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Wap and rowe, wap and rowe, Wap and rowe the feetie o't, I thought I was a maiden fair, Till I heard the greetie o't! My daddie was a fiddler fine, My minnie she made mantie, O, And I myself a thumpin quine, And danc'd the Reel o' Stumpie, O.
This is a song by Robert Burns. It is read here by Vivien Heilbron.
Iain Macdonald'The Reel o' Stumpie' is a sexual euphemism of the traditional kind, and the The Reel o' Stumpie here is found in the Merry Muses of Caledonia (a publication mostly composed by Burns and hidden from the public due to its lewd sexual content.
It was finally legal to own a copy following the obscenity trials of the 1960s). The verses shown here were followed by 'two unrelated bits of obscenity' (Kingsley) of the folk-bawdry tradition.
This serves as an example that Burns' songs and verse covered a very wide range of subject matter, and The Reel o' Stumpie really leaves little to the imagination.
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