Annotation:There's my Thumb I’ll ne're beguile you

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X:2 T:There’s my thumb &c. M:C L:1/8 Q:"Moderato" R:Country Dance B:James Aird – Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 3 (Glasgow, 1788, No. 421, p. 162) N:”Humbly dedicated to the Volunteers and Defensive Bands of Great Britain and Ireland” Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:G (GA)(Bc) d2 cB|A>Bcd e2 (e/f/g)|G2 Bc {e}d2 cB|e2 (e/f/g) {e}d2 TcB| c>Bcd (e>fg).B|A>Bcd .e2 (e/f/g)|G3E D3E|G3A B2 B/c/d:| |:g3a g3b|a3b afed|g3a g/a/b ag|gde=f edcB| c(eTdc) B(dTcB)|(A>Bc)d e2 (e/f/g)|G3E D3E|G3A B2 B/c/d:|

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THERE’S MY THUMB, I’LL NE’RE BEGUILE YOU. Scottish, Air (4/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCCDD. "There's my thumb, etc." began as song [Roud 8458] printed in poet Allan Ramsay's (1686-1758) Tea-Table Miscellany, vol. 1 (1724, p. 363[1]), Watts Musical Miscellany (1730), Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius (1733), and used as the vehicle for a song in the ballad opera Highland Fair (1731). Early song versions were one-stain melodies, and in the mid-18th century the single strain was elaborated in instrumental versions with variation sets in William McGibbon's and James Oswald's publications. The song and tune retained its popularity through the end of the century, when an instrumental versions appeared in ms. form in Edinburgh writing master David Young's MacFarlane Manuscript 3 (1740-1742, No. 25, p. 14) and in print by Robert Bremner and James Aird, with song versions appearing in Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, vol. 1 (1787), Sime's Edinburgh Musical Miscellany(1793), and in Creech's opera William and Lucy (1780). A final appearance in print was in New York publisher Edward Riley's Flute Melodies, vol. 2 (1817).

Alexander Whitelaw, in The Book of Scottish Song (1843) explained the meaning of the title:

The practice of two parties wetting respectively their right-hand thumbs with their tongues, and then pressing each thumb against the other, in confirmation of a bargain or engagement, was common to many ancient nations, and can still be traced among the Moors and other tribes. In Scotland, the custom is not yet altogether extinct, but it is chiefly confined to boys. The name of the Scottish air called, "There's my thumb, I'll ne'er beguile thee," has relation to the old rude ceremony of pressing thumbs, but the original words to the tune are supposed to be lost. We have, however, still two songs which now may be considered old, adapted to the tune. The first is by Ramsay, and appears in the Tea-Table Miscellany (vol. I. 1724.) The second appears in the Orpheus Caledonius, (1725,) and looks very like a production of Ramsay's too.]

Stenhouse elaborated:

The ceremony of confirming a bargain, or contracting any solemn engagement, by each party licking his right hand thumb, and afterwards pressing it against that of the other, is of great antiquity. Decrees are yet extant in the Scottish records, prior to the institution of the College of Justice, sustaining sales upon summonses of thumb-licking, the fact of the parities having licked thumbs at finishing the bargain being first established by legal proof. Traces of this custom too are discoverable not only in the ancient history of eastern nations, among whom it probably originated, but likewise in that of the Scythian and Celtic tribes, the Goths, the Armenians, the Romans, the Iberians, and other nations. It has been conjectured by some persons, that Adonibezeck cut off the thumbs and great toes of threescore and ten kings, to punish them for breaking a covenant that had been ratified by this symbol [See Judges, chap. i. verse 7th].

We likewise learn from Tacitus, that the Iberians tied their right hand thumbs together by a strait cord; and when the blood diffused itself to the extremities, it was then let out by slight punctures, and mutually licked by the parties to the contract [Vide Tacit. Ann. Lib. xii.]. The Moors of India at this day frequently conclude bargains with one another, by licking and joining thumbs, in the very way which is still practiced among the boys and some of the lower orders in Scotland. To this custom the last line, or burden of the old Scottish song, alludes, “There’s my thumb, I’ll ne’er beguile thee.”

The first two stanzas of the song printed Ramsey, and by Thomson in Orpheus Caledonius, go:

My sweetest May, let love incline thee
T' accept a heart which he designs thee;
And as your constant slave regard it,
Syne for its faithfulness reward it.
'Tis proof a-shot to birth or money,
But yields to what is sweet and bonnie;
Receive it, then, with a kiss and smily;
There's my thumb, it will ne'er beguile ye.

How tempting sweet these lips of thine are!
Thy bosom white, and legs sae fine are,
That, when in pools I see thee clean 'em,
They carry away my heart between 'em.
I wish, and I wish, while it gaes duntin',
O gin I had thee on a mountain!
Though kith and kin and a' should revile thee,
There's my thumb, I'll ne'er beguile thee.

By the time the tune was adapted for the song in the Scots Musical Museum (1787) it had gained a second strain, and the words of persuasive wooing had been altered to be a bit less suggestive than those of Ramsay:

Betty, early gone a maying,
Mer her lover Willie straying,
Drift, or chance, no matter whither,
This we know, he reasoned with her:
Mark, dear maid, the turtles cooing,
Fondly billing, kindly wooing!
See, how ev’ry bush discovers
Happy pairs of feather’d lovers.

See, the op’ning blush of roses
All their secret charms discloses;
Sweet’s the time, ah! short’s the measure;
O their fleeting hasty pleasure!
Quickly we must snatch the favour
Of their soft and fragrant flavour;
They bloom to day, and fade to-morrow,
Droop their heads, and die in sorrow.

Glen (Early Scottish Melodies, 1900, p. 78) finds the second strain of the air first appears in print in Robert Bremner's Thirty Scots Songs (1757), "and from that work it has been taken bodily for the Scots Musical Museum.

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