Traditional Folk Songs Of Many Nations

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	88	Comin' thro' the Rye. A Favorite Scotch Ballad.



	The Scottish origin of this song has been doubted. It certainly was a favorite song in an English opera of the end of the 18^th century; but Burns had written words to it before that time. The.f irst four lines of this song are from Burns'poem, all the rest has been added since they appeared in ''Johnson's Museum!' The poem as a whole referred, originally, to fording the River at Dairy, in Ayrshire, and its linos speak of the heroine thus: "0 Jennie's a' weot, poor body, Jennie's seldom dry; Sho draigft a' her petticoatio, Comin' thro' the rye!' The name of the melody before it received these words was "^vo been courting at a Lass',' and this was its earliest title in England.