COLLECTANEA,
A Nebraska Folk-song.
The following Nebraska text of a song for New Year's Eve may have interest for the readers of Folk-Lore. It was heard from Mr. James R. Barron of Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1919. He learned it from his mother, who learned it from oral transmission in the parish of Walls, on the west side of the Shetland Islands. He cannot recall that she ever had a book of songs.
Mr. Barron says that it was the custom for boys and girls to go from house to house to sing this song. They were usually asked into the house, and were, as a rule, given something in the way of provisions — coffee, sugar, bread, butter. To carry the provisions they had a sort of straw basket, called as nearly as Mr. Barron can remember, a kishie. One of the singers was appointed, or jokingly compelled, to carry this basket hung from his shoulders by a strap. The one who carried the basket was called the " carrying horse." The custom was practised only in remote parts of Scotland and the Shetlands, and had about died out by 1882, the year in which he learned the song from his mother. The song itself continued to be sung at parties on New Year's Eve.
I have not been able to identify it with anything in the collections of Old World Folk-song which are available in the library of the University of Nebraska.
Louise Pound.
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, U.S.A., December, 191 9.
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