Annotation:Lusty Gallant

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LUSTY GALLANT. AKA and see "Captain Ward." English, Country Dance Tune (6/8 or 4/4 time). E Minor (Raven): D Dorian (Chappell). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Chappell): AABB (Raven). The air appears in William Ballet's Lute Book, and although Chappell (1859) does not find any ballad by that name, it was mentioned as a dance tune as early as 1577, and Chappell believes it to have been written on or before the year 1566. A labeled setting is in the Dallis Lute Book (1583-85), a c. 1605 ms. at Dublin's Trinity College (408/2), and, without title, in the Marsh Lute Book (c. 1595). The first strain was also quoted in the "Now foot it Tom" part of A Round of Three Country Dances in One from the Lant Roll (1580) and Thomas Ravenscroft's Pammellia (1609). It was an immensely popular tune, notes Chappell, and a great many ballads were written to it. A century later it was still in currency and appeared in Playford's Dancing Master.

Chappell prints both duple and triple time versions. Words (from A Handful of Pleasant Delites) set to the 6/8 version begin:

Fain would I have a pretty thing,
To give unto my lady;
I name no thing,
And mean no thing
But as pretty a thing as may be.

Twenty journeys would I make,
And twenty days would hie me;
To make adventure for her sake,
To set some matter by me.

Some do long for pretty knacks,
And some for strange devices;
God send me what my lady lacks,
I care not what the price is.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Time), vol. 1, 1859; p. 234. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 8.

Recorded sources: Maggie's Music MMCD216, Hesperus - "Early American Roots" (1997).

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