Annotation:Maggie's Tocher

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MAGGIE'S TOCHER. Scottish, Air and Jig (9/8 time). A Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. 'Tocher' is the old Scots word for a dowery. The song, which relates the negotiations around Maggie's betrothal, was printed in Allen Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany (1724-7, Song 230), "To it's ain tune," and by London publisher William Thomson in his Orpheus Caledonius of 1733 as "Maggie's Tocher" (Song 39). Ramsay indicated by printing a 'Z' on the page, that he considered it to be 'ancient'. The song was also set by classical composer Franz Joseph Haydn. The lyric begins:

The meal was dear short syne,
We buckl'd us a' the gither;
And Maggie was in her prime,
When Willie made courtship till her:
Twa pistals charg'd beguess,
To gie the courting shot;
And syne came ben the lass
Wi' swats drawn frae the but.
He first speer'd at the guidman,
And syne at Giles the mither,
An ye was gi's a bit land,
We'd buckle us e'en the gither.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Kennedy (Fiddler's Tune-Book: Slip Jigs and Waltzes), 1999; No. 43, p. 10.

Recorded sources:

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