Annotation:Cluck Old Hen (3)

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CLUCK OLD HEN [3]. AKA and see "Old Aunt Katie (2)." American, Reel. USA, southwestern Pa. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. In this case the "Cluck Old Hen" title is a floating one, attached to a piece of Scottish origin usually called in southwestern Pa. "Old Aunt Katie." It was collected in the region with a rhyme not dissimilar to the usual "Cluck Old Hen" ditties:

Cluck old hen, cluck right along;
Cluck old hen, till your chickens rolls on;
Cluck old hen, and I don't give a damn--
I can git a woman if you can git a man. (Bayard)

The melody (in song and dance airs), finds Samuel Bayard (1981), is descended from the Scots tunes "Marquis of Hastings' Strathspey," "Lord Moira/Lord Moira's Welcome" and "Loudon's Bonnie Woods and Braes." See also Frank Roche's Irish-collected fling "Bonnie Scotland (1)."

Source for notated version: middle-aged fiddler Walter Neal (Armstrong County, Pa., 1952) [Bayard].

Printed sources: Bayard (Dance to the Fiddle), 1981; No. 284, p. 237.

Recorded sources:

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