Annotation:Nobe's Maggot

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NOBE'S MAGGOT. English, Country Dance Tune or Slip Jig (9/4 or 9/8 time). C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. "'Maggot', a dram" (Joyce). The melody and dance directions were first printed by Henry Playford in his Dancing Master, 12th edition [1] (1703). It was retained in subsequent editions of the long-running series through the 18th and last edition of 1728 (then published by John Young, heir to the Playford publishing concerns. The tune was also printed by the Walshes in The Compleat Country Dancing-Master (editions of 1731 and 1754).

P.W. Joyce obtained the melody from the manuscript collection of Irish collector and lawyer John Edward Pigot (1822–1871), who collected among the Irish in London as well as in Ireland. An Irish provenance was suspected at one time. Collector William Chappell (Collection of National English Airs, 1840) states: "This tune having been supposed Irish by Malchair, was inserted with the Irish Music, in vol. 1 of Crotch's Specimens; but since the publication of that work, Dr. Crotch has formed a different opinion as to this, and several other airs in the same collection." [Ed. Crotch was a music lecturer, who illustrated his lectures with pices of music, known as his 'Specimens'].

A version of the tune was used in the stage production The Devil to Pay for the song "There was a maid in the West."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Joyce (Old Irish Folk Music and Songs), 1909; No. 724, pp. 360-261. John Walsh (Complete Country Dancing-Master, Volume the Fourth), London, 1740; No. 101.

Recorded sources:

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