY & ANECDOTE
BY ROBERT FORD EDITOR OF “BALLADS OF BAIRNHOOD,” “AULD SCOTS BALLANTS” “VAGABOND SONGS,” ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN DUNCAN
PAISLEY: ALEXANDER GARDNER Publisher by Appointment to the late Queen Victoria


An eminently learned and genial ex-Professor of one of our Universities not long since pointed out how Scotland was remarkable for three things—Songs, Sermons, and Shillings. And whilst it may not be disputed that she has enormous and ever-increasing store of these three good things—and that, moreover, she loves them all—there is a fourth quality of her many-sided nature which is more distinctly characteristic of Auld Caledonia and her people, and that is the general possession of the faculty of original humour. Not one in ten thousand of the Scottish people may be able to produce a good song, or a good sermon; not one in twenty thousand of them may be able to “gather meikle gear and haud it weel thegither;” but every second Scotsman is a born humourist. Humour is part and parcel of his very being. He may not live without it—may not breathe. Consequently, it is found breaking out amongst us in the most unlikely as well as in the most likely places. It blossoms in the solemn assemblies of the people; at meetings of Kirk-Sessions; in the City and Town Council Chambers; in our Presbyteries; our Courts of Justice; and in the high Parliament of the Kirk itself. Famous specimens of it come down from the lonesome hillsides; from the cottage, bothy, and farm ingle-nooks. It issues from the village inn, the smiddy, the kirkyard; and functions of fasting and sorrow give it birth as well as occasions of feasting and mirth. It drops from the lips of the learned and the unlearned in the land; and is not more frequently revealed in the eloquence of the University savant than in the gibberish of the hobbling village and city natural.