The Yule Days – Day 6 – ‘Three goldspinks’

skr23
Saturday 17 December 2022

The king sent his lady on the sixth Yule day,
Three goldspinks, three starlings, a goose that was gray,
Three plovers, three partridges, a papingo-aye;

Wha learns my carol and carries it away? 

Goldspinks is the Scots word for goldfinch. This engraving is taken from one of the McIntosh albums. This scrapbook was most likely complied by Roberta McIntosh (ms37102/8). She was the sister of William Carmichael McIntosh, Professor of Natural History at St Andrews, specialising in marine biology at the Gatty marine laboratory on the East Sands. She was a talented artist and illustrated many of his academic works on nematode worms, as well as keeping her own comical commonplace journal (ms37102/9).

The collection includes William’s academic papers and teaching materials, as well many personal and family papers, including a series of family scrapbooks, sketchbooks and photograph albums. The scrapbooks contain early photographs of St Andrews and its residents, ephemera about William’s career, poetry, aphorisms, jokes, dried flowers and seaweed, drawings, etchings, cards, autographs, lace and other Victoriana. 

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