"an-" (verbal particle?)

[Jonathan Lighter]

All of us, including OED (with few exx., unfortunately), are familiar with the particle "a-," as in "a-running," "a-feudin' an' a-fightin'", etc.

But I was unfamiliar with the parallel use of "an-" before a vowel.  I hear it clearly in a 1952 recording of the Scottish farmhand Willie Mathieson (age 72) singing a traditional Scots forerunner of "The Streets of Laredo."  Mathieson learned it in Banffshire in 1933 :

"My head is an-aching, my heart is a-breaking,
Noo I'm a young man cut down in my prime."

This is a refrain, and "an-" is audible each time.

Or is "to nache" sinmply a reanalysis of "ache" ?  OED has no entry for it.

Mathieson's lyrics are accurately transcribed here :

http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/pages/tiLAREDS10.html

The album is Folkways F-3805 "The Unfortunate Rake" (1960).

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