Annotation:Lather awa' wi' your Oak Stick
X:1 T:Lather awa’ wi’ your Oak Stick M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Air and Jig B:Aird – Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 1 (1782, No. 121, p. 43) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:G BGG G2B|ded d2c|BGG GBd|e3 g3| GBd gfe|edc cBA|BGE EDE|c3 edc:| |:BGE EDE|GED D2c|BGE EDE|c3 edc| BGE EDE|GED D2c|BGA BGE|G3 G3:|]
LATHER AWA' WI' YOUR OAK STICK. AKA and see "Humors of Kilkenny (1)," "Trip to Marfleet." Scottish, English; Air and Jig (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. A song with this title is recorded in a piece of fiction called "Terry O'Daly's Visit to the Chateau d'Eu", printed in Bentley's Miscellany, vol. 14 (1843). They are speaking of Irish tunes, when the French King interrupts:
"Them are all fine tunes, and the best of good music," says the King, "but we want something quite Inglish in honour of the Queen that owns you," says he. --"Well," says I, "I'm not up to the turns of the Inglish tunes, although, God help them, they haven't many to bounce about, but something the roast-beef and plum-pudding, or the oak-tree, I suppose, will stop a gap, for them, Majesty," says I.--"That'll do Pat," says the Queen, herself, and "Leather away, you divil!" says the King of the Frinch. With that I took the hint, and tuning up the pipes, I sung and played them a grand coronation lilt, the words of which I send you, to get them into the news. Everybody knows the air that knows B from a bulls-foot, or A from the gable-end of a hen-roost, and them that doesn't, I pities them.
LEATHER AWAY WITH THE OAK-STICK
Descend, ye bright Nine, this grand scene to delight,
And in praise of Victoria my verses indite!
Och! She's Queen of the country, the say, and the sky,
For if they said 'black was the white of her eye'
She'd leather away with the oak stick!
Of all the bould nations that's under the sun,
They're mighty polite to her, every one;
Bekaise, when she steps out in pride down the town,
Let them stand on the tip of the tail of her gown,
She'd leather away with the oak stick!
Musician biography:John Roose, Manchester, England, entered a version of the tune as "Trip to Marfleet" in his large mid-19th century music manuscript collection. See also note for the cognate "annotation:Humors of Kilkenny (1)" for further remarks on this tune family.
