Annotation:Cuir Sa' Chiste Mhóir Mi

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CUIR SA' CHISTE MHOIR MI (Put Me in the Big Chest/Casket). AKA and see "Old Time Wedding Reel (3)," "Beaton's Last," "Big Coffin Reel," "Miss Cruickshank's Reel," "Put Me in the Box," and "Put Me in the Big Chest." Scottish, Reel. B Flat Major (MacDonald): A Major (Shears). Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB (MacDonald): AABB (Shears). Attributed to Scottish fiddler-composer William Marshall (1748-1833), who called it "Miss Cruickshank's Reel." Gaelic words to the tune go:

cuir sa chiste mhoir mi
's coig bonnaich fo mo cheann
cuir sa chiste mhine mi
is beag is miste mi bhith ann

cuir sa chiste mhine mi
cuir sa chiste mhine mi
cuir sa chiste mhine mi
is beag is miste mi bhith ann

put me in the big chest,
with five bannocks under my head,
put me in the meal chest,
I will be none the worse for being there.

put me in the meal chest,
put me in the meal chest,
put me in the meal chest,
I will be none the worse for being there.

Shears calls his version a "Cape Breton setting of a 19th century reel."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: MacDonald (The Skye Collection), 1887; p. 137. Shears (Gathering of the Clans Collection, vol. 1), 1986; p. 48 (pipe setting. Appears as "Cuir Anns a'Chiste Mhóir Mi").

Recorded sources:

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