Annotation:Contentment is Wealth (1)
CONTENTMENT IS WEALTH [1] ("Is Ionmus an Sagarlacd" or "Is Saidbreas an Sastacd). AKA and see "Golden Keyboard (2)." Irish, Double Jig (6/8 time). A Dorian (O'Neill): E Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCC. "Contentment is Wealth" is a title applied to several jigs that share the first strain; second strains differ. Samuel Bayard identified this tune as an offshoot of the old jig "Lumps of Pudding (2)/Lumps of Puddings (2)." As to the title, the Scots national poet Robert Burns wrote a song to the air called "Contented Wi' Little," which expresses a similar sentiment, although the title is probably taken from an old adage. Bruce Olson believes it may have derived from a line in the second verso of the song "(Come) haste to the wedding (ye friends and ye neighbors)," which goes:
We boast of no wealth but contentment and health,
The melody has been a favorite jig at Irish sessions in New York (where it is played in E Minor) and was recorded by fiddler Hugh Gillespie in the 1930's.
Father John Quinn finds certain settings of "Contentment is Wealth" to be quite similar to "Molloy's Jig," and suggests the latter may be a derivation of the former, although considered a separate tune. "It is as if 'Molloy’s Jig' developed from 'Contentment is Wealth'," he writes, "by occasional octave jumping, which perhaps happened on a flute."
