Sic a Wife as Willie Had (Willie Wastle)

DESCRIPTION: "Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed." I "wadna gie a button" for his wife. "Tinker Maggie was her mither." One eye, few teeth, limping leg, hump on back and breast. Her actions are as crude as her looks. "Sic a wife as Willie had."
AUTHOR: (rewritten by Robert Burns)
EARLIEST DATE: 1792 (Scots Musical Museum)
KEYWORDS: humorous nonballad wife
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Creighton-MaritimeFolkSongs, p. 132, "Sic a Wife As Willie Had" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, WASTLE
Roud #2702
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(4242), "Willie Wastle," W. Dixon (Workington), n.d.
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "King of the Castle" (lyrics)
NOTES [129 words]: Somewhere in the depths of my memory, there is a vague memory of a children's rhyme about Wullie Wastle, King of the Castle. The Opies print a different version as a form of Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes, #287, "I'm the king of the castle." Whether there is a relationship between that and this I do not know.
According to Maurice Lindsay, The Burns Encyclopedia, 1959, 1970; third edition, revised and enlarged, St. Martin's Press, 1980, p. 217, the Burns song, "Willie Wastle Dwelt on Tweed," was based on an earlier "Sic a Wife as Willie Had," and contains a mix of real and unknown places ("Linkumdoddie" being an example of the latter). But Willie Wastle's castle was real, the castle of Home in southeast Roxburghshire, but it was destoyed by Cromwell. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: CrMa132

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