Annotation:Planting Stick (The)

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PLANTING STICK, THE (Bata na Bplandaighe). AKA and see "Bryan O'Lynn (1)." Irish, Jig. A Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The tune appears to Samuel Bayard (Dance to the Fiddle, March to the Fife, 1981) as an offshoot of "Rambler from Clare (The)." P.W. Joyce (Ancient Irish Music, 1873) notes: “Bata na bplandaighe (pron. Bottha na blandy), is understood in Munster to mean a stick for planting cabbages. But Sir William Wilde informs me, that in Connaught the term is applied to a long pointed stick used in setting potatoes; and further that there is a tune of this name known in parts of the west, which was accompanied by an odd sort of dance, a kind of pantomime representation of the whole process of potato planting. I have not heard this air, and whether it is the same as the one I give here, which I learned from my father, I do not know.” The story seems to have parallels with the English morris dance “Bean Setting.”

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Howe (1000 Jigs and Reels), c. 1867; p. 20 (appears as “Bata na Bplandaighe”). Joyce (Ancient Irish Music), 1873; No. 65, p. 66. Petrie-Stanford (Complete Collection), 1903-06; No. 933.

Recorded sources:

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