Annotation:Mylecharaine's March
X: 1 T: Mylecharaine's R: march M: 3/4 L: 1/8 K: Dmaj d>c|d2 A2 d>c|d2 A2 d>c|d2 A>G (3FED|E2 D2 (3def|g2 f2 e2| d2c2 d2|e2 e>f g>f|e3 d c>d|e2 a2 g2|f2 e2 d>c| d2 A>G (3FED|E4 F>G|A2 G>F E>D|E2 d2 c2|(d6|d4):| |:(3ABc|d>c d>e (3fed|ed ef (3gfe|d>c d>e (3fed|e>c A2 c>d| e2 a2 g2|f2 e2 d>c|d2 A>G (3FED|E4 F>G|A2 G>F E>D|E2 d2 c2|(d6|d4):|
MYLECHARAINE'S MARCH. AKA - "Cutting off the Fiddler's Head." English, Air and March (3/4 time). England, Isle of Man. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). "Mylecharaine's March" is a version of the song "Mylecharaine"[1] which has been called the 'Manx national anthem,' and is the islands best-known traditional air, collected as early as 1771[2]. It was known by all Manx people at the end of the 19th century and was very popular during the Victorian period; numerous versions were collected in both minor and major tonality with a number of melodic variants. W. H. Gill composed modern words to it in 1896[3], and another set of words (Manx National Anthem) still sung today in the island's schools. The original words[4]of the call-and-response song tell of a daughter and her miserly father, who got his store of wealth from “in the Curragh, deep, deep enough”. It carries the refrain after every line, “My-lomarcan daag oo mee” / “Alone you left me”. Broadwood and Gilchrist write:
The meaning is somewhat obscure, but the miser, who has a hoard, seems to reproach his daughter for leaving him (unless the refrain is merely imported from another ballad) and she to reproach him for his beggarly attire. As the first man in the Island to provide his daughter with a dowry, a sevenfold curse is laid upon him by somebody (there is perhaps a third speaker), and another curse on each man that rears a daughter.
An instrumental version of the song air "Mylechariane" was used for a stick dance on the island, traditionally performed during the Yule season (danced by males on January 6th). A ritual death was also part of the yearly festivities:
There is not a barn unoccupied the whole twelve days, every parish hiring fiddlers at the public charge; and all the youth, nay, sometimes people well advanced in years making no scruple to be among these nocturnal dancers. At this time there never fails of some work being made for Kirk Jarmyns; so many young fellows and girls meeting in these diversions, nature too often prompts them to more close celebrations of the festival, than those the barn allows; and many a hedge has been witness of endearments, which fear of punishment has afterwards made both forswear at the holy altar in purgation. An Twelfth-day the fiddler lays his head in some one of the wenches laps, and a third person asks, who such a maid, or such a maid shall marry, naming the girls then present one after another; to which he answers according to his own whim, or agreeable to the intimacies he has taken notice of during this time of merriment. But whatever he says is as absolutely depended on as an oracle, and if he happens to couple two people, who have an aversion to each other, tears and vexation succeed the mirth. This, they call, cutting off the Fiddlers head ; for after this, he is dead for the whole year.
This custom still continues in every parish, and if any young lad or lass was denyed the privilege of doing whatever came into their heads, they would look on themselves as infinitely injured. This time is indeed their carnival, and they take, and are allowed more liberties, than methinks is consonant with their strictness in other cases. ["A Description of the Isle of Man", G. Waldron, 1731, pp. 40-53].
