There Grows a Bonnie Brier Bush
There Grows a Bonnie Brier Bush - meaning Summary
Playful Rural Courtship
This lyric depicts lighthearted rural courtship among young Scots. Set around a "kail-yard" brier bush, speakers tease and plan meetings, shifting between public dances and private trysts. One speaker worries when a rival, Sandy, leaves and imagines going to Edinburgh to seek new attention. The poem sketches social rituals—dancing, local haunts, regional travel—and the playful bargaining of affection. Its Scots dialect and simple stanzas foreground communal life and youthful desire rather than introspection, presenting love as social performance and seasonal, mobile possibility.
Read Complete AnalysesThere grows a bonnie brier bush in our kail-yard, There grows a bonnie brier bush in our kail-yard; And below the bonnie brier bush there's a lassie and a lad, And they're busy busy courting in our kail-yard. We'll court nae mair below the buss in our kail-yard, We'll court nae mair below the buss in our kail-yard, We'll awa to Athole's green, and there we'll no be seen, Where the trees and the branches will be our safeguard. Will ye go to the dancin' in Carlyle's ha'; Will ye go to the dancin' in Carlyle's ha'; Whare Sandy and Nancy I'm sure, will ding them a', I winna gang to the dance in Carlyle ha'. What will I do for a lad, when Sandy gangs awa? What will I do for a lad, when Sandy gangs awa? I will awa to Edinburgh, and win a penny fee, And see an onie bonnie lad will fancy me. He's coming frae the north that's to fancy me, He's coming frae the north that's to fancy me; A feather in his bonnet, and a ribbon at his knee; He's a bonnie bonnie laddie, an yon be he.
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