"Cock Up Your Beaver" is a song and poem by Robert Burns

Robert Burns

Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...

, written in 1792.

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", a collection of folk tunes published by John Playford of London in 1657. However, this is disputed by Scottish music scholar John Glen who states it first appears in the 1686 edition of "The Dancing Master"

It was published in an 1821 compilation by James Hogg, with four verses and musical notation of a tune.

It is written in Scottish dialect

Scottish English

Scottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not be considered distinct from the Scots language. It is always considered distinct from Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language....

; the beaver

Beaver hat

A beaver hat is a hat made from felted beaver fur. They were fashionable across much of Europe during the period 1550-1850 because the soft yet resilient material could be easily combed to make a variety of hat shapes...

 refers to a kind of hat.

The original version was English, and ridiculed Scotsmen who settled in London after the accession of James VI. to the throne of England, possibly satirizing the costumes of highland chiefs entering the lowlands.
The song, hand-written by Burns, is in the Johnson's Museum.

External links

• Reading by Alan Cumming
  Alan Cumming
  Alan Cumming, OBE is a Scottish stage, television and film actor, singer, writer, director, producer and author. His roles have included the Emcee in Cabaret, Boris Grishenko in GoldenEye, Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler in X2: X-Men United, Mr. Elton in Emma, and Fegan Floop in the Spy Kids trilogy...
  
  
• Wikisource