Annotation:Miller's Man (The)

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MILLER'S MAN, THE. Scottish, Strathspey. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB'. The miller's man (gille-mullin), or the miller's assistant, is mentioned in James Logan's The Scottish Gael (1833, pp. 313-314):

There was usually a mill on each barony, and the Laird, to secure the multure or miller's fee, was solicitous to break the querns. The miller on every Lairdship had usually a croft for his support, besides the legal multures and sequels, i. e. the perquisites of the miller and his man. In Scots' law, thirlage is the servitude by which lands are astricted to a particular mill, being bound to have their corn ground there on certain terms. The district or lands thus bound are termed the sucken, and the payments are the multure or quantity of grain or meal exacted by the heritor or his tacksman, and the sequels or those quantities given to the servants under the names of knaveship, bannock, and lock, or gowpen.

In the Highlands the thirle is called siucam, and the multures are term i ed cis. The tenant paid a certain measure out of every boil to the chief, half that measure to the miller, and a quarter to the gille-mullin, or miller's man.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: MacDonald (The Skye Collection), 1887; p. 71. Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; p. 111.

Recorded sources:

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