More about this poem
This bawdy song, set to the tune of, ‘O’er the muir amang the heather’, was sent along with Bonie Mary, to Robert Cleghorn in 1784.
Burns wrote to his friend, ‘Well! The Law is good for something, since we can make a Baudy-song out of it’.
The Act of Sederunt is a term specific to Scots Law, and refers to ‘an ordinance for regulating the forms of procedure before the Court of Session, passed by the judges in virtue of a power conferred by an Act of the Scotch Parliament, 1540’.
In this instance it is taken to be loosely synonymous with the judgement of a law court.
Ralph McLean
