Annotation:Crowdie Once and Crowdie Twice

Back to Crowdie Once and Crowdie Twice

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CROWDIE ONCE AND CROWDIE TWICE. English, Air (whole time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The tune appears under this name in the 1840 music manuscript collection of Cumbrian musician John Rook (Waverly). From the title, it would seem to be a melody for the song that was printed in Johnson's Scots Musical Museum (1803) as "Crowdie Ever Mair" (for which see "Crowdie"), although Johnson's song employed a different tune. The chorus goes:

Ance crowdie, twice crodie,
Three times crowdie in a day;
Gin ye "crowdie" ony mair,
Ye'll crowdie a' my meal away.

Crowdie strictly refers to an oatmeal brose made with cold wter (instead of boiling), but it popularly meant any dish made of oatmeal and was the staple of the diet of common people in Scotland in the 18th century.

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