Friday 3 June 2011

Oor Wullie, Your Wullie, A'body's Wullie

© D C Thompson & Co Ltd
Whilst searching for inspiration for this blog (I wanted a Scottish poem, seeing as I'm at home this week) I came across the following, unattributed poem. Written in the style of Burns' various addresses (To A Haggis, To A Mouse etc), it's a tribute to Oor Wullie, whose adventures are a regular feature in the Sunday Post, along with those of The Broons.

Unlike their stablemates in The Dandy and The Beano, Oor Wullie and The Broons have never made the big time outside of Scotland (although Paw Broon has a Twitter account). This is probably on account of the humour and the language being distinctively Scottish.

Anyway, here's the poem and a glossary which explains some of the dialect words:


Oor Wullie

Fair fa' your rosy-cheekit face,
Your muckle buits, wi' broken lace,
Although you're always in disgrace,
An' get your spanks,
In all our hearts ye have your place,
Despite your pranks.


Your towsy heid, your dungarees,
Your wee snub nose, your dirty knees,
Your knack o' seeming tae displease
Your Ma an' Pa.
We dinna care a tuppenny sneeze
We think you're braw.


You're wee, an' nae twa ways aboot it,
You're wise, wi' very few tae doot it,
You're wild, there's nane that wad dispute it,
Around the toon.

But maist o a' ye are reputit
A lauchin' loon


Weel-kent, weel-liked, you're aye the same,
Tae Scots abroad and Scots at hame.
North, south, east, west, your weel-won fame
Shall never sully.
We'll aye salute that couthie name:
Oor Wullie.



Glossary:
muckle=large
towsy=untidy
braw=fine
lauchin' loon=laughing boy
weel-kent=well known
aye=always
couthie=friendly 



Andrew

2 comments:

Unknown said...

And here was me thinking you were writing about Willie Rennie. Oh wait, you were:-)

Stephen Glenn said...

No that was Oor Willie, check the literature ;-)