---
title: "A Fiddler in the North"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Song"
year: "1794"
tune: "The King o’ France he rade a race"
location: "Dumfries"
source: "Project Gutenberg #1279 — Poems and Songs of Robert Burns"
source_url: "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1279/pg1279.txt"
canonical_url: "https://robert-burns.com/poems/a-fiddler-in-the-north/"
---

# A Fiddler in the North

## Song
Amang the trees, where humming bees,  
At buds and flowers were hinging, O,  
Auld Caledon drew out her drone,  
And to her pipe was singing, O:  
’Twas Pibroch, Sang, Strathspeys, and Reels,  
She dirl’d them aff fu’ clearly, O:  
When there cam’ a yell o’ foreign squeels,  
That dang her tapsalteerie, O.

Their capon craws an’ queer “ha, ha’s,”  
They made our lugs grow eerie, O;  
The hungry bike did scrape and fyke,  
Till we were wae and weary, O:  
But a royal ghaist, wha ance was cas’d,  
A prisoner, aughteen year awa’,  
He fir’d a Fiddler in the North,  
That dang them tapsalteerie, O.

---

Source: [Project Gutenberg #1279 — Poems and Songs of Robert Burns](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1279/pg1279.txt)  
Canonical HTML: https://robert-burns.com/poems/a-fiddler-in-the-north/