Annotation:Giles Scroggins
GILES SCROGGINS. AKA - "Giles Scroggins' Ghost." English, Air (2/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. "Giles Scroggins Ghost" was a popular comic song made famous in Britain and North America by the stage performances of William Twaits (c. 1781-1814). The song was the product of the pen of Charles Dibdin Jr. (1768-1833), who wrote lyrics set to music by William Reeve (1757-1815), an English composer; the pair often collaborated on works for the theater. Charles Dickens opens his Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain (1848) with a reference to this song: “‘But that’s no rule,’ as the ghost of Giles Scroggins says in the ballad.” The song was printed in 19th century songsters and similar collections, and also survived in oral tradition. Versions were entered into the music manuscript collections of John Rook (Waverton, Cumbria, 1840) and, in America, Thomas Cushing (c. 1805).
