Annotation:Bob of Fettercairn (The)
BOB OF FETTERCAIRN, THE. AKA - "Fettercairn Reel." AKA and see "'Bhean an gab thu Fidhler," "Braw Lads o' Jethart," "Braes of Fettercairnie (The)," "Braw Lads of Jedburgh," "Come Kiss with Me/Come Clap with Me," "Cow the Lasses Bare Man," "Fettercairn Reel (The)," "Had I the Wight," "Highland Hills," "I'll Kiss the Lass," "I'll Kiss the Lass She Bad Me," "I'll Kiss the Wife," "She Bad Me," "She Bade Me," "Kail and Knockit Corn" (Shetland), "Mrs. Reneau's Reel" (Canada), "Newburn Lads/Newburn Lasses," "Will you have a Fiddler." Scottish (orig.), Canadian; Reel. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB: AABBCCDDEEFFGGHH (Young). Fettercairn, Aberdeenshire, is a village north of Brechin approached by a wooded valley along which MacBeth is believed to have retreated after his defeat at Dunsinane. It was the site of Kincardine Castle, whose history goes back to the 10th century. A turreted arch commemorating the 1861 visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert survives at the entrance to the village. A bob in Scottish dialect has several meanings, including a tassell or a patch of grass or a plot of grain, a slight blow, the best-dressed lad or lass; or, as in the context of the title "Bob of Fettercairn", a dance [1]. Alexander Laing used the term in this context in his Wayside Flowers (1878) in the verse "Willy's Weddin'" (no 113)
Hey! the rant o' Tullibardine,
Hey! the jig o' Ballangeich,
Hey! the bob o' Fettercairn;
Hey! the kindly come-agen.
The tune is often played in Scotland in a medley with "Caber Feidh/Caper Fey." See "Highland Hills" for an early version of the melody, printed in the [James] Gillespie Manuscript of Perth (1768). However, one of the earliest versions of "Bob of Fettercairn" is contained in Edinburgh writing master and amateur violinist David Young's MacFarlane Manuscript, Part 2 (c. 1740, No. 204, p. 242). Still earlier, a version of the reel can be found as "Fettercairn Reel (The)" in Young's Drummond Castle Manuscript Part 2 (1734, No. 13).
London music publisher David Rutherford printed a very close version of the tune in his Rutherford's Complete Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol. 2 (c. 1775, p. 74) under the title "Cow the Lasses Bare Man." In Northumberland the tune has been embroidered with arpeggi and re-titled Newburn Lads
Multi-instrumentalist John Rook (Waverton, Cumbria) entered it into his large 1840 music manuscript collection as "Braes of Fettercairnie (The)." In North America, variants can be found in Quebec fiddler Joseph Allard's "Reel de Madame Renault"/Madame Renaud
"Mrs. Reneau's Reel," and the eastern Kentucky old-time tune "Dr. Humprey's Jig/Humphrey's Jig (1)
(in the repertoires of Jilson Setters {J.W. Day} and Ed Hayley, among others). See also the related Cape Breton reel "Beul Iosait," and the Scottish "A' bean an gabh thu fidhleir" (Woman take you the fiddler). Great Highland bagpipers sometimes play a four-part strathspey version of the tune.
See note for "Newburn Lads" for more.
