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Annotation:Grass Widow Hornpipe

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Sheet Music for "The Grass Widow Hornpipe"The Grass Widow HornpipeHornpipe12Book: A.S. Bowman – “J.W. Pepper Collection of Five Hundred Reels, Jigs,etc.” (Phila., 1908, No. 103, p. 23)Transcription: AK/Fiddler’s Companion



GRASS WIDOW HORNPIPE. American, Hornpipe (2/4 time). A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB'. A woman is called a grass widow whose husband had to leave home (for example, obliged to work far away from his family), alternatively, she may be a divorced woman or a woman living apart from her husband. The J.W. Pepper collection appears to be a collection of variety and minstrel stage dance tunes, and, if so, it may be a reference to the spouse of a touring performer. The term "straw widow" is used in Europe.

Anatoly Liberman[1] cites Thomas Ratcliffe's explanation in Notes and Queries in 1884:

He said that if a man had to work for months on end at a long distance from home and his wife’s conduct “was not circumspect enough,” she was said “to be ‘out at grass’; and when her behavior was such that her next-door neighbors could not any longer bear it, a besom, mop, or broom was put outside the front door, and reared against the house wall.


Additional notes



Printed sources : - A.S. Bowman (J.W. Pepper Collection of Five Hundred Reels, Jigs, etc.), Phila., 1908; No. 103, p. 23.






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  1. Anatoly Liberman, Blog: Oxford Etymologist, Feb. 18th 2009 [1]
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