The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #172643   Message #4180238
Posted By: Robert B. Waltz
29-Aug-23 - 10:49 AM
Thread Name: Tune Req: The original tune of Willy o' Winsbury?
Subject: RE: Tune Req: The original tune of Willy o' Winsbury?
KarenJoyce wrote: It is credited to "Miss M. Macmath", sister to William Macmath, one of the Scottish collectors who provided many ballads to Child.

To be cranky in my own defense :-), there is no reason to think this the original tune; it's merely the one Child knew and printed. :-) Bronson in fact prints it dead last, at #22 -- which implies a certain amount of doubt. Bronson lists it as being in the Macmath MS "Learned September 13, 1886, from his aunt, Miss Jane Webster, who learned it 50 years earlier in Kirkudbrightshire, from the singing of Samuel Galloway."

It is one of Bronson's "D" complex, though, so it is a member of an attested tune family. It's certainly a traditional tune. It's just that there are other traditional tunes.

Frequently the use of the "Fause Foodrage" tune in modern times is credited to Andy Irvine.

This I had not known. Thank you!