The Scartaglen polka

I’ve heard this tune in various places, one of which is on The Chieftains’ second album. The entire tune bears a strong resemblence to If I Had Maggie in the Wood, particularly parts A and B, which are almost identical to those of the former. In fact, if you play both tunes together in a set, it hardly sounds like you’ve changed from one tune to another at all. I’m not exactly sure whether Maggie is a variant of The Scartaglen or if The Scartaglen is a variant of Maggie, and I think it’s rather hard to tell anyway, so I’ll just leave it at that.

A great tune Tommy, and one which I play a lot myself on mandolin. As for ornamentation, I tend to add this in the C part of the tune. Where you have the A G A B B A bit, try adding some tremolo. It sounds great. At the end, I usually finish on a single strum of a G chord, which tops it off nicely.

M: 2/4
L: 1/8
R: polka
K: G Major
|: D |
G2 GA | Bd de/f/ | gB B/A/G/A/ | BA AB/A/ |
G2 GA | Bd de/f/ | gB AB | G2 G :|
|: A |
Bd ga/g/ | fe e/f/g/e/ | dB B/A/G/A/ | BA AG/A/ |
Bd ga/g/ | fe e/f/g/e/ | dB AB/A/ | G2 G :|
|: B/d/ |
gf/g/ ag/a/ | b2 ba | gf/g/ ag/a/ | b2 ba |
gf e/f/g/e/ | dB g>e | dB AB/A/ | G2 G :||

Submitted on July 24th 2006 by Ptarmigan.

~ transcription by Ptarmigan
from “The Ballydesmond Polka” by Dan Herlihy & John Drew
track 8, tune 2 of 3…

This is the title for a tune an exact copy of this one in every detail ~ but minus the third part…

X: 2
T: The Knocknaboul No. 1
S: from “The Ballydesmond Polka” by Dan Herlihy & John Drew, track 8, tune 2 of 3
Z: Ptarmigan, Dick Glasgow
M: 2/4
L: 1/8
R: polka
K: G Major
|: D |\
G2 GA | Bd de/f/ | gB B/A/G/A/ | BA AB/A/ |
G2 GA | Bd de/f/ | gB AB | G2 G :|
|: A |\
Bd ga/g/ | fe e/f/g/e/ | dB B/A/G/A/ | BA AG/A/ |
Bd ga/g/ | fe e/f/g/e/ | dB AB/A/ | G2 G :|
|: B/d/ |\
gf/g/ ag/a/ | b2 ba | gf/g/ ag/a/ | b2 ba |
gf e/f/g/e/ | dB g>e | dB AB/A/ | G2 G :|

Submitted on July 24th 2006 by Ptarmigan.

I love this tune; but when I was picking it out lazily and slowly one night I noticed parts 2 and 3 are identical to that used for the well known Scots song ‘Annie Laurie’. I have no idea how that came about, but I’d love to know. Was it originally a Scots or an Irish tune? Where did it start its travels?

That’s amazing - I’ve played both tunes for decades, and never noticed… I’m fair dumfounert!

The air was added to an existing poem in about 1835 by Lady Alicia Scott of Spottiswoode, near Lauder. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alicia_Ann_Spottiswoode) She was a great collector and improver of folksong, and she may well have hear the melody sung in the Borders.

X:4 and X:5 loosely based on the 1950s recordings by Denis Murphy, Julia Clifford, Padraig O’Keefe - when two or ore fiddles available it seemed to be the practice to play in octaves where the tunes allowed for this

Nigel Gatherer in his “Musical Journeys” also mentions the startling resemblance of the last 2 parts of this tune to “Annie Laurie”. Nigel, did you pick that up from here, or was this a coincidence? I happen to love this third part and I think it works magnificently as a polka.

Regarding “Maggie in the Wood”, I originally thought that a variant of the first part of that tune was added to this one because of the resemblances of the second parts. Upon further reflection, though, I’d say it’s more likely that “Maggie” was a variant of this three-part tune from which the third part was removed, that then acquired a life of its own and to which the provenance from “Annie Laurie” was somewhat obfuscated, as a consequence of subtle changes in the melody. However, it’s made more complicated by the fact that Alan Ng’s oldest source for “Maggie” is from 1914, while the oldest for “The Scartaglen” is from 1952.

Others’ thoughts on this?

From the playing of Ceól.

Indeed it is a good rousing tune for a chilly afternoon, very attractive.