Annotation:Haggis (The)
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HAGGIS, THE. Scottish, (Pipe) Reel. C Major (Athole, Cranford, Fraser, Kerr, Skye): D Major (Johnson). Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB (Fraser, Johnson, Skye): AABB (Cranford/Fitzgerald): AABB' (Kerr). Composition of this double-tonic tune is credited to Captain Simon Fraser by MacDonald in his Skye Collection (1887), and the melody does appear in Fraser's 1816 volume. A haggis is a large Scottish pudding made of the heart, lungs and liver of a sheep, along with suet, onions, oatmeal and seasoning, stuffed into a sheep's stomach and the whole boiled. It is traditional around the New Year. "This is an admirable one of the pipe reels, so often mentioned, wherein the piper compares his bag and chanter to a well stuffed haggis with its pin. Burns, having taken up so many of the same ideas in his excellent poem to a haggis, may have heard the meaning conveyed by the words, though his genius was so original and capacious, that this is mere conjecture" (Fraser). The melody frequently has been recorded by Cape Breton fiddlers.
Source for notated version: Winston Fitzgerald (1914-1987, Cape Breton) [Cranford].
Printed sources: Cranford (Winston Fitzgerald), 1997; No. 118, p. 48. Fraser (The Airs and Melodies Peculiar to the Highlands of Scotland and the Isles), 1816/1874; No. 43, p. 15. Johnson (Airs and Melodies of Scotland's Past), vol. 10, 1992 (revised 2001); p. 6. Kerr (Merry Melodies), vol. 2; No. 77, p. 11. MacDonald (The Skye Collection), 1887; p. 109. Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; p. 62.
Recorded sources: Breton Books and Records BOC 1HO, Winston "Scotty" Fitzgerald - "Classic Cuts" (reissue of Celtic Records CX 40). Green Linnet SIF 1077, Capercaillie - "Crosswinds" (1987). Rounder 7001, Joe Cormier - "Scottish Violin Music from Cape Breton Island" (1974).
See also listings at:
Alan Snyder's Cape Breton Fiddle Recording Index [1]
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [2]
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