Lyr Req: The Mill, Mill-O

Subject: The Mill, Mill-O
From: Jim Krasue
Date: 28 Apr 98 - 05:15 PM

I found this tune in Robert Bremner's "Guitar Instruction" of 1758. Samuel Bayard refers to it as a parent tune to "Merrily Danced the Quaker," a fiddle tune he collected in Pennsylvania. He indicated that the Mill-O tune was quite popular in the 18th century, and had many sets of words composed for it. Does anyone have any?

Subject: RE: The Mill, Mill-O
From: Bruce O.
Date: 28 Apr 98 - 05:51 PM

The bawdier version starts "As I came down yon water side", (Merry Muses of Caledonia) and the better known other, "Beneath a green shade". The latter is called "Peggy's Mill" on single sheet songs with music and with music in Walsh's 'British Musical Miscellany', I, p. 99, n.d. [1734]. Tune under this title is in Gay's 'Polly'. For a little over a dozen copies of the tune, some with the text, as "The Mill, Mill, O", see the Scots tunes index on my website. www.erols.com/olsonw

Subject: RE: The Mill, Mill-O
From: Bruce O.
Date: 28 Apr 98 - 06:04 PM

The version starting "Beneath a green shade I found a fair maid" is said to be by Allan Ramsay and in TTM, (I), 1723/4. The tune is said to be older, 1709, but the manscript (Crockat MS)it was said to be in has disappeared. Robert Burns' "The Soldier's Return" is to the tune.

Subject: RE: The Mill, Mill-O
From: sodshanty
Date: 01 May 98 - 12:37 PM

Bruce, I couldn't find your website. Did I type in the URL correctly? I thought it was www.erols.com/oslonw

Subject: RE: The Mill, Mill-O
From: Bruce O
Date: 01 May 98 - 12:39 PM

Close, but software usually can't correct even trivial errors. www.erols.com/olsonw.