Annotation:Lovely Lass to a Friar Came (2) (A)
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LOVELY LASS/NUN TO A FRIAR CAME [2], A (Cailin Deas Chum Brathar Tainic). Irish, Air (4/4 time). C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. The Irish collector Edward Bunting had the tune from the harper Denis Hempson (at Magilligan in 1796), who asserted it was an Irish melody learned from his first master (with variations in the octave above to signify a female voice speaking to a friar at confession, who replies in the lower octave); however, Bunting states in the introduction to his 1840 volume that the tune may not, in fact have originally been Irish, but that it was such a favorite with the old harpers and their audiences for so long and "the emphatic manner in which the fourth tone of the scale is used, seems to claim for it a high antiquity, and justifies the restoration of the air to its proper place among the melodies of Ireland." He records that variations were added by Lyons the harper in 1698. O'Sullivan finds the earliest reference to a variant of the tune printed in Bunting to be on an engraved single-sheet edition c. 1710, now in the British Museum. See also notes for Annotation:Lovely Lass to a Friar Came (1) (A) and for the "Annotation:Friar and the Nun (The)."
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Bunting (Ancient Music of Ireland), 1840; p. 104. O'Sullivan/Bunting, 1983; No. 142, pp. 198-199.
Recorded sources: