Peacock Follow The Hen (slip jig) on The Session

Also known as Brose And Butter, Cuddle Me Cuddy, Here We Go Up, Up, Up, Mad Moll, The Peacock Followed The Hen, The Peacock Follows The Hen, Up And Down Again, Yellow Stockings.

Fifteen comments

Peacock Follow The Hen

This tune is English, or so I’ve always understood. I don’t know where I got it.

I believe it is of Northumbrian origin - at least, it appears in some old manuscripts of Northumbrian pipe tunes. A setting of it also appears (as The Peacock and the Hen) in O’Neills, however.

Peacock followed the hen

It most certainly is Northumbrian (and thats not the same as English) and its one of our oldest tunes.
It was widely played in the 18th century, so its origins are likely to be even older.
There are doggerel words to this which start "aal theneet ower and ower, aal the neet ower again" (in English,all the night,over and over, all the nightover again).You can guess the gist of the rest.
Noel Jackson
Angels of the North

A lot of places have laid claim to this tune but it is very much Northumbrian. Kathryn Tickell plays a long piper’s version with variations which appear in John Peacock’s "A Favourite Collection (of tunes with variations)" according to the inlay of "On Kielder Side". Nancy Kerr and James Fagan also do a "fiddlesinging" version of the Borders song "Gan to the Kye" set against the tune on their album "Steely Water".

…The Lydian feel to the B-part is mentioned in the discussion thread on Lydian, Phrygian and Locrian modes, Nov 2002. Also Noel, Aa’m shooah ye knaa fine weel that "aal the neet ower and ower" *is* the prop’a Queen’s English, and that your version in brackets is just some posh stuff like :-)

The Peacock Followed The Hen

I think there is a confusion over the title of this tune:

Both the tune printed here and the tune ‘The Peacock Follows the Hen’ appear in Katryn Tyckell’s ‘on Kielder side’ album, why not check them out?

More Geordie lyrics and music at:

http://www.geocities.com/matalzi/priests2.html
wher I ‘found’ this:
<<…Fragments of songs of similar
import still obtain and are heard occasionally, as—

By bairn’s a bonny bairn, a canny bairn, a bonny bairn,
My bairn’s a canny bairn, and never looks dowly;
My bairn’s a canny bairn, a canny bairn, a bonny bairn,
By bairn’s a bonny bairn, and not a yellow-yowley.

All the neet ower and ower,
And all the neet ower again:
All the neet ower and ower,
The peacock follows the hen.

A hen’s a hungry dish,
A goose is hollow within:
There’s no deceit in a pudding;
A pie’s a dainty thing. >>

“The Peacock Followed the Hen” ~ E Dorian

Kathryn’s TIckell’s version

This is a nice, less protracted and more biting take on the 9/4 version in A posted by Dr.Dow. She plays the first 4 parts twice slow before playing the 5th that she uses as a bridge to some fast jigs.

X: 1
T: The Peacok follows the Hen
M:9/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K:E dor
G2B G/F/E/F/G/E/ G/F/E/F/G/E/|G2B G/F/E/F/G/E/ F2D|
G2B G/F/E/F/G/E/ G/F/E/F/G/E/|F2A AdA F2D:||
G2B d/c/B/c/d/B/ d/c/B/c/d/B/|G2B d/c/B/c/d/B/ c2A|
G2B d/c/B/c/d/B/ GB/c/d/A/|F2A AdA F2D:||
G/F/G/A/B GEd GEd|G/F/G/A/B GEd F2D|
G/F/G/A/B GEd GEd|FDd FDd F2D:||
dGd EB/c/d/B/ dGB/e/|dGd EB/c/d/B/ A/G/F/E/D|
dGd EB/c/d/B/ dGB|c2A AdA F2D:||
G2B G/E/G/B/d/B/ G/E/G/B/d/B/|G2B G/E/G/B/d/B/ F2D|
G2B G/E/G/B/d/B/ G/E/G/B/d/B/|F/D/F/A/d/A/ F/d/F/A/d/A/ F2D:||

I like to follow this with: https://thesession.org/tunes/10841 which is in the same key but a little brighter in mood.
(Kathryn’s version is almost dark: she plays the whole tune in Gmin against the persistant G+D drones. My favourite set on On Kielder Side.)

Key

The sheet music version here is in G. The version in my book - Kennedy Slip Jigs and Walzes - is in C. The only difference being the F in the second part. It sounds out of place as a natural in the melody but fits with the chord which is given as a G7. Which is preferred Fsharp or Fnatural?

Another source

Just to add a bit more to the rich history of this tune already noted — it appears as tune #101 in Petrie’s "Complete Irish Music" under the title "Here we go up, up, up", with the added note that it is called "Mad Moll" in the 17th Edition of the Dancing Master 1721.

Arthur O Bradley / the Full English

this is the tune used for the verses of Arthur O’Bradley, by the full English - winner of the BBC2 folk awards 2014 for best album
video here http://www.bbc.co.uk/events/e24mxj
loves it !

early settings of mad moll

it does, of course, appear in Playford’s 1698 edition, as Mad Moll. Recognisable as the same tune posted.
http://www.izaak.unh.edu/nhltmd/indexes/dancingmaster/

Peacock Follow The Hen slip jig

Four settings

Fifteen comments