Annotation:Come Hap Me with Thy Petticoat

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COME HAP ME WITH THY PETTICOAT. Scottish, English; Air or Reel. England, Yorkshire. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The first printing of this old Scottish song appears to be in Allan Ramsay's Orpheus Caledonius (London, 1725). Stenhouse, in notes to the Scots Musical Museum, where "Come Hap Me with Thy Petticoat" appears as Air CXXXIX (No. 139), criticizes versions that "are so modernized as scarce to have a trace of (the tune's) ancient simplicity"; it was originally a lullaby, he notes, The song was written by Ramsay to an older tune called "O Bell, thy looks have kill'd my heart", and Stenhouse says "it is certainly the most stupid song Ramsay ever wrote. To work the silly burden of a nurse's lullaby to her infant, into a grave song for a full-grown lover, seems really too absurd..."

I'll hap ye wi' my petticoat,
My ain kind dow,
I'll hap ye wi' my petticoat
My ain kind dow.
The wind blaws cauld, my claithing's thin,
O dearie, on me rue,
And hap me wi' my petticoat,
My ain kind dow.

Source for notated version: a MS collection by fiddler Lawrence Leadley, 1827-1897 (Helperby, Yorkshire) [Merryweather & Seattle].

Printed sources: Aird (Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 1), 1782; No. 187, p. 65. McGibbon (Scots Tunes, book II), c. 1746; p. 42. McGlashan (Collection of Scots Measures), 177?; p. 9. Merryweather & Seattle (The Fiddler of Helperby), 1994; No. 121, p. 64.

Recorded sources:

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