“Aiken Drum”
Description
Aiken Drum lives in the moon, plays with a ladle, dresses in food including breeches of haggis bags. Willy Wood lives in another town, plays on a razor, eats Aiken Drum's clothes but chokes on the haggis bags
Notes
A haggis bag, I guess, would be a sheep's stomach lining. - BS
The dating on this song is a bit uncertain. The Opies apparently cite 1821 on the basis of Hogg's _Jacobite Relics_ -- but that is the other "Aikendrum" ("Ken ye how a Whig can fight, aikendrum, aikendrum). It is generally claimed that the word "Aikendrum" in that song is derived from the character in this, which would of course make this older -- but I know of no proof of that assertion. Hogg does quote a snippet of what appears to be this song, but the whole thing is awfully thin. - RBW
References
- Opie-Oxford2 7, "There was a man lived in the moon, lived in the moon, lived in the moon" (1 text)
- Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #254, pp. 157-158, "(There was a man lived in the moon, lived in the moon, lived in the moon)"
- Montgomerie-ScottishNR 97, "(There came a man to our town)" (1 short text)
- DT, AIKDRUM* AIKDRUM3*
- Roud #2571
- BI, OO2007