Like a sow playing on a trump. No image could be well more incongruous than a pig performing on a Jew's harp.
Mair by luck than gude guiding. His success is due to his fortunate circumstances, rather than to his own discretion.
He's not a man to ride the water wi'. A common Scottish saying to express you cannot trust such an one in trying times. May have arisen from the districts where fords abounded, and the crossing them was dangerous.
He rides on the riggin o' the kirk. The rigging being the top of the roof, the proverb used to be applied to those who carried their zeal for church matters to the extreme point.
Leal heart never lee'd, well expresses that an honest loyal disposition will scorn, under all circumstances, to tell a falsehood.
A common Scottish proverb, Let that flee stick to the wa', has an obvious meaning,--"Say nothing more on that subject." But the derivation is not obvious[146]. In like manner, the meaning of He that will to Cupar maun to Cupar, is clearly that if a man is obstinate, and bent upon his own dangerous course, he must take it. But why Cupar? and whether is it the Cupar of Angus or the Cupar of Fife?
Kindness creeps where it canna gang prettily expresses that where love can do little, it will do that little, though it cannot do more.
In my part of the country a ridiculous addition used to be made to the common Scottish saying. Mony a thing's made for the pennie, i.e. Many contrivances are thought of to get money. The addition is, "As the old woman said when she saw a black man," taking it for granted that he was an ingenious and curious piece of mechanism made for profit.
Bluid is thicker than water is a proverb which has a marked Scottish aspect, as meant to vindicate those family predilections to which, as a nation, we are supposed to be rather strongly inclined.
There's aye water where the stirkie[147] drouns. Where certain effects are produced, there must be some causes at work--a proverb used to show that a universal popular suspicion as to an obvious effect must be laid in truth.