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Annotation:Leg of the Duck (1) (The)
X:1 T:Leg of the Duck [1], The M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Jig K:G A|BGG AGA|BAB GED|EAA AGA|EAA AGA| BGG AGA|BAB GED|EGG GED|EGG G2:| |:A|Bdd ABc|BAB GED|EAA AGA|EAA AGA| Bdd ABc|BAB GED|EGG GED|EGG G2:|]
LEG OF (A) DUCK, THE (Leis Lacha). AKA and see "Bonny Highlander (The)," "Bucky Highlander (The)," "Bully for You," "Daniel of the Sun (1)," "Donall na Greine," "From the Court to the Cottage," "Girls of the West," "I Gave to My Nelly," “Lame Duck (The),” "Nelly's Jig," "O my dear judy," "Thady You Gander/Teddy You Gander," "'Tis Sweet to Think," "O my dear father pity your daughter," "Western Jig (The)," "She is the Girl that Can Do It/She's the Girl that can do it," "Petticoat Loose (1)," "Wee Murdie." Irish, Jig (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The title comes from a song set to the tune. James Joyce gives a few lines in Ulysses:
I gave it to Kitty because she was pretty,
The leg of the duck, the leg of the duck.
I gave it to Molly because she was jolly,
The leg of the duck, the leg of the duck.
Irish uilleann piper and music editor Terry Moylan (Johnny O'Leary) shared a car journey in 1970 with Sean Reid and Willie Clancy, who were entertaining each other with similar rhymes. Clancy gave the one above and also had:
I gave it to Nelly to stick in her belly
The leg of the duck, the leg of the duck.
She has it, she's got it, wherever she put it,
The leg of the duck, the leg of the duck.
Moylan says: "According to Johnny O'Leary, Denis Murphy had scores of these things. Willie could have got them from Denis, as they were close friends." Simple rhymes were helpful in the days of itinerant musicians when people would employ them to describe the tune they wanted to dance to when a visiting musician did not know the local name. "Leg of the Duck [1]" was also entered into the c. 1910 music manuscript collection of Glounreigh, north County Cork, fiddler and fiddle-teacher John Linehan (1860-1932).
Key of 'D' and key of 'G' versions are sometimes classified as separate variants. A mis-hearing of the title on Cape Breton caused the tune to be called “The Lame Duck” for a while among Cape Breton fiddlers, and appears on a few recordings.
Translated from a jig to a reel, the same tune provides the melody of the older two-part setting of Over the Moor to Maggie (2).
