Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
Oor Young Lady / The Rowin't in her Apron / Underneath Her Apron / Pretty Little Mary Sweeping Up Her Room / A Wee Burr Stuck Tae Ma Apron / The Stomacher / The Tamosher (Roud No. 899) - Sung by Betsy Whyte (Bessie Townsley), a Traveller of Montrose, Angus, Scotland. Filmed and recorded by David Kotyk as part of the John D. Niles folklore research team for the "Scottish Voices" project at an informal ceilidh held in a rented house in Auchtermuchty in August 1986. Betsy's husband Bryce Whyte and their friends Duncan and Linda Williamson were also present during the recording. Betsy had come to Auchtermuchty that summer to compete in the Festival competition in Women's Storytelling.
00:00:00 Intro
00:00:28 Sings The Tamosher
The original movie can be watched here:
https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AFJRVDNRY6VQAR9B
A short biography of Betsy Whyte can be read here:
tobarandualchais.co.uk/person/3523?l=en
Betsy Whyte's autobiography, "The Yellow on the Broom" (1979), is well worth reading for the thoughtful insight into Traveller life and customs and a way of living that has now mostly disappeared.
I used my knowledge on video editing to share the films on Youtube in the highest possible quality, I used manual video upscaling (no AI was used!) for this, to further document variants of traditional ballads and songs which has been my hobby for many years. I claim no ownership of the video, all the rights belong with the University of Wisconsin which houses the John D. Niles Collection.
Note by Kevin W.:
I was delighted to discover these videos of Scotland's great tradition bearers in the John D. Niles Collection. The often poorly treated Scottish Travellers honor the memories of their ancestors through songs, music and storytelling. They are proud of their culture and kept old traditions alive for hundreds of years. Many of our most gifted traditional singers and storytellers are Travellers.
Scottish Travellers are an indigenous ethnic minority in Scotland who live or traditionally lived a nomadic lifestyle and for centuries were unfairly shunned by the settled population. For that reason the singing culture of the Travelling people had not been well documented before the 20th century when non-Travellers with an interest in folklore visited and befriended Travellers and started recording their songs, music and stories.
The Tamosher is an Aberdeenshire Scottish variant of the song English singers know as "Underneath Her Apron" (Roud 899) or "Gathering Rushes in the Month of May".
Betsy herself explained the meaning of "tamosher" as "the thing that makes a wean". But there might be more to it. A likely origin for the word "tamosher" is given in Tocher 26 (1977 p. 128):
"Dr. David Buchan suggests that the origin of Bessie Whyte's "The Tamosher" (Tocher 23 p. 263) may lie in song No. XXI of G.R. Kinloch's The Ballad Book (1827), where the verse corresponding to Bessie's third verse reads:
lt's no a vagabond, nor yet a loon
He's the rarest stay-maker in a' the toun
And he's made a stomacher to bear up my goun
And I row'd it aneath my apron.
Could "tamosher" have started as a corruption of "stomacher" (here certainly a metaphor for the unborn baby) and gradually developed a new meaning as a cant word outside the song?"
Song transcription:
Oh there were two bonnie wee lassies, and they were dressed in blue
And they went oot one summer morning some rushes for tae pu,
And one o them got a wee thing before she did return,
And she bundled it and rolled it in her apron.
Now the very first man she met was her father on the stair:
"Oh daughter, dear daughter, what have you got there?
Who gave to you the tamosher, to wear the starched gown,
And you bundled it and rolled it in your apron?
It is my muslin gown and it was so large for me,
And I was afeared that troubled I would be,
I was afraid that troubled I would be,
So I bundled it and rolled it in my apron."
"Oh was it now the baker, or was it now the clown,
Or was it now the bonnie boy that sails the world around
Who gave to you the tamosher, to wear the starched gown,
And you bundled it and rolled it in your apron?"
"It wasn't now the baker nor yet was it the clown,
But it was the bonnie boy that sailed the world around
Who gave to me the tamosher to wear the starched gown
And I bundled it and rolled it in my apron."
"Oh was it in the parlor, or was it in the hall
Or was it in the garden among the pretty flowers
That he gave to you the tamosher to wear the starched gown,
And you bundled it and rolled it in your apron?"
"It wasn't in the parlor, nor was it in the hall,
But it was in the garden among the pretty flowers,
That he gave to me the tamosher to wear the starched gown
And I bundled it and rolled it in my apron."
Now there goes little Molly, when she goes to the town
Wi her riggy rocky slippers and the newly starched gown,
Wi her riggy rocky slippers and the newly starched gown,
And she rolled it up so neatly in her apron.
Oor Young Lady / The Rowin't in her Apron / Underneath Her Apron / Pretty Little Mary Sweeping Up Her Room / A Wee Burr Stuck Tae Ma Apron / The Stomacher / The Tamosher (Roud No. 899) - Sung by Betsy Whyte (Bessie Townsley), a Traveller of Montrose, Angus, Scotland. Filmed and recorded by David Kotyk as part of the John D. Niles folklore research team for the "Scottish Voices" project at an informal ceilidh held in a rented house in Auchtermuchty in August 1986. Betsy's husband Bryce Whyte and their friends Duncan and Linda Williamson were also present during the recording. Betsy had come to Auchtermuchty that summer to compete in the Festival competition in Women's Storytelling.
00:00:00 Intro
00:00:28 Sings The Tamosher
The original movie can be watched here:
https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AFJRVDNRY6VQAR9B
A short biography of Betsy Whyte can be read here:
tobarandualchais.co.uk/person/3523?l=en
Betsy Whyte's autobiography, "The Yellow on the Broom" (1979), is well worth reading for the thoughtful insight into Traveller life and customs and a way of living that has now mostly disappeared.
I used my knowledge on video editing to share the films on Youtube in the highest possible quality, I used manual video upscaling (no AI was used!) for this, to further document variants of traditional ballads and songs which has been my hobby for many years. I claim no ownership of the video, all the rights belong with the University of Wisconsin which houses the John D. Niles Collection.
Note by Kevin W.:
I was delighted to discover these videos of Scotland's great tradition bearers in the John D. Niles Collection. The often poorly treated Scottish Travellers honor the memories of their ancestors through songs, music and storytelling. They are proud of their culture and kept old traditions alive for hundreds of years. Many of our most gifted traditional singers and storytellers are Travellers.
Scottish Travellers are an indigenous ethnic minority in Scotland who live or traditionally lived a nomadic lifestyle and for centuries were unfairly shunned by the settled population. For that reason the singing culture of the Travelling people had not been well documented before the 20th century when non-Travellers with an interest in folklore visited and befriended Travellers and started recording their songs, music and stories.
The Tamosher is an Aberdeenshire Scottish variant of the song English singers know as "Underneath Her Apron" (Roud 899) or "Gathering Rushes in the Month of May".
Betsy herself explained the meaning of "tamosher" as "the thing that makes a wean". But there might be more to it. A likely origin for the word "tamosher" is given in Tocher 26 (1977 p. 128):
"Dr. David Buchan suggests that the origin of Bessie Whyte's "The Tamosher" (Tocher 23 p. 263) may lie in song No. XXI of G.R. Kinloch's The Ballad Book (1827), where the verse corresponding to Bessie's third verse reads:
lt's no a vagabond, nor yet a loon
He's the rarest stay-maker in a' the toun
And he's made a stomacher to bear up my goun
And I row'd it aneath my apron.
Could "tamosher" have started as a corruption of "stomacher" (here certainly a metaphor for the unborn baby) and gradually developed a new meaning as a cant word outside the song?"
Song transcription:
Oh there were two bonnie wee lassies, and they were dressed in blue
And they went oot one summer morning some rushes for tae pu,
And one o them got a wee thing before she did return,
And she bundled it and rolled it in her apron.
Now the very first man she met was her father on the stair:
"Oh daughter, dear daughter, what have you got there?
Who gave to you the tamosher, to wear the starched gown,
And you bundled it and rolled it in your apron?
It is my muslin gown and it was so large for me,
And I was afeared that troubled I would be,
I was afraid that troubled I would be,
So I bundled it and rolled it in my apron."
"Oh was it now the baker, or was it now the clown,
Or was it now the bonnie boy that sails the world around
Who gave to you the tamosher, to wear the starched gown,
And you bundled it and rolled it in your apron?"
"It wasn't now the baker nor yet was it the clown,
But it was the bonnie boy that sailed the world around
Who gave to me the tamosher to wear the starched gown
And I bundled it and rolled it in my apron."
"Oh was it in the parlor, or was it in the hall
Or was it in the garden among the pretty flowers
That he gave to you the tamosher to wear the starched gown,
And you bundled it and rolled it in your apron?"
"It wasn't in the parlor, nor was it in the hall,
But it was in the garden among the pretty flowers,
That he gave to me the tamosher to wear the starched gown
And I bundled it and rolled it in my apron."
Now there goes little Molly, when she goes to the town
Wi her riggy rocky slippers and the newly starched gown,
Wi her riggy rocky slippers and the newly starched gown,
And she rolled it up so neatly in her apron.
