''Cock Up Your Beaver'' is a song and poem by

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...

, written in 1792. It is written in

Scottish dialect Scottish English ( gd, Beurla Albannach) is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard ...

and the

beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers ar ...

refers to a gentleman's hat in an era when all high quality men's hats were made of

felt Felt is a textile material that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers together. Felt can be made of natural fibers such as wool or animal fur, or from synthetic fibers such as petroleum-based acrylic or acrylonitrile or wood ...

fur. It was based on an older song, published as "Johnny, cock up thy Beaver". It is widely claimed that this is found in

The Dancing Master ''The Dancing Master'' (first edition: ''The English Dancing Master'') is a dancing manual containing the music and instructions for English country dances. It was first published in 1651 by John Playford. History It was published in several e ...

, a collection of folk tunes published by

John Playford John Playford (1623–1686/7) was a London bookseller, publisher, minor composer, and member of the Stationers' Company, who published books on music theory, instruction books for several instruments, and psalters with tunes for singing in churche ...

of London in 1657. However, this is disputed by Scottish music scholar John Glen who correctly states it first appears in the 1686 edition of "The Dancing Master". It was originally published in 1792 in volume 4 of the

Scots Musical Museum The ''Scots Musical Museum'' was an influential collection of traditional folk music of Scotland published from 1787 to 1803. While it was not the first collection of Scottish folk songs and music, the six volumes with 100 songs in each collected ...

and again in 1821 in a compilation by

James Hogg James Hogg (1770 – 21 November 1835) was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading. He was a friend of many ...

, with four verses and musical notation of a tune. The original version was English, and ridiculed Scotsmen who settled in London after the accession of

James VI James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...

to the throne of England, possibly satirizing the costumes of highland chiefs entering the lowlands. The song, hand-written by Burns, is in the ''

''. A piece entitled ''Carolan's Variations on the Scottish Air "Cock Up Your Beaver"'' is composition no. 204 in the oeuvre of

Turlough O'Carolan Turlough O'Carolan ( ga, Toirdhealbhach Ó Cearbhalláin ; 167025 March 1738) was a blind Celtic harper, composer and singer in Ireland whose great fame is due to his gift for melodic composition. Although not a composer in the classical sense, ...

.O'Sullivan, Donal: Carolan: The Life Times and Music of an Irish Harper, 1st of 2 volumes, page 277 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958); new edition in 1 volume: Cork: Ossian Publications, 2001; (hardback), 1-900428-71-7 (paperback)

References

{{reflist

External links

*Digitised copy of score fo
Cock up your beaver
in volume 4 of James Johnson's

, printed between 1792, from

National Library of Scotland The National Library of Scotland (NLS) ( gd, Leabharlann Nàiseanta na h-Alba, sco, Naitional Leebrar o Scotland) is the legal deposit library of Scotland and is one of the country's National Collections. As one of the largest libraries in the ...

. JPEG, PDF, XML versions.
Reading
by

Alan Cumming Alan Cumming (born 27 January 1965) is a British actor. His London stage appearances include ''Hamlet'', the Maniac in ''Accidental Death of an Anarchist'' (for which he received an Olivier Award), the lead in '' Bent'', The National Theatre o ...

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Scottish poetry Scottish songs