I’ll tell to you a stirring tale, pray give me your attention
For the nights are drawing in and time for droll diversion’s sparse
I promise it will end before you qualify for pension
And both the song and story are entitled “Scoonie’s Arse”.
My tale concerns a giant though there’s some that don’t believe it
But Scoonie was his name and he lived down by Leven town
He strode six leagues at every step his head in clouds was wreath-ed
And when he spoke you’d fear that he might bring the mountains down
You may have heard of two towns called Kirkcaldy and Cockenzie
They say no-one had ever known such bad-blood in the North
The feud it raged between them in an endless fearsome frenzy
In the dim and distant past before there was a Firth of Forth
The quarrel it revolved around the land that lay between them
Both sides said they owned it though the proof could not be found
Now there was land enough to share but there was no agreement
For neither town would compromise or find the middle ground
By day old Scoonie put up with their constant altercation
For while they were away he’d sneak and steal their cows and sheep
By night he found their bickering a constant irritation
For a giant is awfy tetchy if he doesn’t get his sleep
At last he went and stamped his foot down hard close by Kircaldy
The earth shook as the other foot fell near Cockenzie town
Then he scooped out a trench he scooped it deep he scooped it broadly
And let the cold North Sea flood in to part the warring crowd
And then he sauntered back to where his comfy soft bed waited
he laid his sleepy head down there by lonely Leven lea
he sleeps the sleep of giants now the racket has abated
With his arse stuck high up in the air for all the world to see
And when the wind blows cold from out the North
and roars across the stormy Firth of Fourth
the good folk of Cockenzie say and likewise down Kirkaldy way
“feels like it’s coming straight from Scoonies arse”