Annotation:I Saw My Love Come Passing By Me

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I SAW MY LOVE COME PASS(ING) ME BY. AKA - "Duchess of Northumberland's Delight." English, Reel. England, Northumberland. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (Stokoe): AABBBCC (Raven): AABBCCDDEEFF (Peacock). "This tune has at some remote period been used for a song, of which now only a fragment in known—

I saw my love come passing by me,
But shame to the hade, she ne'er cam' nigh me.

In some very old copies it is marked as the 'Duchess of Northumberland's Delight'--an allusion, probably, to Elizabeth, the first Duchess, who (with her husband) by her patronage and support greatly encouraged the use of the pipes in the country" (Bruce & Stokoe).

Matt Seattle finds an ancestral tune in an older Scottish melody called "Put on Your Sark on Monday" (there are various spellings), which can be found in lute manuscripts. He says, "A clear continuity of musical development can be traced through the most significant local versions in the William Dixon manuscript (1733), Peacock's Tunes (c. 1800) and here in the Clough collection (early 20th century)" [1]. Scottish versions can also be found as "Drunken Wives of Carlisle (The)" and "Gi'e the Mawking mair o't."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Peacock (Peacock’s Tunes), c. 1805; No. 23, p. 8. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 183. Bruce & Stokoe (Northumbrian Minstrelsy), 1882; p. 147.

Recorded sources:

See also listing at:
See Tom Clough's pipe transcription at the FARNE Archive [2]