Annotation:Month of May (1) (The)

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MONTH OF MAY [1], THE. AKA and see "Merry Month of May (The)." English, Jig and Morris Dance Tune (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Bacon-Brackley): AABB (Raven): AA'BB (Callaghan): AABCBCB (Bacon-Field Town). The tune was collected in the Cotswold villages of Field Town (Leafield, Oxfordshire) and Brackley (Northamptonshire). Versions of the melody can also be found in the music manuscript copybook of Michael Turner (1796-1885), for fifty years a Parish Clerk, Sexton and choir leader of a church in Warnham, Sussex. His gravestone reads:

His duty done, beneath this stone
Old Michael lies at rest
His rustic rig, his song, his jig
Were ever of the best.
With nodding head the choir he led
That none should start too soon,
The second he sang full true
His viol played the tune
And when at last his age had passed
One hundred-less eleven,
With faithful cling to fiddle string
He sang himself to heaven.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Bacon (The Morris Ring), 1974; pp. 100 & 164. Callaghan (Hardcore English), 2007; p. 61. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 125. Townsend (English Dance Music, vol. 1), 1993.

Recorded sources: