Maid At The Spinning Wheel: A Song History

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"The Maid at the Spinning Wheel" is an Irish double jig in G major; settings run from two to four parts, and the Traditional Tune Archive notes that the fourth is often dropped as awkward.[1] Few jigs carry as many names: besides the Irish "Cailleach an Túirne," it has been called "Tune the Fiddle," "Nora's Purse" and "The Wild Irishman," among others.[1][2] According to the Archive, Brendan Breathnach traced the melody to the third volume of David Rutherford's country-dance collection of 1756, where it was titled "The Wild Irishman," and James Aird printed it in Glasgow around 1782 as "Norickystie."[1] Edward Bunting's 1840 collection gives it as "Norah with the Purse," which the Archive calls a translation of Aird's title.[1][3] The Archive also connects the jig with the air "Norah Kista," to which Thomas Moore set his song "Wreathe the Bowl" in his Irish Melodies.[1][3][4]

Wooden spinning wheel with a large wheel and a distaff of fiber

Spinning Wheel, American, maple and oak, 1700s. A spinning wheel, shown for the tune's title; it is not Irish and has no connection to the tune.

Francis O'Neill printed versions in the early twentieth century, among them one titled "Kiss Me Darling" in 1903 and the jig's first two parts in The Dance Music of Ireland in 1907.[1] Notes in the Comhaltas archive say the Aughrim Slopes Céilí Band of East Galway recorded it in 1937 together with Gorman's reel and the jig "Henchy's Delight," under the title "Lanigan's Fancy," and that the Meath fiddler Frank O'Higgins (1891–1975) recorded a four-part version around the same time.[5] Irishtune.info dates O'Higgins's recording to 1938 and lists later ones by Jack and Charlie Coen, Brendan Mulvihill, Eileen Ivers, the Kilfenora Céilí Band and Danú, as well as printings in session collections such as Dave Mallinson's 100 Enduring Irish Session Tunes.[2]

The jig appears in Mark Gilston's Irish Tunes For Dulcimer, Volume 1, a 52-page download that also comes with every tune as a separate file, and the first volume of a pair devoted to Irish melodies.[6]

Our book that contains the song "Maid At The Spinning Wheel"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Maid at the Spinning Wheel (The)".
  2. Irishtune.info: "Maid at the Spinning Wheel".
  3. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Noran Kista".
  4. Library Ireland: "Wreathe the Bowl (2). Air: Norah Kista" (Moore's Irish Melodies).
  5. Comhaltas Archive: "The Maid at the Spinning Wheel".
  6. Mark Gilston: "Irish Tunes For Dulcimer, Volume 1".
  7. Image: Spinning Wheel, American, maple and oak, 1700s. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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