Aiken Drum

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Aiken Drum is a popular Scottish folk song.

There was a man lived in the moon, lived in the moon, lived in the moon, there was a man lived in the moon and his name was Aiken Drum ...

Aiken Drum was a man who played his music upon a ladle, possibly the Man in the Moon, whose clothing was made of various different food products.

The song is Scottish in origin and it may date back to the 1715 Jacobite Rising; James Hogg's Jacobite Reliques (1821) records that a Jacobite song from this time had the chorus 'Aikendrum, Aikendrum', though this seems to have been to a different tune. Another version from about this time has Aiken Drum as a would-be soldier, adorning himself with various items of food [1], seemingly in a satire on the practice of living off the land.

In North America, it is popular in Ontario, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia, and may be spelled Akin Drum. Modern versions of the song have his cheeks made of pizza and hair of noodles, while more traditional versions may have his trousers made of haggis bags and buttons made of penny loaves. Traditional versions have him playing upon a ladle, but many modern versions omit this.


Contents

[edit] Folkloric roots

The folksong Aiken Drum has experienced renewed popularity recently. Like most folk material, it was not made of whole cloth, but rather was based on folkloric antecedents with roots reaching back into remote antiquity. These roots may yet be uncovered to some degree, since the song is still recognized as being of Scottish origin.

It is in Scotland that one finds the brownie, a being who is generally benevolent but sometimes mischievous. As it turns out, arguably the most well-known of individual brownies, described in the poem "The Brounie o Blednoch"[2][3] by William Nicholson,[4] goes by the name of Aiken Drum.

[edit] Difficulties of the folklorist

The difficulty which presents itself is not whether the Aiken Drum of the nursery rhyme is the "same individual" as the Aiken Drum of Nicholsen[2] or Scott[5]. There may be many different individuals with the same name. However, the question at hand is not one of the identity of historical personages, but rather that of recognizably distinct entities which may nevertheless represent variant instantiations of a single folkloric archetype. The folkloristic premise is satisfied if there is a nontrivial intersection of the sets of semantic features defining the two. Adapting the words of the Celtic folklorist John Rhys, "In fact, [they] reduce themselves here into different humours of the same uncanny being."[6]

[edit] Defining characteristics

  • Name: identical (Nomen est omen -- "name is portent").[7]
  • Numinosity / otherworldliness: "I lived in a lan' where we saw nae sky, I dwalt in a spot where a burn rins na by".[2], both with nocturnal / lunar associations.
  • Ladle totem: held by both.[8][5]
  • Bizarre costume: kilt of rushes,[2] edible clothing .[9]
  • Monstrous / inhuman visage: hair, beard, facial features, etc.
  • Food connection: fertility, appetite ("cogfu' o' brose"[2] = pail of porridge, penny loaves, pizza, spaghetti) particularly cereal and dairy.
  • Fondness for children, nursery clown ("...the bairns played harmless roun' his knee....")[2]

[edit] The numinous nature of Aiken Drum

Apart from the striking and peculiar name of Aiken Drum, the most definitive characteristics of this archetype might be his otherworldliness. The numinous nature of Aiken Drum is diluted almost beyond recognition in the late 20th century nursery version. However, this definitive characteristic is preserved, that he is of unearthly origin:

"There was a man lived in the Moon...And his name was Aiken Drum."[10]
"Aiken-drum....this wild and unearthly entity whose face glared like the setting sun through a rain-cloud."[2]

[edit] Source of the numinousness

This type of domestic elf is the vestige of the Proto-Indo-European household deity, corresponding to the ancient Roman Lares Familiares, the Scandinavian tomte, the Slavic domovoi, or the German Heinzelmännchen.

As to the lunar connection, such supernatural entities were often attuned to the cycles of the harvest, as for example the Brounie of Blednoch's participation in sowing, reaping, and baking.

Aiken Drum retains many other ancient characteristics, including a need to be propitiated with food offerings, an ambivalent helpfulness, and an attachment to the larder or kitchen.

Some have seen in this constellation of traits a vestige of ancestor worship.

[edit] The Brounie o Blednoch

The following excerpt from the Nicholson poem "The Brounie o Blednoch"[2] captures the essence of Aiken Drum's otherworldly arrival, before he was tamed and made safe for children's TV:

There cam a strange wight to our town-en
And the fient a body did him ken
He tirled na land, but he glided ben
Wi' a dreary, dreary hum.
A strange entity came into our town,
And he appeared like a fiend,
His feet did not disturb the ground, but he glided in
With a dreary droning noise.

[edit] Monstrous physical appearance

The appearance of the brownie is often hideous: in Britain he may have no nose; in Scandinavia he may have only one cyclopean eye. The Aiken Drum of The Brounie of Blednoch described by Nicholson[2] is no exception:

...there's a hole where a nose should h'ae been, And the mouth's like a gash which a horn had ri'en....His matted head on his breast did rest, A lang blue beard wan'ered down like a vest....Roun' his hairy form there was naething seen But a philabeg o' rashes green....On his wauchie arms three claws did meet As they trailed on the grun' by his taeless feet....
There's a hole where his nose should have been, and the mouth's like a gash torn by a horn....His matted head rested on his chest, A long blue beard wandered down like a vest...Around his hairy form there was nothing seen but a kilt of green rushes....On his foul arms, three claws met as they trailed on the ground by his toeless feet.

In the children's song which is currently popular, Aiken Drum's appearance continues to be bizarre, but is rendered ridiculous, rather than horrible: his "hair is made of spaghetti and his eyes are made of meatballs."

[edit] Origin of the name "Aiken Drum"

One of the arresting features of this folksong is the curious, etymologically opaque name associated with its protagonist.

[edit] "Oaken Back"

The word aiken is Scots and Middle English for "oaken" ("made of oak"); drum is Scots for "hillock, ridge", from Scots Gaelic druim "back", "ridge", cognate with Latin dorsum "back".[11]

Therefore, the meaning might be something like Oaken Back, in reference to his legendary stamina and industriousness, as well as to the supernatural power of the oak.

Other interpretations suggested are "oaken brandy cask" or "oak-covered hillock"—or even "oaken drum".

[edit] "Will Ye Go to Sheriffmuir" ca 1715

James Hogg in 1821 collected a song of the Battle of Sheriffmuir (circa 1715) with an apparent exhortation addressed to "Aikendrum":

Ken ye How a Whig Can fight, Aikendrum, Aikendrum?
Ken ye How a Whig Can fight, Aikendrum?
He can fight the hero bright,
With his heels and armour light,
And his wind of heav'nly might, Aikendrum, Aikendrum,
Is not Rowley in the right, Aikendrum?

Whether this is flattery to the Jacobite forces or an appeal to a protector, human or otherwise, is unclear.

It does demonstrate that the name "Aikendrum" must have been in use between 1715 and 1821.

[edit] Graham's version

As cited by David Kidd, G. F. Graham 'Songs of Scotland' Glasgow, J. Muir Wood, n.d. [1848-9], III.26-7. Graham, born in 1789, notes that the air was sung in his boyhood "to ludicrous but unmeaning stanzas, beginning:"

There was a man cam frae the moon,
Cam frae the moon, cam frae the moon,
There was a man cam frae the moon,
An' they ca'ed him Aikendrum.

That would date this version approximately to the 1790s. Kidd provides the following MIDI files for the song:

[edit] Edrin Drum

Halliwell's variant Edrin Drum (1846) seems to be a somewhat later version, with no apparent reason for the substitution, other than that the given name "Edrin" (from an obscure Scottish saint?) is not uncommon in Scotland, and the earlier form was becoming obsolete or poetic.

[edit] Aiken Drum in Scott's "Antiquary"

In Sir Walter Scott's 1816 narrative The Antiquary,[5] an old beggar explains that the ancient mound that the antiquary ("Monkbarns") thinks to be of Roman origin was actually built by himself for Aiken Drum's wedding:

Ou, I ken this about it, Monkbarns, and what profit have I for telling ye a lie - I just ken this about it, that about twenty years syne, I, and a wheen hallenshakers like mysell, and the mason-lads that built the Lang dyke that gaes down the loaning, and twa or three herds maybe, just set to wark, and built this bit thing here that ye ca' the- the-Praetorian, and a' just for a bield at auld Aiken Drum's bridal, and a bit blithe gae-down we had in't, some sair rainy weather. Mair by token, Monkbarns, if ye howk up the bourock, as ye seem to have begun, ye'll find, if ye hae not fund it already, a stane that ane o' the mason-callants cut a ladle on to have a bourd at the bridegroom, and he put four letters on't, that's A.D.L.L. -Aiken Drum's Lang Ladle for Aiken was ane o' the kale-suppers o' Fife.
Indeed, I know this about it, Monkbarns, and what profit shall I have for telling you a lie? I just know this about it, that about twenty years ago, I and a few beggars like myself, and the mason-lads that built the long dike that goes down the meadow, and two or three shepherds, maybe, just set to work and built this little thing here that you call "the- the- Praetorian", and just for a joke at old Aiken Drum's marriage, and a very merry get-together we had in it, some very rainy weather. Furthermore, Monkbarns, if you dig up the mound, as you seem to have begun, you'll find (if you have not found it already) a stone that one of the mason-lads cut a ladle on, to have a joke on the bridegroom, and he put four letters on it, that's A.D.L.L. -- "Aiken Drum's Long Ladle," -- for Aiken was one of the "great eaters" of Fife.

[edit] Significance of Aiken Drum's ladle

We see from the above passage from Scott that the ladle has long been associated with Aken Drum.

[edit] "Kail supper"

The most obvious interpretation of its significance is that it symbolizes his great appetite and demand for food offerings.[12] Kale-supper ("cabbage-broth eater"), meant "someone of great appetite", and was also a nickname for a native of the county of Fife. [11] The idiom may be influenced by the aphorism[13]:

They that suppe keile with the deuill haue neede of long spoones.
They that eat cabbage-broth with the Devil have need of long spoons.

[edit] Kirk offering ladle

For many years, the Kirk of Scotland employed a device which resembled a large wooden ladle, rather like a box at the end of a pole, to gather offerings down the length of the rows in the congregation. With a little imagination, it could be thought to look like a mandolin or other stringed instrument.

  • For an image of an offering ladle, see [1].

[edit] Communion cup

A communion cup once owned by the Cameronian minister John MacMillan of Balmaghie (1669?—1753) is said to have been used in the parish of Kirkowan in Wigtownshire, Scotland in a form of divination. If the hand of an individual taking the cup trembled, it was taken as evidence of "Ba'al worship", i.e. paganism.[14]

But he slade aye awa' ere the sun was up; He ne'er could look straught on Macmillan's cup;...
But he slipped away before the sun was up; He never could look straight at Macmillan's cup.
  • For an image of a silver communion spoon see [2].

[edit] Food man

The Emperor Rudolf II as a Vegetable Man (Vertemnus) by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (c. 1527-1593).
Enlarge
The Emperor Rudolf II as a Vegetable Man (Vertemnus) by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (c. 1527-1593).

As the numerous versions of Aiken Drum have devolved into a less and less horrific apparition, so have his attributes been softened from the monstrous to the comestible. Earlier primordial ghastliness has given way to edible, comic features and accoutrements—from a kilt of rushes, to clothes made of "guid roast beef", to even starchier "buttons made of bawbee baps" (ha'penny yeast rolls), to spaghetti and pizza, from no nose to a meatball nose. The transition involved here is an archetypical one: from deity to brownie to woodwose to green man.

[edit] Trivia

  • Aiken Drum is also the name of a character in Julian May's Saga of Pliocene Exile, a trickster genius who schemes to take over the crown of the Many-Colored Land and turns out to be a better king than anyone could expect.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.contemplator.com/scotland/aiken.html
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i "The Brounie o Blednoch" Online version accessed 2006-07-07.
  3. ^ The modern spelling is Bladnoch. This brownie is not to be confused with The Brownie of Bodsbeck or The Brownie of the Black Hagg, both by James Hogg
  4. ^ Nicholson, William, 1783-1849
  5. ^ a b c See Bibliography
  6. ^ Rhys, 1901.
  7. ^ Compare the evil elf Rumplestiltskin.
  8. ^ Rumplestiltskin is sometimes associated with a ladle
  9. ^ An offering of human clothes drives the brownie away, since it would constrain him to mere human form.
  10. ^ Opie, Iona. & Opie, Peter., eds. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes.
  11. ^ a b Dictionary of the Scots Language
  12. ^ Brownies will not accept "payment", but demand "offerings", because they are supernatural entities that cannot be controlled, but must be propitiated.
  13. ^ King James I
  14. ^ "MacMillan's Cup", Galloway Folklore; site accessed 2006-07-06.
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