Old Hag, You Have Killed Me jig

This tune played in sessions in Bristol (UK). The version posted is unornamented, but here is an ornamented version from Norbeck’s collection:

FDD cAA|ded cAG|~A3 ABG|ABA A2G|
FDD cAA|ded cAF|~G3 GcA|1 GAG G2E:|2 GAG G2e||
|:~f3 gfg|afd cAG|~A3 ABG|ABA A2e|
~f3 gfg|afd cAF|~G3 GcA|1 GAG G2e:|2 GAG G2E||

Interestingly, all the “hag” jigs in thesession.org’s database are all in Dmix, and they all seem to have a similar style. Does anyone
have any background for this?

trevor

FDD cAA|ded cAG|(3AcA A ABG|(3AcA)A A2G|
F(3DDD cAA|ded cAF|(3GcG G GcA|1 GAG G2E:|2 GAG G2e||
|:~f3 gfg|(3agf d cAG|~A3 ABG|ABA A2e|
~f3 gfg|afd cAF|~G3 GcA|1 GAG G2e:|2 GAG G2E||


And do not forget to play these triplets as ****** tight as possible!

Urs

For quite a while I had been nagging my husband to edge around the flower beds. Finally, one day, I was learning a new fiddle tune (Old Hag, you have killed me), when I happened to notice my husband out doors, working away, edging the beds.

When he came in, all hot, sweaty and exhausted, I said, “I learned a new tune today, would you like to hear it?”

He said, “Sure”.

I played it and he said, “That’s nice, what’s the name of that tune?”

I said, “Old Hag, you are killing me”, and we both suddenly realized how funny it was that I would learn that tune, while he was outside working so hard.

Linda

I think I’m correct in saying that in old Irish culture a “hag” was an old woman with attributed witch-like powers, usually to the detriment of others - like making the milk go bad or the cow having a still-birth. Perhaps someone with more expert knowledge would like to confirm (or otherwise)?

From Breandan Breathnach’s collection,“Ceol Rince na hEireann vol. 2”.

David, we have to stop meeting like this! 🙂

I should apologize right up front because I really don’t mean to come off like the tune police, nor do I want this to look like some personal vendetta. In my defense, can I plead that I’d do the same no matter who was posting this tune? It’s just that David posts so many tunes and I check out every one of them….

But I do have several problems with this submission. First off, it’s just the notes copied from Breathnach’s book, with the ornaments stripped out. And there’s no added context in the form of comments about the poster’s playing of it. And not even the info from Breathnach’s book, such as that this setting was based on the playing of uillean piper Jack Wade (1913-1967) from Co. Meath. (Btw, Wade wrote down tunes as he learned them, and Breathnach used Wade’s manuscripts to include tunes in his own collection.)

Then I wonder if it shouldn’t just be an addendum to the comments under the Old Hag, You Have Killed Me, for it looks to me to be the same tune with just a different ending bar tagged on: https://thesession.org/tunes/1359

Oh, and if I _were_ going to nit pick ( :-| ) I’d raise the question of whether we’re in G major or D mix, but I won’t. (Oh what a pedantic bashtahd I can be….)

I agrree with the tune police

I posted a tune that wasn’t on the site.What is the problem?

Well, perhaps you posted a tune under a *title* that isn’t on this site, but it sounds to me like a different setting of Old Hag You Have Killed Me. In other words, a setting of the tune *is* already on the site.

Of course, this is just me being a royal pain in the keister (honestly, I don’t know what it is about your tunes David, that brings out the worst in me--I sincerely don’t mean to pick on you! I’ve enjoyed many of the tunes you’ve posted…I guess I should try to say something constructive about those….). And it’s up to Jeremy whether it stays as a distinct tune or gets lumped under the comments of the other tune (as sometimes happens when a setting is similar enough, regardless what name it’s known by). Frankly, I can’t figure out what criteria Jeremy uses to make those decisions anyway.

And sure, it’s nobody’s business if you want to post tunes out of a book here, but some of us (including Jeremy) weighed in on that practice a while ago and the general consensus was to try to discourage it. Exceptions made for filling a request for a specific tune, especially from a hard-to-find source, but the collective preference was for people to post tunes that they actually play rather than just repeating them from another written source. And for all I know, you play this as is, straight from the book--no problem.

I think is not a good idea to post tunes copied from a book.

https://thesession.org/tunes/2442

Just a few differences here…and interesting comments… Is there such a thing as a ‘smiley’ with horns?

Na Caoire… is yet another slightly different version (as far as the transcription goes) found in O’Neill’s 1001

Surely this tune’s in 12-8 time!

Classic Bothy Band http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgXwIIHAmaw

play video

Listening to “The Best of the Claddagh Years” I noticed that the track called “Away with Ye” is the tune of “Old Hag”. Anyone agree?

The first measure didn’t seem right. I listened to a few takes on this. I’m pretty sure it’s best as
FDD bcA

A Mix setting

@fidicen, I doubt you’ll see this since your post was from 12 years ago, but I was reading today a book by Oliver Sacks called “Hallucinations” and in one chapter he talks about sleep paralysis. (People’s bodies become immobilised when they enter REM -- dreaming -- sleep, but he says many people also experience this immobilisation as paralysis that occurs during the process of waking from sleep, sometimes accompanied by hallucinations and physical sensations of suffocation or pressure on the chest). He says:

“The ‘mare’ in ‘nightmare’ originally referred to a demonic woman who suffocated sleepers by lying on their chests (she was called ‘Old Hag’ in Newfoundland).”

When I read that I immediately thought of this tune and came here to check it out. I’ll bet that “Old Hag” is more widespread than just Newfoundland, and I’d wager that the Old Hag in the tune is a reference to this experience…..

https://youtu.be/0M6u6NEfyHA

play video

Here is playing this jig on the hammered dulcimer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J61OwXgTS9o

play video