Cornkister

What it is

A cornkister is a song in the Doric speech of Northeast Scotland, usually a comic one, and usually about farm life in that part of the country. Singers set them down late in the nineteenth century and in the early years of the twentieth. They follow the bothy ballads. The two kinds of song overlap: both take farm life in the Northeast as their subject, and a singer who knows one generally knows the other as well. The difference is where the song was meant to be heard. Cornkisters were usually made for the stage or the studio.

The corn kist

The word cornkister comes from the corn kist, the chest kept on Northeast farms for measuring oats. One kist held enough oats to feed a plough horse. By the usual account, a singer, or someone in the audience, sat on the lid and tapped the wood with the heels to mark the beat. That is where the name is said to come from. The assumption is part of how the songs are described, though it is not something the songs themselves prove.

The best known songs

The best known cornkisters are few, and they are named often. Two of them are by George Bruce Thomson: McGinty's Meal an Ale and MacFarlane o the Sprotts o Burnieboosie. A third, A Pair o Nicky Tams, comes from G. S. Morris. Many more exist beyond these three, and they were carried by singers who worked the halls. Willie Kemp and G. S. Morris are the entertainers most often named from the 1920s and 1930s, and Andy Stewart is a later performer in the same style.

Recordings and after

Most people meet cornkisters through recordings rather than through a live singer. Performers of the 1920s and 1930s, Willie Kemp and G. S. Morris among them, put the songs on disc, and singers who followed them did the same. The Beltona record label was particularly active, setting down many of these pieces. Because of that, a song written for a hall in the Northeast could travel far beyond it. The recordings carried the words and the tunes to later listeners, and they are still the way the tradition is most often heard.

How Cornkister is kept

Keeping a cornkister alive means singing it and hearing it. A performer takes up the song, most often in a hall or in front of a microphone, and the audience listens or joins in. The pieces are comic, and a singer who knows cornkisters generally knows the bothy ballads as well, so a programme tends to draw on both. The bothy ballads belong to farm life in the Northeast; the cornkisters were made for the music hall and for the recording studio. Records then carried them to listeners far from any farm, and that is still how most people meet them.

When and where

Cornkisters belong to the years around 1900. They were set down late in the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth, so there is no single date in the year for them. They are not tied to a season or a festival. Singers perform them whenever there is an audience, and most people hear them today on recordings.

The songs belong to the farming country of Northeast Scotland, where Doric songs belong and where the bothy ballad tradition took shape. That is where they were written. They were performed in its music halls, and the Beltona label recorded them. Entertainers of the 1920s and 1930s, and singers who came after them, carried the cornkisters far beyond the Northeast.

What Cornkister means

In these songs, farm life is treated with humour rather than sentiment. The cornkist in the name is a small measure of everyday work: the oats that fed a horse. Naming a whole song type after it ties the music to the fields and to the people who worked them. To anyone who knows the repertoire, a cornkister says something about Northeast Scotland and about the Doric speech. It also marks a division inside the tradition, since these songs were made for an audience beyond the farm, in halls and on record.

Questions people ask about Cornkister

See also

Christmas carolFestive songs and hymns sung during the Christmas season and door to doorSteelpanA tuned percussion tradition forged from industrial steel containers in TrinidadMorris danceA rhythmic English folk dance performed in costume with bells, sticks and handkerchiefsFleadh CheoilAn annual gathering of Irish traditional music and dance, featuring competitions, public sessions, and concerts across I

Good reading and sources

• Cornkister on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-14.