Annotation:Ugly Thief (The)

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UGLY THIEF, THE (An Gadaighe Grána) {Englished as “The Goddhee Grawna”}. AKA and see “Castlehyde.” Irish, Air (3/4 time, “rather slow”). F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. “’The Ugly Thief, i.e. death...Written from memory, as I learned it at home when a child. There is a good setting in the Pigot Collection, where it is called ‘Castle Hyde,’ showing that that celebrated song was sometimes sung to it. There was an Irish song to this air in which Shauneen gives an account of his encouter with Death” (Joyce).

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Joyce (Old Irish Folk Music and Songs), 1909; No. 16, p. 11.

Recorded sources:

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