Folk and Traditional Song Lyrics:
Souter Gaed the Soo a Kiss

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Souter Gaed the Soo a Kiss

Souter Gaed the Soo a Kiss

     The souter gaed the soo a kiss,
        Tantiriorum.
     Fie, ye rogue, it's for my birss,
        Taran-antiorum.
     ________________________________________________________

     Paul, Past & Present of Aberdeenshire (1881), 158 (no. 34).
     This is a fugitive verse from the slightly unsavoury
     song "The Souter's Feast", of which a somewhat abridged
     version is in Greig FSIB (1905), 24 (and FSNE xii,1),
     missing however this stanza; the fuller version is in
     Peter Buchan's MS. of "high-kilted" songs Secret Songs
     of Silence (1832), 1 (at Harvard). It begins "There came
     a Soutter out o' Ein", and the relevant stanza runs "The
     Soutter gaed the sow a kiss,/ Tum, tirry, arum;/ Grumph!
     said he, it's for my birse,/ Sing--Adli, umpti, arum,
     &c."  [the he of line 3 should be she].  Greig's burden
     is "Tanteerie orum/ The eedle and the orum" [bis];
     "Thee-a-noddle, thee-a-num,/ The eedle and the orum."
     The tune is related to Maggie Lauder/The Forfar Sodger.
MS
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