Annotation:Coutie's Wedding

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COUTIE'S WEDDING. AKA - "Cutty's Wedding." AKA and see "Cuttie's Wedding." Scottish, Strathspey. A Aeolian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Surenne): AAB (Gow, McGlashan, Riley, Stewart-Robertson): AABB' (Kerr). Cuttie is Scots for 'shorty', supposedly the nickname of the bridegroom, a local fisherman in the parish of St. Fergus, Drumlithie, Scotland. His wedding was around the year 1770 and was a penny (or "siller") affair, and this tune was composed for it, according to collector Peter Buchan (1790-1854), writing in his Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland (1828). Words to the melody, printed by Buchan, go:

Busk and go, busk and go,
Busk and go tae Cuttie's wedding;
Fa's the lassie and the lad,
That widnae gang if they were bidden.

Cuttie he's a lang man,
o he'll tak' hissel' a wife;
Gin he tak's on tae the toonlan',
Gin she takes on her fikie-fikie.

Cuttie he cam' here yestreen,
Cuttie he fell o'er the midden;
He wat his hose an' tine his sheen,
Courtin' at a cankered maiden.

Additional notes

Printed sources : - Carlin (The Gow Collection), 1986; No. 33. Gow (First Collection of Niel Gow's Reels), 1784 (revised 1801); p. 11. Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 3), c. 1880'a; No. 143, p. 17. McGlashan (A Collection of Reels), c. 1786; p. 22 (appears as "Cutty's Wedding"). Edward Riley (Riley's Flute Melodies vol. 1), New York, 1814; No. 158, p. 41 (appears as "A Scotch Air"). Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; p. 57. Surenne (Dance Music of Scotland), 1852; pp. 90-91.

Recorded sources : - Springthyme Records, Iain McLachlan - "An Island Heritage" (1998).

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