Annotation:Geld Him Lasses
GELD HIM LASSES (GELD HIM). AKA and see "Clerk's Hornpipe," "Chalk's Hornpipe," "Punchinello's Hornpipe," "Rusty Gulley (1)." Scottish, English; 'Old' or Triple Hornpipe (3/2 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCCDDEEFF. The tune with the title "Geld Him Lasses" was published in the mid-18th century, in the relatively less strict times between the reformation and Victorian eras. It appears in the (James) Gillespie Manuscript of Perth (1768), and in Book 6 of cellist-composer wikipedia:James_Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion (Oswald must have liked the title: A different tune by the same title appears several times in James Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion (1760)). However, the tune was old in Oswald's time, for it was printed as "Chalk's Hornpipe" in London music publisher John Young's Second Volume of the Dancing Master, 3rd edition (1718).
David Herd & Hans Hecht (Songs from David Herd's Manuscripts, 1904, p. 182) print a fragment of the once popular song:
There came a fidler out of France,
I wat nae giff ye kend him, ....('know not if'...)
And he yon wi' our good wife:
Geld him, lasses, geld him!
