Annotation:Haud the Lass Till I Come at Her
X:1 T:Had the Lass till I win at her M:C| L:1/8 B:David Young – “A Collection of Scotch Airs with the latest Variations” (AKA - The B:McFarlane Manuscript (c. 1741, No. 23, p. 48) F:https://rmacd.com/music/macfarlane-manuscript/collection/pdfs/had_the_lass_lill_i_win_at_her.pdf N:The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland K:Amix Aeeg fdec|Aeec dG B/c/d/B/|Aeeg fdef|g>edg BGdB:| |:Aa f/g/a fdec|Aa f/g/a dGdB|Aa f/g/a f>d ef|g>e dg BGdB:|
HAUD THE LASS TILL I COME AT HER. AKA and see "Lads of Boot." AKA - "Had the Lass Till I Win at Her," "Hold the Bonny Lass," "Hod the Lass," "Hod the Lass While I Run at Her," "Ha'd the Lass Till I Win at Her," "Lads of Boot," "Lady Susan Stewart's Reel," "Miss Victoria Ross." Scottish, English; Reel. A Mixolydian (Bremner, Kennedy, Kerr): A Dorian (Vickers). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The title means "Hold the lass while I get on her," ostensibly a direction given before attempting to mount a horse (mare). It was a paper thin double-meaning, however, and the title's sexual content would not have been lost on anyone in the mid-18th century, according to David Johnson. John Glen (1891) finds the earliest printing of the tune in Robert Bremner's 1757 collection, and it also appears in manuscript form in Scottish fiddler and writing master David Young's MacFarlane Manuscript (c. 1741, No. 23, p. 48) and in James Gillespie Manuscript of Perth (1768). However, the tune was published in London in the 1750's under several titles: by John Walsh as "Lady Susan Stewart's Reel," John Johnson as "Lads of Boot," and David Rutherford as "Had the Lass till I win at her," the latter title having the most popularity and longevity.
The melody and title were also was entered into the music manuscript copybooks of the Browne family of Troutbeck, in the old county of Westmoreland (now Cumbria), Lake District, north west England. The early 19th century manuscripts were the work of several people and were collected ultimately from the Browne family before being deposited in the Armitt Library (now the Armitt Collection in Ambleside Museum, Cumbria). The reel and title also can be found in the large 1770 music manuscript collection of Northumbrian musician William Vickers, about whom little is known.
"Miss Victoria Ross" is a pipe-strathspey setting of the tune published by Pipe Major William Ross in his 1885 collection (No. 305, p. 210).
Matt Seattle (2008) notes that Irish reels "Tie the Bonnet" and the "Janet Tyed the Bonnet"/"Jenny Tie Your Bonnet" tune family has points of similarity in the first strain, although the second strains differ.
