Hey, Jock ma Cuddy!

DESCRIPTION: "Heg-beg" [old version] -- or "ma cuddy" [recent version] -- is on this side of the dyke and on the other side. If you touch it it will bite you or make you "very uneasy" [Chambers].
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1824 (Mactaggart)
KEYWORDS: animal nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Bord))
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 112, "Hey, Jock ma Cuddy!" (2 texts)
ADDITIONAL: "Rhymes upon Natural Objects" in Robert Chambers, Selected Writings of Robert Chambers (Edinburgh, 1847 ("Digitized by Google")), p. 173, ("Heg-beg adist the dike, and Heg-beg ahint the dike, If ye touch Heg-beg, Heg-beg will gar ye fyke") (1 text)
Ewart Simpkins John [sic], Examples of Printed Folk-lore Concerning Fife - With Some Notes Clackmannan and Kinross-shires (?, 2007 [date of author's preface is 1914, written in Edinburgh, and signed "Jno. E. Simpkins"; this is apparently a reprint] ("Digitized by Google")), p. 306, ("Hey Jock, my cuddy") (1 text)
John Mactaggart, The Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia (London, 1876 [second edition, based on 1824 edition] ("Digitized by Google")), p. 10, ("Heg Beg adist the dyke -- and Heg Beg ayout the dyke -- Gif ye touch Heg Beg -- Heg Beg -- will gar ye byke") (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Hokey Pokey (II)" (tune, per Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame)
NOTES [50 words]: Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame has "cuddy" as "a snappish donkey" but also quotes an Mactaggart's riddle for "nettle" that seems the ancestor of the rhyme. Chambers also claims a "nettle" riddle for his "Heg beg" version. For a nettle riddle assertion for the more recent version see "Ewart Simpkins John." - BS
Last updated in version 2.6
File: OpGa112

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