Author Topic: Add: The Maid of the Mill


dmcg

Posted - 08 Nov 03 - 06:36 pm

The maid of the mill is a sweet pretty girl,
The maid of the mill for me!
The maid of the mill is a sweet pretty girl,
The maid of the mill for me!
She's as straight and as tall as a poplar tree,
And her cheeks are as red as a rose;
She's one of the fairest young girls that you see,
When she's dressed in her Sunday clothes.




Source: Journal of the English Folk Dance Society, 1931


Notes:

This appears in the Journal of the English Folk Dance Society, 1931, in an article by Anne G Gilchrist entitled "A Pipe-and-tabor morris-tune: The Maid of the Mill."

She expalins "The above gay little morris-tune - quite different from other tunes known by the same title, and also used for morris- and country-dancing, was noted by Frank Kidson in 1901, from an old pipe and tabor player near Oxford, and was sent to me at the time."

Database entry is here.



Edited By dmcg - 10-Nov-2003 09:21:23 AM




Mr Happy

Posted - 10 Nov 03 - 09:02 am

In my former life, I was a morris dancer with Erleseye Morris, based in Chester.

Sadly, the side disbanded due to lack of new members.

The tune 'Maid of the Mill' was one of many we danced to, & I can never forget how dizzy I used to get because of the dance's requirement to perform a series of twirls during the choruses.

The tune's a great one & I frequently include it in my melodeon repertoire.

Never realised it was a song as well,however the given verse doesn't scan very well to the tune I know [but there again - as noted above- there's a number of tunes with this title]

Anyway DMCG thanks for adding it- brought back some happy memories or me of those 'halcyon' dancing days!



And her cheeks are as read as a rose




dmcg

Posted - 10 Nov 03 - 09:33 am

Thanks for the correction. The tune I normally think of for 'Maid of the Mill' is quite different to this one, appears on battle of the Field with words very like those above and was also used for the song 'Bury New Loom'.




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