Annotation:Auld Man's Mare's Dead (The)
X:1 T:Auld Man's Mare's Dead, The M:C L:1/16 S:Aird - Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. II (1785) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:Ador z2 | E2A2A3B A4 g3f | dB3 A3G G3Ad2G2 | c2B2c2d2 e3fg3a | ge3 g3B A4 A2 :| g2 | a3ba2g2 a3ba2e2 | g3ab3a g2e2 d2(ga) | b3ag2e2 d2e2g3a | ge3 g3B A4 A2 :||
AULD MAN'S MARE'S DEAD, THE. Scottish, English; Strathspey ("Slowish"). England, Northumberland. E Minor (Alburger, Emmerson, Gow): A Minor (Johnson): A Dorian (Aird). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Aird, Alburger, Emmerson, Gow): AABB (Johnson). The composition is generally credited to one of the first famous Scottish fiddlers, Patrick ('Patie') Birnie of Kinghorn (for whom various dates have been given, including c. 1660-1730 and c. 1635-1721). Ramsay introduced him as:
The Famous Fiddler of Kinghorn,
Wha alaid the stick out o'er the string,
With sic an art,
Wha sang sae sweetly to the Spring, ... [Ed.: Spring=tune, melody]
And rais'd the heart.
An 18th century writer described Birnie as having a face that mingled "cleverness, drollery, roguery and impudence," which has certainly been captured in the one portrait of him that still exists (reproduced in Emmerson 1971), painted by William Aikman (1682-1731). For more on Patie, who seems quite a character, see Alburger, pp. 29-30. There are some doubts, however, that the tune we now know by the "Auld Man's Mare's Dead" title was Patie's composition. The only attribution to him is from Alan Ramsay, in his "Elegy on Patie Birnie" dated January 25th, 1721, and the tune itself does not appear until Aird's vol. II (1785), according to John Glen (Early Scottish Melodies, 1900). The song (without music) appears in The Scots Nightingale (1779), where it is attributed to a "Mr. Watts" (by what authority it is not known). James Dick (The Songs of Robert Burns, 1903) concluded Birnie was not the author of the song.
The title appears in Henry Robson's list of popular Northumbrian song and dance tunes, which he wrote c. 1800, and it is song number 485 in J. Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, the notes to which Stenhouse ascribes a date of 1660 to the song (although with what evidence it is not known). Collinson (1966) says the wide intervals (10th and 9th in the sixth and seventh bars) "points clearly to its fiddle origin."
The auld man's meer's dead
The puir man's meer's dead
The puir man's meer's dead
A mile aboon Dundee
She was cut luggit painch lippit
Steel waimit, staincher fitit
Chanler chafit, lang neckit
Yet the brute did dee!
See also the similarly titled but musically different "Puir mans mare is dead (Da)."
