It's probably Robert Burns' best known creation, (though he really just adapted a traditional song) and is sung every year by a vast number of people, very few of whom know all the words.
And now the original Auld Lang Syne has 'sold' at auction for £10,000.
However it hasn't really become the private property of the buyer, a Professor David Purdie.
Instead the original 1788 text is to be held at the new Robert Burns Birthplace Museum alongside the original text for Tam O' Shanter and 4,500 other items.
Professor Purdie will, however, remain its patron for life.
The patronage of the work was one of many lots in a Scottish-themed auction taking place in Edinburgh on behalf of the National Trust for Scotland, for the benefit of the museum which will open next year.
Professor Purdie, already a patron of the NTS is from Ayrshire, where the museum will be based.
"I see this as a contribution to my home town and my home county. The memory of the life and legacy of the man whose poems and songs, first laid before his family and friends in the farmlands of Ayrshire, were to become the property and the patrimony of mankind."
January 2009 saw the 250th anniversary of the birth of Scotland's best known poet, with commemorative stamps, and a £10 note depicting Burns from Clydesdale bank released.
A three day conference on Burns' work also took place in Glasgow.
Burns' personal Masonic apron is also to go under the hammer this Wednesday.
