The Coggly Stane

The Coggly Stane
Daniil Lazko

There’s five stanes set across the burn
Atween the mill an’ me;
The third ane coggles, gies a turn,
Hooever licht ye be.

When kye come lowin, ane by ane,
An’ a’ the toon gangs still,
Comes Elspet, whistlin like a wean,
Wi’ meal-dust frae the mill.

She’s freckled like a mavis egg
An’ sherp as ony preen;
She’ll tak a lad doon mony a peg
Wi’ the lauchin o’ her een.

She coonts them oot — ane, twa, an’ three —
Syne on the third she’ll stand
An’ skirl, “It’s coupin! Wattie, gie—”
An’ oot gangs my richt hand.

Her hand comes rouch wi’ sackin twine
An’ warm as girdle-breid,
An’ ilka nicht it bides in mine
A wee thing mair nor need.

Her faither’s tellt me ance or twice,
“Hae ye nae spade nor mell?
Ye’ve dookit tae the hochs, lad, thrice —
Gae set the stane yersel!”

Sae doon I cam ae Friday nicht,
The mell across my back,
Tae set the coggly limmer richt
Wi’ chuckie-stanes tae pack.

But Elspet saw me frae the mill
An’ cam doon like a hare,
An’ on the third stane stude stock-still:
“Come on, then — mell me there!”

“Ye muckle gowk! I’ve kent that stane
Sin’ I could hardly stand;
It never coups when I’m my lane —
It coups for Wattie’s hand.”

Syne I cam oot wi’ my ain tale:
My mell, the hale hairst lang,
Hung by the byre-door on its nail,
An’ I had let it hang.

The mell hings on its nail. Ilk nicht
She stops on the third stane;
It coups — an’ baith o’s haud on ticht,
Though she could stand her lane.

Tuapse, 30 September 2026

Glossary of Scots Words
Scots English
a’ all
ae one, a single
ain own
an’ and
ance once
ane one
atween between
baith both
bides stays, remains
burn stream, brook
byre cowshed
cam came
cam oot wi’ came out with, confessed
chuckie-stanes small pebbles, stone chips (used here to wedge the stone)
coggle, coggly to rock unsteadily; wobbly, unstable
coonts counts
coup, coupin to tip over, overturn; tipping
doon down
dookit ducked, plunged into water
een eyes
Elspet Scots form of Elizabeth
faither father
frae from
gae go
gangs goes
gie, gies give, gives
girdle-breid bread baked on a girdle (a flat iron griddle)
gowk fool (literally, cuckoo)
hae have
hairst harvest; the hale hairst lang, all harvest long
hale whole
haud hold
hings hangs
hochs hollows behind the knees
hooever however
ilk, ilka each, every
kent knew
kye cattle, cows
lang long
lane: my lane, her lane alone, on my own, on her own
lauchin laughing
licht light
limmer rascal, rogue (here said playfully of the stone)
lowin lowing
mair more
mavis song thrush
mell heavy mallet, maul
mony many
muckle big, great
nae no
nicht night
nor than (after a comparative)
o’, o’s of; of us
ony any
oot out
preen pin
richt right
rouch rough
sackin sacking, coarse cloth for sacks
sae so
sherp sharp
sin’ since
skirl to shriek, cry out shrilly
stane, stanes stone, stones
stude stood
syne then, next
tae to; too
tak take
tak doon a peg humble, take down a peg
tellt told
ticht tight
toon farmstead with its buildings (not a town)
twa two
Wattie familiar form of Walter
wean small child
wee small, little
wi’ with
ye, ye’ve you; you have
yersel yourself

Literary Analysis
The Coggly Stane is a courtship song in eleven quatrains built around a single object: the third of five stepping-stones laid across a burn between a mill and the speaker’s farm. The stone rocks under any weight, and everyone treats it as a nuisance waiting to be mended. The drama of the poem lies in the discovery that neither of the lovers has ever wanted it mended.
The poem moves in three stages. Stanzas one to five establish a ritual: the stones, the evening hour when the cattle come in one by one, Elspet crossing from the mill, her cry at the third stone, and the hand that is given and held “a wee thing mair nor need.” That phrase is the first quiet signal. It records a lingering that the speaker has noticed but not yet explained. Stanzas six to eight bring in social pressure and comic crisis: the miller’s complaint, the speaker’s resolve, his arrival with the mell, and Elspet’s intervention. Stanzas nine to eleven deliver a double disclosure and a coda. She confesses that the stone only tips for his hand; he confesses that the mell has hung on its nail all harvest. The coda returns to the ritual, now understood by both.
The stone carries meaning only through use. It begins as a hazard, becomes an occasion, is revealed as a pretext, and ends as a shared secret. The mell is its counterpart: the instrument of repair that nobody lifts. The two objects stand on either side of the relationship, the stone in the water between the lovers and the mell at the speaker’s byre-door. The poem never states that the two love each other. The word love does not appear anywhere in it. The reader infers the love from what each of them has chosen not to do.
Elspet is drawn as an individual rather than a type. Her freckles are compared to a thrush’s egg, an image taken from the hedgerow rather than from the conventions of beauty. She is “sherp as ony preen,” she whistles like a child, a habit old proverb frowned on in girls, and her hands are rough from the twine of meal sacks. She counts the stones aloud, performs her peril with comic timing, and when the mell appears she stands stock-still on the very stone that supposedly cannot bear her, which is the physical proof of her secret. The decisive words of the poem are hers. Wattie is more lightly sketched, patient and a little ridiculous after three duckings, but his confession matches hers in weight. The miller serves as a comic chorus: he claims to have spoken “ance or twice” and then counts the duckings exactly.
The humour is built into the structure rather than laid on top of it. Elspet’s “ane, twa, an’ three” is answered by her father’s “ance or twice … thrice,” so that counting becomes a small motif of repetition and ritual. Her challenge, “Come on, then — mell me there!”, turns a practical errand into play. The comedy never undercuts the tenderness. It makes the intimacy believable, because the lovers are shown teasing each other as people who are at ease together.
The poem is set in Common Metre with alternating rhyme. The eight-syllable lines tend to carry the action and the six-syllable lines to land its result, as in “An’ oot gangs my richt hand.” Two anapaestic lifts in the third stanza loosen the rhythm for Elspet’s portrait. The broken cry “Wattie, gie—” runs straight into the next line, so that the hand moves out before the request is finished: his readiness is enacted by the syntax. The poem has no formal refrain, but the recurring words third stane, coups, hand and lane work as a distributed refrain that binds the stanzas together.
The final stanza gathers every element of the poem: the mell on its nail, the third stone, the tipping, the joined hands. It then adds a single qualification: “Though she could stand her lane.” This line rules out any reading in which Elspet needs rescuing. She is capable on her own, and the holding is chosen. The idiom also completes an echo. In stanza nine Elspet herself says the stone never tips when she is “my lane”; in the last line the speaker says she “could stand her lane.” The two confessions are sealed by the two uses of the same phrase, once in her voice and once in his.

The Burns Tradition in the Poem
The poem draws on the broad qualities of Robert Burns’s songwriting rather than on any particular text. Its language is Lowland literary Scots with a West and Central colouring. Wean is characteristic of the West of Scotland, including Burns’s own Ayrshire, and it sits naturally beside such common Lowland words as byre, hairst, kye and toon. Spelling is kept consistent and apostrophes are limited to the conventional forms an’, wi’, o’, a’ and sin’, so the text reads as a living vernacular rather than an antiquarian reconstruction.
Burns wrote a great many of his songs in ballad and Common Metre, often to fit existing tunes. The Coggly Stane uses the same compact, singable measure, and its lines are shaped to be heard aloud: short clauses, direct speech, exclamations, and a strong return to the stressed rhyme word.
The poem also follows Burns in its sympathy for working people and in placing love inside ordinary labour rather than outside it. The lovers are a miller’s daughter and a farm hand. Meal-dust, sacking twine, the byre, the harvest and the evening return of the cattle are not background decoration but the material through which the relationship becomes visible.
Burns’s songs frequently give women their own voices and wit, and Elspet speaks the turning point of this poem. The sensuality is restrained in a manner characteristic of his tender lyrics: it is carried by the warmth and roughness of a hand, by closeness and by lingering, not by declaration. Nature does real work in the poem. The burn is at once the physical obstacle and the boundary between the two households, and the lowing cattle mark the hour of meeting.
At the same time the poem deliberately avoids borrowing. It uses no lines, refrains, names or signature images from Burns, and none of the conventional properties of the love lyric such as roses, stars or pledges of eternal devotion. Crossing water is an old courtship motif in folk song. One familiar example is Comin’ Thro’ the Rye, a traditional song that Burns reworked, if the rye is read, as it often is, as a stream rather than a field. There the crossing leads to a wet hem and a question about kissing. Here it becomes a private agreement between two people, discovered by each of them in the other.

Originality and Meaning
Most love poetry shows lovers overcoming an obstacle. This poem shows two lovers preserving one. The flaw in the crossing becomes the occasion of their love: a small shared fiction under which they may touch every evening with an innocent excuse. The moment of mutual disclosure that the poem requires arrives not as a solemn declaration but as a comic double confession, in which each learns that the other has kept the same secret.
The poem’s answer to the question of what makes love real when it is freely returned lies in its last line. Neither lover is rescued and neither is dependent. She could cross alone; he could have mended the stone at any time. Both choose the small daily ritual instead. The love is real because it is chosen by both, again and again, when neither is compelled to choose it.
There is also a gentle social dimension. The miller speaks for practical good sense: a broken stone should be set right. The lovers’ quiet refusal belongs to another economy of value, in which an imperfection that brings two people together is worth more than its repair. The poem does not argue this point. It lets the mell hang on its nail and the stone go on tipping, and leaves the reader with the image of two hands held tight over moving water.

Technical Note
Genre: courtship song with lyrical narrative. Primary theme: mutual love. Secondary themes: courtship, tenderness, rural working life. Form: eleven quatrains, forty-four lines. Metre: Common Metre (8.6.8.6), iambic, with two anapaestic lifts in the third stanza. Rhyme scheme: ABAB throughout. Register: Lowland literary Scots of West and Central character. Basis: the stepping-stone ford at a country mill and the custom of handing someone across; the characters and events are invented, with no historical source.