The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. / With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham

by Robert Burns; Allan Cunningham

TUNE YOUR FIDDLES, ETC.

This song was composed by the Rev. John Skinner, nonjuror clergyman at Linshart, near Peterhead. He is likewise author of “Tullochgorum,” “Ewie wi’ the crooked Horn,” “John o’ Badenyond,” &c., and what is of still more consequence, he is one of the worthiest of mankind. He is the author of an ecclesiastical history of Scotland. The air is by Mr. Marshall, butler to the Duke of Gordon; the first composer of strathspeys of the age. I have been told by somebody, who had it of Marshall himself, that he took the idea of his three most celebrated pieces, “The Marquis of Huntley’s Reel,” his “Farewell,” and “Miss Admiral Gordon’s Reel,” from the old air, “The German Lairdie.”

---