Annotation:Leather Bottle (The)
X:44 C:Page 22 T:Leather Bottle. MBe.44, The A:England;Cumbria;Towcett B:Matthew Betham MS, Towcett Cumbria, 1815 Z:VMP - Hugh Taylor, 2012 M:2/4 L:1/8 Q:1/2=100 R: W:The notes shown are as written, leaving them to the player to interpret. K:D "^As written"DFA|D2 FA|dfed|dcBA|dfdf|dfed|cABc|d2:| |:cd|ecA|ecA|gfed|cBAG|FGAB|Afed|cABc|d4:|
LEATHER BOTTLE, THE. English, Air (6/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). ABCD. Chappell believes this ballad to date to pre-Elizabethan times based on his analysis of irregularities in the metre which "gives it the character rather of a minstrel production, such as Richard Sheale's 'Chevy Chase'...". The air can be found in Pills to Purge Melancholy, 1707, and in the Bagford, Roxburghe, and other collections. The Leather Bottle was the name of many inns or taverns. A notable Leather Bottle was "the clean and comfortable village ale-house" to which Charles Dickens' characters Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass found their way in their search for the truant Tupman, whom they discovered in the parlor of that establishment.
