Annotation:Old Woman Tossed Up in a Blanket (4)
X:1 T:There was an Old Woman Toss’d up in a Blanket T:Old Woman Tossed Up in a Blanket [4] M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Jig Q:"Moderately Quick" B:R.M. Levey – First Collection of the Dance Music of Ireland (1858, No. 11, p. 5) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:A E|AcB Bce|fec {c}B2A|AcB c2B|BAA A2E| AcB Bce|fec {c}B2A|AcB c2B|BAA A2|| e|{g}fea {g}fea|{g}fea fec|(ec)f (ec)f|ecA B2e| (af)f (ge)e|(fe)c (B2A)|AcB c2B|BAA A2||
OLD WOMAN TOSSED UP IN A BLANKET [4], THE (An Swanbean Caitgte Suas Annsa Suisin). AKA - "There was an Old Woman Toss’d up in a Blanket." Irish, Jig. A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The tune was published by John Gay in his The Beggar's Opera (1729) and is a variant of "Montrose's March" (also known as "Scottish March (1) (The)"), published by Playford. The title is derived from a nursery rhyme beginning:
There was an old woman tossed up in a blanket (basket)
Seventy times as high as the moon (or "Seventeen times as high as the sky").
There was an old woman toss'd up in a basket
Nineteen times as high as the moon;
Where she was going I couldn't but ask it,
For in her hand she carried a broom.
Old woman, old woman, old woman, quoth I,
O whither, O whither, O whither, so high?
To brush the cobwebs off the sky!
Shall I go with thee? Aye, by and by.
O’Neill published the tune as simply a 'piece' in his Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody (1922, No./p. 93) along with the above words which he remembered from his youth in Munster. The English collector Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Time, 571) states that these words were “a well-known nursery rhyme” and were sung to the tune of “Lillibulero.”
"Old Woman Tossed Up in a Blanket (4)" is related to the morris dance tunes of the same name. See also the related "Páinneach na nUbh (1) (Basket of Eggs (The))/"O'Sullivan's March (2)" family of tunes in Ireland, and "Rock and a Wee Pickle Tow (A)" in Britain. The earliest Irish printing of the melody is in R.M. Levey's Dance Music of Ireland (London, 1858).
