The Witches Reel

Cummer gae ye afore, cummer gae ye,
Gin ye winna gae, cummer let me,
Ring-a-ring-a-widdershins
Linkin lithely widdershins,
Cummers carlin cron and queyn
Roun gae we.

Cummer go ye before, cummer go ye
Gif ye willna go before, cummer let me
Ring-a-ring-a-widdershins
Loupin’ lightly widdershins
Kilted coats and fleein’ hair
Three times three

Cummer go ye before, cummer go ye
Gif ye willna go before, cummer let me
Ring-a-ring-a-widdershins
Whirlin’ skirlin’ widdershins
De’il tak the hindmost
Wha’er she be

The Witches’ Reel is a song from 1591 and the North Berwick Witch Trials during the reign of King James VI of Scotland. The words came from the transcripts of one of the trials in connection with a plot by Francis Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, and others to kill the king. It is the first written record of a reel in Scotland.

A version of the song, performed by Green Crown:

Another version by Kellianna on YouTube:

We do not know what tune she played before the King, though Henry Farmer in his ‘A History of Music in Scotland’ suggests among others, ‘To Dance about the Bailzeis Dubb’, while the song the witches sang appears to have three verses (above in Scots dialect, and below in Modern English):

Witches’ Reel

The verse is also quoted, in passing, in Giles Corey of the Salem farms
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882:

MATHER.
A curious volume. I remember also
The plot of the Two Hundred, with one Fian,
The Registrar of the Devil, at their head, 65
To drown his Majesty on his return
From Denmark; how they sailed in sieves or riddles
Unto North Berwick Kirk in Lothian,
And, landing there, danced hand in hand, and sang,
“Goodwife, go ye before! goodwife, go ye! 70
If ye ’ll not go before, goodwife, let me!”
While Geilis Duncan played the Witches’ Reel
Upon a jews-harp.