Annotation:Reeves Maggot

Find traditional instrumental music

Back to Reeves Maggot


REEVES MAGGOT. AKA and see "King Henry," "King James' March to Ireland," "Limerick's Lamentation (2)." English, Country Dance Tune and Jig (6/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The melody, with country dance instructions, was first printed in Henry Playford's Dancing Master, 11th edition (1701). The tune and dance were retained in the long-running Dancing Master series through the 18th and final edition of 1728, then published in London by John Young. "Reeves Maggot" was also published by the Walshes in The Compleat Country Dancing Master, editions of 1718, 1735 and 1749. Sixteenth and seventeenth century country dance tunes sometimes had the word "maggot" in their titles, perhaps derived from Italian Maggiolatta or Italian May song, but used in England to mean a whim, fancy, plaything, 'trifle'--essentially an 'earworm'.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Alfred Moffat (The Minstrelsy of Ireland), 1898; p. 352.

Recorded sources:




Back to Reeves Maggot