122 Transactions. 



To ane anither night about — 



Wad gane a mile o' grund an' mair, 



Sometimes no' very free o' fear, 



To hear auld stories ilka night 



In winter, fan there was moonlight. 



Upo' their spindles near the tap. 



They biggit ay a bulgy knap 



0' thread, cross-brath'd, firm to defend 



The rest frae reav'ling o'er the end. 



.Sometimes they strove, an them that wan. 



Ay thought they first deserv'd a man. 



To save their plaiden coats, some had 



Upo' the hench a bonnet braid 



Of an' auld wecht, or kairding skin, 



To rub an' gar the spindle rin, 



Down to the ground wi' twirling speed, 



An' twine upo' the floor the thread ; 



An' some their right-side cleas row'd up. 



An' snoov'd upo' the nakit hip. 



Lang aiuna nights they counted half 



Done, fan the coost their whorles afF. 



They row'd their j'arn upon hand reels. 



Afore the use o' spinning-wheels — 



Tell'd ilka cut that they ty'd up, 



By double down comes, jig, an' whup, 



An' scores, an' so forth, as exact 



As reels can count, that's made to chack.'" * 

 Burns in his first epistle to John Lapraik describes a gathering 

 of young people such as that mentioned above as a " Rockin' " — 



" On fasten e'en we had a rockin'. 



To ca' the crack and weave our stockin'." 



The Museum also possesses two hand-reels for winding the 



thread into hanks as mentioned above. The late Dr Grierson 



informed Sir Arthur Mitchell that the old women about Thornhill, 



as they wound the yarn on the reel, were in the habit of repeating 



the following words : — 



" Thu's yin, 

 Thu's no yin. 

 An' thu's yin a' oot. 

 Thu's twa, 

 Thu's no twa. 

 An' thu's twa a' oot." 



And so on, as each strand of the cut was completed on the reel. 



Others, according to Dr Grierson, repeated words which sounded 



something like : — 



" Corny MacCrib, 

 Caffy MacCrib, 

 Gilmic — thu's yin. 

 Corny MacCrib, 

 Caffy MacCrib, 

 Gilmic — thu's twa."+ 



* " The Piper of Peebles : A Tale," by the Lambleader [William Ander- 

 son, Schoolmaster, Kirrieumir]. 12 mo. pp. 20 ; Dundee, 1794, pp. C, 7. 

 Another edition, also in 12 mo., was published in Forfar in 1823. 



t Proceedings Societii of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. xii., pp. 275, 270. 



