Fan the Loons an Lassikies Cam Oot Tae Play – Auld Intae New

Celebrating Annie Shirer’s Work Collecting Doric Rhymes In Buchan


“Loons an Lassikies, Old in to New” celebrates the “Kininmonth Lassie” Annie Shirer, who collected hundreds of rhymes, songs, sayings and riddles from all around the Mintlaw Area.

Annie (1873 – 1915) collected rhymes and sayings in her native Doric and English to send to the Rymour Club down in Edinburgh to be published. The Club called her the Marchioness Of Mintlaw.

She also gathered an sent the words of hundreds of songs to Gavin Greig who was collecting in the Northeast along with Reverend Duncan, but Annie didn’t sing herself, so she’d recommend many other singers to give him the tunes. He called her A Kininmoth Lassie when he thanked her every two weeks in his column in the Buchan Observer newspaper. She was the third most prolific collector in the Greig Duncan Collection.

But she kept all that and more that she hid collected in her kist (Scots word for a chest, usually used for storing clothes and linen) at home. Her great-nephew Jim Shirer rescued and published many of the rhymes, riddles and proverbs she had kept in her kist before the family threw it all out.

Pauline visited North East schools to tell the pupils all about Annie and her rhymes and to create new rhymes with the pupils.
You can read all their rhymes and see their illustrations at our web site – https://annieshirerrhymes.co.uk/

Ewan McVicar also created https://annieshirercollector.com/ to write more about her collecting for Gavin Greig and the Rymour Club.