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Dear All,
Thanks for putting me right, Stan. So houghmagandie was there in plain
view all the time in "The Holy Fair"!
That was NOT one of the poems spoon-fed to me as a wee boy in Mauchline
by the Presbyterian
successors of the clerics who denounced Mr Burns in public for what he
called: "Just plain forni..."
In my day the church fete was a staid affair, alas.
I had assumed that houghmagandie was a "rude" word because I came upon
it in "The Merry Muses of Caledonia",
the divine Rabbie's personal collection of dirty wee fescennine verses.
That's where you will find the unbowdlerised original version of
"Gin a body mowe a body, comin' through the rye".
Here's tae us, whae's like us -- gey few, and they're a' deid!
Tom