Scottish Limericks
Limericks may have been named after a town in Ireland, but they have now become universal - and there is a wealth of examples with a Scottish flavour! Here's substantial selection .
An indolent cleric frae May
His roses allowed to decay.
His wife, more alert,
Bought a powerful squirt
And said to her spouse : "Let us spray".
An elderly man called Keith
Mislaid his set of false teeth -
They'd been laid on a chair,
He'd forgot they were there,
Sat down - and was bitten beneath.
The idiosyncratic link between spelling and pronunciation in the English language is explored in this next example. Bear in mind that the name 'Menzies' is pronounced MING-iss in Scotland...A lively young damsel named Menzies
Inquired: "Do you know what this thenzies?"
Her aunt, with a gasp,
Replied: "It's a wasp,
And you're holding the end where the stenzies."
And here's another one where the oddity of "isles" rhyming with "aisles" is put to good effect...The was an old man of the isles
Who suffered severely from pisles
He couldn’t sit down
Without a deep frown
So he had to row standing for misles
A Scotland castle, bleak. The host,
"To all my ancestors, a toast!"
The front door opens wide
And enters there inside
A gust! A guest aghast! A Ghost!
Catriona, a pretty young lass
Had a truly magnificent ass.
Not rounded and pink
As you possibly think
It was grey, had long ears, and ate grass.
The next limerick may have originated in North America where the season autumn is more usually called "fall".There was a young laddie from Coll
Who fell in the spring in the fall.
'Twould have been a sad thing
Had he died in the spring
But he didn't, he died in the fall.
There was a young man from Larkhall
Who went to a masquerade ball
Dressed up as a tree,
But he failed to foresee
His abuse by the dogs in the hall
For those not over-familiar with Scottish geography, Tranent is a small town, four miles east of Edinburgh.There was an old lady of Tranent
Whose nose was remarkably bent
One day they supposed
She followed her nose
For no one knew which way she went.
There was a young Scotsman named Fisher
Who was fishing for fish in a fissure.
Then a cod, with a grin,
Pulled the fisherman in.
Now they're fishing the fissure for Fisher.
Bagpipes - you either love them or hate them. And if you hate them you enjoy jokes (or limericks) at their expense.There was a dour Scot from Auld Reekie,
Whose bagpipes were tuneless and squeaky.
When they begged, "Stop that noise!"
He replied with great poise,
"Och, 'tis only a valve that is leaky."For a Scotsman the heat was benumbing;
He imagined he heard bagpipes humming
In unlikely places;
On a desert oasis,
He dreamt that the Campbells were coming.A man from the Mull of Kintyre
Said, "My bagpipes are always for hire."
When he started to play,
He was shot, so they say,
Which deflated them just like a tire.Some bagpipes were stolen! I kid
You not, folks, for happen it did.
Police, under cover,
Seek a true music lover,
Or maybe a short-sighted squid.I purchased some bagpipes last week,
And practised their droning and squeak.
My neighbor next door
Though, who hails from Jaipur,
Said the noise of the pipes made him Sikh.
You tell us, the pipes you abhor;
You're just one amongst many more;
I believe in the past
The bagpipes were classed
As an inhumane weapon of war.Onions, blue cheese and cayenne peppers are just the sort of things you would expect young girls from Bearsden (an up-market suburb of Glasgow) to be eating....
There was a young girl from Bearsden
Who ate onions, blue cheese and cayenne
‘Till a bad fright one day
Took her breath quite away,
And we hope she won’t find it again.There was a young striker from Clyde
Who hated his eggs boiled or fried.
When asked to say why,
'It's just because I
Am a poacher by trade,' he replied.Skibo Castle became famous overnight when Madonna decided to get married there.
An artistic man called Skibo,
To an evening class he decided to go.
The teacher said, "That's not right
Your page is all white!"
Skibo said, "It's a polar bear out in the snow."A student who hailed from Dumfries,
Weighed down by B.A.s and Litt. D.s,
Collapsed from the strain.
Alas, it was plain
She was killing herself by degrees.There was on Old Man of the Isles, Whose face was pervaded with smiles; He sung high dum diddle, And played on the fiddle, That amiable Man of the Isles.
There was a Young Lady of Bute,
Who played on a silver-gilt flute;
She played several jigs,
To her uncle's white pigs,
That amusing Young Lady of Bute.The "world's worst poet", William McGonagall(1830-1902) tried to visit Queen Victoria at Balmoral but was turned away at the gates. The rejection left him "not in the least discouraged." He even wrote "An Ode to the Queen in her Jubilee Year." The young lad in this limerick is not quite so generous...
There was a small boy wrote: "Dear Queen, Aren't you on holiday near Aberdeen? Could I come to stay? It's not far away. Declining would be terribly mean."
Visiting the Queen seems to be a popular pursuit, it seems...
A Scotsman came from Aberdeen To London to look at the Queen.
But he drank so much ale
That at home told a tale
Of the Queen and her twin he had seen.
Despite her impressive physique
Big Aggie was really quite meek;
If a mouse showed its head
She’d jump into bed
With a terrible, blood-curdling shriek.A dentist from far Wester Ross
Fell in love with a slight girl named Moss.
But he held in abhorrence
Her Christian name, Florence
So he renamed her his Dental FlossA visitor once to Loch Ness
Met the monster, which left him a mess.
They returned his entrails
By the regular mails
And the rest of the stuff by express
A painter who came from North Britain
Hailed a lady who sat with her knitain.
He remarked with a sigh,
“That park bench – well, I
Just painted it, right where you’re sittain.“There was a young woman in Glasgow
Whose party proved quite a fiasco;
At nine – thirty, about,
The lights all went out
Through a lapse on the part of the gas co.There once were three men from Loch Garry
Named Harry and Larry and Barry.
Now Larry was bare
As an egg or a pear
But Harry and Barry were hairyA dentist - works near the Tolbooth -
has married a widow named Ruth.
She is so sentimental
Concerning things dental
She calls her dear second her twoth.A two – toothed old man of Arbroath
Gave vent to a terrible oath.
When one tooth did ache
By an awful mistake
The dentist extracted them both!There was a young man from Dunottar
Who coated his tonsils in butter
At night, when he snores
Instead of the roars
Comes a soft, oleaginous mutter.
Where else would you like to go in Scotland?
