Annotation:Cupid in a Camphor Bag
X:1 T:Cupid in a Camphor Bag M:2/4 L:1/8 R:Country Dance Tune B:Henry Thompson - Thompson’s Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year B:1805 (London, p. 12) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:F fcAc|BGAF|fcAc|BG/E/ F2|GGAA|=BBcG|GGAd|!fermata!c!fermata!=B !fermata!c2 {de}| fcAc|BGAF| fcdg|fe f2|fcAc|BGAc|fedg|fe f2||
CUPID IN A CAMPHOR BAG. English, Air and Country Dance Tune (2/4 time). F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. "Cupid in a Camphor Bag" is song (Roud V11171), the air of which was also used as the vehicle for a country dance. Camphor was (according to the OED) 'formerly in repute as an aphrodisiac', and the words to the broadside ballad contain several double-entendres. The first stanza goes:
A widow bewitch'd in a dream we find
A charm had obtain'd from the wrinkled bag,
By which she could Cupid safely bind,
And keep her in her camphor bag.
So sing the bag, the mystic bag,
The wig, the wag, the wonderful bag,
The wiggetty wag, and the camphor bag,
The sly little urchin she kept in the bag.
