Annotation:Silken Wallet (The)

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X:1 T:The Silken Wallet M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Jig B:O'Neill's Music of Ireland. 1850 Melodies, 1903, p. 165, no. 891 Z:François-Emmanuel de Wasseige K:Em c|BGE EFE|AFD DED|BGE GAB|c3 B2A| BGE EFE|AFD DED|E2c BcA|G3 G2:| |:D|G>AG (G<B)d|(e<g)e dBG|G>AG GBd|e2f Tg3| [1 G>AG GBd|ege dBG|AGE EDE|c2B A2:| [2 agf gfe|fed edB|cBA BAG|E2F G2|]

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SILKEN WALLET, THE (An tiac sioda). AKA and see "Brown Wallet," "An Sioda Ata id' Bhalluit, a Bhuachaill?" (Is It Silk that's in Your Bag My Boy?), "Cheer Up Old Hag," “Silk in the Bag,” "Wallet of Silk (The)." Irish, Double Jig (6/8 time). E Minor ('A' part) & G Major ('B' part). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB'. Bayard (1981) identifies this as a variant of "Over the River to Charlie" (Bayard's No. 555). The title is one English rendering of "An Sioda Ata id' Bhalluit, a Bhuachaill" (Is It Silk that's in Your Bag My Boy?), with the English title printed by R.M. Levey, the music of which O'Neill seems to have substantially copied (albeit with an altered version of the English title. O'Daly (Poets and Poetry of Munster) has a song setting with the Irish title.

Paul de Grae finds that Canon James Goodman (1828-1896) has a "broadly similar setting" in his mid-19th century music manuscript collection under the title "Síoda 'thá ad Bhalluit? (An)", and also notes that George Petrie [1] (1790–1866) collected five variants: "Cheer Up Old Hag," "Blow old woman and be merry," "Ga mea Sora" and two settings of "Bídhean tú i bhfad a-muig." Two more, notes de Grae, were printed by Charles Villiers Stanford in his 1905 grand collection of Petrie's music, as "Humors of Kilkenny" and "Your bag is handsome my boy."

See also the slide “Is your wallet made of silk?”