Annotation:Yellow Cow (The)

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YELLOW COW. AKA and see: “Is Trua gan Peata 'n Mhaoir agam (1)," "Mother and Child Reel (The)," "Peata Beag is a Mháthair," "Your Mother’s Fair Pet." Irish, Air and Reel. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB’. The tonality is at times ambigiuous, shifting from D Major to A Mixolydian. It is derived from a "dandling" song, or a kind of nonsense song sung to an infant (hence one of the alternate titles, "Mother and Child").

There is an Irish song called "I Wish the Shepherd's Pet Was Mine" in which the protagonist wishes for the shepherd's lamb and a yellow cow:

I wish 1 had the yellow cow,
The yellow cow, the yellow cow,
I wish I had the yellow cow
And welcome from my darling.

and whose chorus (in translation by P.W. Joyce) goes:

And Oh! I hail thee, I hail thee!
My heart's love without guile are thou.
And Oh! I hail thee, I hail thee,
The fair pet of thy mother.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources:

Recorded sources: GIFT 10007, Arty McGlynn & Nollaig Casey – “Lead the Knave.”

See also listing at:
Alan Ng's Irishtune.info [1]

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