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NEW BO-PEEP. AKA - "Pickadilla." English, Country Dance Tune (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). ABB. The country dance and tune (longways for as many as will, non-progressive) were published by John Playford in the first edition of his English Dancing Master (1651). It was retained in the long-running Dancing Master series through the eighth edition of 1690, published by son Henry Playford, after which it was dropped. Starting with the fourth edition (1670), "Pickadilla" was added as an alternate title. According to Burke's The Patrician, vol. 4 (1847, p. 280), the name 'Pickadilla' may refer to Pickadilla House, which stood nearly on the spot of the present Paton-Square, and was a fashionable place of amusement in the mid-17th century, and probably as far back as the reign of Elizabeth I, when it stood literally in the fields. It is possible the name derived from the Spanish word peccadillo, meaning a venial fault (and may, if true, suggest the reason for the popularity of the place). A pickadilla is also the name of a kind of ruff, a clothing adornment, and is like to "have derived its name from being worn by the fair ladies and silken gallants who frequented Pickadilla House..."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 45 (a facsimile copy of the Playford original). Sharp (Country Dance Tunes), 1909; p. 24.

Recorded sources:




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