Annotation:Foot it Feathy

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FOOT IT FEATHY. AKA - "Foot it, Featly." AKA and see "Drummond Castle (2)." Scottish, Reel. A Mixolydian/Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. A 'double-tonic' melody composed by John Turnbull (according to James Manson), suitable as a pipe reel (which it is in William Ross's 1869 collection as "Drummond Castle (2)"). "Feathy" is a misprint on the page with the music notation in MacDonald's publication, as the word is spelled "Featly" in the index. Indeed, foot it, featly is a Shakespearean phrase meaning to dance nimbly, as when Ariel sings:

Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Courtsied when you have and kiss'd
The wild waves whist,
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.

Source for notated version: Miss L. Duff Stuart [MacDonald].

Printed sources: MacDonald (The Skye Collection), 1884; p. 30. Manson (Hamilton’s Universal Tune Book vol. 1), 1854; p. 113.

Recorded sources:

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