Annotation:Miss MacLeod of Ayr
X:0 T: No Score C: The Traditional Tune Archive M: K: x
MISS MACLEOD OF AYR. AKA and see "Mrs. MacLeod of Raasay," "Miss McLeod's Reel (1)/Miss MacLeod's Reel (1)." English, Scottish; Strathspey. A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The famous "Miss McLeod's Reel" with the ideosyncratic "of Ayr" attached to the title in the Hardy family manuscripts. English novelist Thomas Hardy (1840-1928, also a fiddler) mentions the tune in his book The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886):
Farfrae was footing a quaint little dance with Elizabeth Jane an old country thing, the only one she knew, and though he considerately toned down his movements to suit her demurer gait, the pattern of the shining little nails in the soles of his boots became familiar to the eyes of every bystander. The tune had enticed her into it; being a tune of a busy, vaulting, leaping sort – some low notes on the silver string of each fiddle, then a skipping on the small, like running up and down ladders – 'Miss McLeod of Ayr' was it name, so Mr. Farfrae said, and that it was very popular in his own country.