Jack’s Maggot barndance

A Playford tune, used for the dance of that name. Submitted in the “barndance” category, for want of a better home.

“Maggot” in this instance is not one of those wee beasties so beloved by anglers for use as bait, but a type of 17th century dance.

It’s a delightful air, and useful for other dances as well -especiallly if played briskly.

aren’t the Playfords great? There is so much room in them. Like the best Indian recipes, they give you just enough information to get the main idea and you season to taste…

Anybody like to fill me in on the meaning of a “Playford” ??
Nice tune and it’s so nice to learn something new.
Peter

John Playford has become the most famous of the dancing masters to work in Great Britain and Ireland from the reign of Elizabeth through to the eighteenth century; this fame due to his collection of tunes and dances which was first printed in 1651 and has been reprinted and expanded ever since, both by Playford himself and later editors. It has become the habit of calling dances from his collection ‘Playford’ dances, whether or not he created them; a habit as daft as calling the ballads Child collectedas Child Ballads, or the stories that the Grimms collected as Grimm’s Fairy Tales, as if they were responsible for their composition - an old hobby-horse of mine, sorry.

A bit off topic, but I agree about the appropriation thing.

Here in France it’s illegal to sell honey with a label saying, for example, ‘Jack’s Honey’, because it isn’t! 😊
-it’s made by bees and can be labelled by majority flower content and I believe the region it comes from too, but that’s it.

Jack’s Maggot is a great tune, by the way.

Probably refers to “Maggioletta” - a plaything.

Do you know that, Geoff, or is it a guess? Google Translate turns ‘’Maggioletta‘ into ’Beetle‘. In this context, I understood that ’maggot‘ meant ’a thing of little importance‘ or, as the Shorter Oxford gives it, ’a whimsical or perverse fancy‘ (Early C17th). There were apparently other terms for the same thing, which were assembled into a tune title by John Renbourn: ’Lady Nothing’s Toye Puffe’. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nno7MMgcYUM)

play video

May I refer you to a CD title: https://thesession.org/recordings/5268 ?

And yes, Jack’s Maggot is good tune. We play it with ‘Wifflers’. Our arrangements of both are in: http://www.rudemex.co.uk/library/RM_arrangements/01tunelib_RMarr.php

As played at Leeds Uni Folksoc sessions.

I’m not sure where this version came from but it is how I learned it for a ceilidh band in Chippenham in the early 1980s. We followed it with “Miss Dollund’s Delight ( which may or may not have been Jack’s Maggot)
And Bonny Kate.