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A cornkister is a Doric song, generally a comic song, written during the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries, in the tradition of the bothy ballads.[1] The name refers to the cornkist (corn chest) used to measure oats sufficient to feed a plough horse on the farms of Northeast Scotland at that time. The reason for the association was that it was assumed that the singers—or one of the listeners—sat on top of the cornkist while singing and kicked their heels against it in time to the music. Nowadays most cornkisters are known via recordings made by entertainers of the 1920s and 1930s such as Willie Kemp, G. S. Morris or by later imitators such as Andy Stewart.
While there is some overlap with the bothy ballads, in that they both often have the topic of farm life in the Northeast of Scotland, and that singers of one will generally also sing the other, there is a difference in that the cornkister was more likely to be written for the music hall or for recording purposes, with the Beltona record label in particular recording many pieces.
The most famous cornkisters are:
- McGinty's Meal an Ale by George Bruce Thomson[2]
- MacFarlane o the Sprotts o Burnieboosie by George Bruce Thomson[3]
- A Pair o Nicky Tams by G. S. Morris[4][5]
but many others exist.
References
edit- ^ Cameron, David Kerr (1984). The cornkister days : portrait of a land and its rituals. V. Gollancz. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-575-03492-1.
The bothy ballad was their song, set to the scraich of a wild fiddle or the clumsily-buttoned notes of a melodeon and the rhythmic thump of heavy, tacketed boots.
- ^ "#2518 McGinty's Meal and Ale". vwml.org. Roud Folksong Index (VWML). Retrieved 13 February 2024.
- ^ "#6314 Macfarlane O' the Sprots". www.vwml.org. Roud Folksong Index (VWML). Retrieved 13 February 2024.
- ^ "#1875 A Pair O' Nicky Tams". vwml.org. Roud Folksong Index (VWML). Retrieved 13 February 2024.
- ^ "A Pair O' Nicky Tams (Roud Folksong Index S459162)". The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. Retrieved 13 February 2024.
See also
editExternal links
edit- Bothy Ballads; Centre for the Scots Leid
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