When the sailor stole her thyme, he didn’t just rob her of her virginity, he also robbed her of her hopes and dreams for the future This is why the girl refers to thyme as such a “precious thing” that brings all things to her mind – all the flavours and joys that life has to offer. Her chances of marriage would be greatly reduced and she might be a social outcast. Life would have been difficult in those days for a girl who had lost her innocence.
The song dates back at least as far as the 17th century. Thyme represents the girl’s purity and consequently it represents her hopes and prospects for future happiness. This is true but the true meaning is much broader than that. The Bunch of Thyme is generally described as being a euphemism for the girl’s virginity. Thyme equals virginity, hope and the future The song begins with a warning to maidens not to let a “man steal away your thyme”. On the surface, the song is a sad but relatively straightforward story of a young maiden who loses her heart to a sailor.īeneath the surface, however, the lyrics contain double meanings referring to sex and possibly even sexual disease, and the loss of hope for the future. It is sung at the close of their annual national conference each year.Ī Bunch of Thyme – a coded warning to womenĪ Bunch of Thyme has a beautiful soothing melody that belies the dark message contained in the lyrics. "Scots Wha Hae" is the party song of the Scottish National Party. It is notable that when Burns agreed to let the Morning Chronicle, of, publish the song, it was on the basis of 'let them insert it as a thing they have met with by accident, and unknown to me.' Although the lyrics are by Burns, he wrote them to the traditional Scottish tune 'Hey Tuttie Tatie' which, according to tradition, was played by Bruce's army at the Battle of Bannockburn, and by the Franco-Scots army at the Siege of Orleans.īurns was aware that if he declared his Republican and Radical sympathies openly he could suffer the same fate. The lyrics were written by Robert Burns in 1793, in the form of a speech given by Robert the Bruce before the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, where Scotland maintained its sovereignty from the Kingdom of England. Scots Wha Hae (English: Scots, Who Have Scottish Gaelic: Brosnachadh Bhruis) is a patriotic song of Scotland which served for centuries as an unofficial national anthem of the country, but has lately been largely supplanted by Scotland the Brave and Flower of Scotland.
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