Holly Willie's Prayer including Epitaph on Holly Willie (Robert Burns) by Kevin Brown 51

Holy Willies Prayer and Epitaph on Holly Willie. Recited by Kevin Brown a native of Galston Ayrshire. The prototype of this burlesque prayer was William Fisher (1739 -1809 ) of Montgarswood, and elder of Mauchine Parish at whose instigation the Kirk Sessions took action against Gavin Hamilton for failure to observe the Sabbath in the proper manner. Burns described Fisher as 'a rahter oldish bathcelor, much and justly famed for that polemical chattering which ends in tipping orthodoxy, and for that spiritualised bawdry whicj refines to liquorish devotion '.