Annotation:Mago and Dago

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MAGO AND DAGO. AKA - "Mgo and Daga." English, Dance Tune (2/4 time). D Major ('A' part) & G Major ('B' part). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The tune was printed by London publisher Thomas Cahusac in Twelve Country Dances...for the Year 1796 (p. 12), and, in America, in Norris & Sawyer's Village Fifer (Exeter, New Hampshire, 1808, p. 50). Mark Lonsdale and William Shield's Mago and Dago; or, Harlequin the hero was a pantomime staged at the Theater-Royal, Covent Garden, in 1794. 'Dago' was the villain in the piece, whose name may have been taken from slang use by British sailors. Thier dago was a derivative of the Spanish name 'Diego', which means 'James', and it was applied to people (especially sailors) from Spain and Portugal.

Source for notated version: the 1800-1802 music manuscript copybook of ship's fiddler William Litten [Huntington].

Printed sources: Huntington (William Litten's Fiddle Tunes), 1977; p. 14.

Recorded sources:

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