# The Scots Piper's Queries, or, John Falkirk's Cariches (1804)/The Scots Piper's Queries

The Scots Piper's Queries, &c.
Q.WHAT is the wisest behaviour ⟨of⟩ ignorant persons?
A. To speak of nothing but what they know, and to give their opinion of nothing but what they understand.
Q. What time is a scolding wife at the best?
A. When she is fast asleep.
Q. What time is a scolding wife at the worst?
A. When she is that wicked as to tear the hair out of her own head, when she ⟨can't⟩ get at her neighbours, and through perfect spite bites her own tongue with her own teeth; my hearty wife is, that all such wicked vipers may ever do so.
Q. What is the effectual cure and infallible remedy for a scolding wife?
A. The only cure is to get out of the hearing of her, but the infallible remedy is to nail her tongue to a growing tree, in the beginning of a cold winter night, and so let ⟨it⟩ ​stand till sun-rising next morning, he'll become one of the peaceablest women that ever lay by a man's side.
Q. What time of the year is it that there are most holes open?
A. In harvest when there are stubbles.
Q. At what time is the cow heaviest?
A. When the bull is on her back.
Q. Who was the goodman's muckle cow's calf's mother?
A. None but the muckle cow herself.
Q. What is the likest thing to a man and a horse?
A. A taylor and a mare.
Q. What is the hardest dinner that ever a taylor laid his teeth to?
A. His own goose, though ever so well boil'd or roasted.
Q. How many tods tails will it tak to ⟨reach⟩ up to the moon?
A. One if it be long enough.
Q. How many sticks gangs to the bigging ⟨of⟩ a craw's nest?
A. None, for they are all carried.
Q. How many whites will a well made ⟨pudding⟩ prick need?
A. If it be well made it needs no more.
Q. Who was the father of Zebedee's children?
A. Who but himself.
Q. Where did Moses go when he was full ⟨fifteen⟩ years old?
A. Into his sixteenth.
​Q. How near related is your aunty's good brother to you?
A. No nearer than my own father.
Q. How many holes are in a hen's doup⟨?⟩
A. Two.
Q. How prove you that?
A. There is one for the dung, and another for the egg.
Q. Who is the best for catching of rogues?
A. None so fit as a rogue himself.
Q. Where was the usefulest fair in Scotland kept?
A. At Millguy.
Q. What fort of commodities were sold there?
A. Nothing but ale and ill wicked wives.
Q. How was it abolished?
A. Because those who went to it once would go to it no more.
Q. For what reason?
A. Because there was no money to be got for them, but fair barter, wife for wife, and he who put away a wife for one fault, got ⟨a⟩ wife with two as bad.
Q. What was the reason that in those ⟨days⟩ a man could put away his wife for pissing ⟨the⟩ bed, and not for sh———g it?
A. Because he could shute it away ⟨with⟩ his foot and ly down.
Q. What is the reason now a-days, ⟨that⟩ mien court, cast, marry, and re-marry ⟨so⟩ many wives, and keep only but one in ⟨public⟩ at last?
​A. Because private marriage is become as common as smuggling, and cuckolding the kirk no more thought of, than a man to ride a mile or two upon his neighbour's mare! men get will and wale of wives, the best portion, and properest person is preferred, the first left, the weak to the worst, and she whom he does not love, he shutes away with his foot and lies down with whom he pleases.
Q: How will ye know the bairns of our town, by all others in the kingdom?
A. By their ill-breeding, and bad manners.
Q. What is their behaviour?
A. If you ask them a question in civility, if it were but the road to the next town, they'll tell you to follow your nose, and if ye go wrong curse the guide.
Q. Are young and old of them no better?
A. All the odds lies in the difference, for if you ask a child to whom he belongs, or who is his father, he'll tell you to kiss his father's a———.
Q. What sort of creatures is kindliest when they meet?
A. None can exceed the kindness of dogs when they meet in a market.
Q. And what is Collie's conduct there?
A. First they kiss other's mouths and noses, smell all about, and last of all they are so kind as to kiss other below the tail.
Q. What is the coldest part of a dog?
A. His nose.
​Q. What is the coldest part of a man?
A. His knees.
Q. What is the coldest part of a woman?
A. The back part of her body.
Q. What is the reason, that these three parts of men, women, and dogs are coldest?
A. Fabulous historians say, that there was three little holes broke in Noah's ark, and that the dog put his nose in one, and another the man put his knee in it, a third and biggest hole broke, and the woman bang'd her backside into it; and these parts being exposed to the cold blast, make them always cold ever since.
Q. And what remedy does the man take for the warming of his cold knees?
A. He holds them towards the fire, and when in bed draws his shirt down over them.
Q. And what does the women do to warm their cold parts?
A. The married women turn their backside about to the good-man's belly: virgins, and those going mad for marriage, the heat of their maidenhead keeps them warm, old matrons, whirl'd o'er maidens, widows, and widows bewitch'd, hold up their coldest parts to the fire.
Q. And what remedy does the poor dog take for his cold nose?
A. Stops it below his tail, the hottest bit in his body.
Q. What is the reason the dogs are worse on chapmen, than on other strange people?
​A. It is said the dogs have three accusations against the chapmen; handed down from father to son, or from one generation of dogs to another: The first is as old as Æsop the great wit of Babylon, the dog having a law-suit against the cat, gained the plea, and coming trudging home with the decreet below his tail, a wicked chapman throwing his elwan at him, he lote it fa', and so lost his great privileges thereby. The second is, because in old times the chapmen used to buy dogs and kill them for their skins. The third, when a chapman was quartered in a farmer's house, that night the dog lost his property the licking of the pot.
Q. What creature resembles most a drunken piper?
A. A cat when she sips milk; she always sings, and so does a piper when he drinks good ale.
Q. What is the reason a dog runs twice round about before he ly down?
A. Because he does not know the head of his bed from the foot of it.
Q. What creature resembles most a long, lean, ill-looking, greasy-fac'd lady, for pride?
A None so much as the cat, who is continually spitting in her lufe and rubbing her face, as many of such ladies do the brown leather of their wrinkled chasts.
Q. Amongst what sort of creatures will you observe most of a natural law?
A. The hart and the hind meet at one ​certain day in the year; the broad goose lays her first egg on Fasterns Even, old stile; the crows begin to build their nest the first of March, old stile; the swans observe matrimony, and if the female die, the male dares not take up with another, or the rest will put him to death; all the birds in general, join in pairs, and keep so;, but the dove resembles the adulterer, when the she-one turns old, he pays her away, and takes another; the locusts observe military order, and march in bands; the frogs resemble pipers and preachers, for the young ride the old to death.
Q. Who are the merriest and heartiest people in the world?
A. The sailors, for they'll be singing and cursing one another, when the waves their graves, are going over their heads.
Q. Which are the disorderliest creatures in battle?
A. Cows and dogs, for they all fall upon them that are neathmost.
Q. Who are the vainest sort of people in the world?
A. A barber, a taylor, a young soldier, and a poor dominie.
Q. What is the great cause of the barber's vanity?
A. His being admitted to trim noblemen's chasts, thyke their sculls, tak kings by the nose, and hold a razor to his very throat, which no subject else dare do.
​Q. What is the great cause of the taylor's pride?
A. His making of people's new clothes, of which every person young and old is proud of, then who can walk in a vainer shew than a tailor carrying home a gentleman's clothes.
Q. What is the cause of a young soldier's pride?
A. When he lists, he thinks he is free of his mother's correction, the hard usage of a bad master, has a liberty to curse, swear, whore, and do every thing; until he be convinced by four halberts and the drummer's whip, that he has now got both a military and civil law above his head, and perhaps worse masters than ever.
Q. What is the cause of the poor dominie's pride?
A. As he is the teacher of the young and ignorant, he supposes no man knows what he knows; the boys call him master, therefore he thinks himself a great man.
Q. What sort of a song is it, that is sung without a tongue, and its notes are understood by people of all nations?
A. It is a fart, which every person knows to be but wind.
Q. What is the reason that young people are vain, giddy-headed and airy, and not so humble as the children of former years?
A. Because they are brought up and educate after a more haughty strain, by reading ​fables, plays, novels and romances; gospel-books, such as the psalm-book, proverbs, and catechisms, are like old almanacks; nothing in vogue, but fiddle, flute, troy, and Babylonish tunes; our plain English speech corrupted with beauish cants, don't, won't, nen, and ken, a jargon worse than the Yorkshire dialect.
Q. Why is swearing become so common amongst the Scots people?
A. Because so many lofty teachers come from the south amongst us, where swearing is practised in its true grammatical perfection, hot oaths new struck with as bright a lustre as a new quarter guinea.
Q. How will you know the bones of a mason's mare at the back of a dyke, amongst the bones of a hundred dead horses?
A. Because it is made of wood.
Q. Which are the two things not to be spared, and not to be abused?
A. A soldier's coat, and a hired horse.
THE END OF JOHN FALKIRK'S CARICHES.