Title: Folk & Traditional Song Lyrics - Tocher, the

Folk & Traditional Song Lyrics www.traditionalmusic.co.uk Tocher, the 
Tocher, the
 A cow and a calf, An ox and a half, And forty guid shillin's and three,
 Is not that enough tocher For Alastair's dochter, The lass wi' a bonnie black e'e?
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 Moffat 50 TSNR (1933), 20, with music; M. notes that the last line is sometimes sung "The lass wi' a lang pedigree" [probably a theft from Lady Nairne's song "The Laird o' Cockpen"]. This is a version of the 2nd stanza of a song ("Jumping John") contributed to the Scots Musical Museum (II, 1788, 145, no. 138) by Burns, said by Stenhouse (Illus. 129) to be "a fragment of the old humorous ballad [about JJ], with some verbal corrections", which ballad has not been identified. Kinsley (Burns III.1263) finds this 2nd st. to have the air of a traditional fragment, and the first ("Her daddie forbad" etc.) to be by the bard, based on a song in Herd (II.68-9). The Museum tune is the English Joan's Placket, an antecedent of the pipe tune Cock o' the North [see note to "Auntie Mary"], but Moffat's is entirely different, and may come from his mysterious MS. collection mentioned in his preface. 
MS APR99