Annotation:Quodling’s Delight

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QUODLING'S DELIGHT. AKA and see "Goddesses (1)," "Oak and Ash," "I Would I were in My Own Country." English, Air and Country Dance Tune (4/4 time). A Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The air appears in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (1609), Sir John Hawkin's transcriptions, and John Playford's Dancing Master of 1651 (where it appears as "Goddesses"). Walker, in History of Music in England (1924), says the “Quodling” title appeared first, set to this “jovial Elizabethan dance-melody,” and that “Goddesses” appeared in the 17th century, followed by an 18th century permutation of the tune into the well-known “The Oak and the Ash.” Researcher Graham Christian (A Playford Assembly, 2015) explains that quodling was a version of codling, meaning an unripe apple, "but was also a jocular term for a young law student, still full of 'quids' and 'quods'".

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Time), vol. 1, 1859; p. 276.

Recorded sources:




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