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Annotation:Willie Winkie's Testament (2)
X:1 T:Willey Wilky [2] M:C| L:1/8 R:Country Dance B:John Walsh - Caledonian Country Dances (1731, p. 17) N:"London. Printed for and sold by J. Walsh, Music Printer and Instrument maker N:to his Majesty, at ye Harp & Hoboy in Catherine Street the Strand." Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:F d2|c2F2 ABcA|c2F2 F2d2|c2 F2 ABcA|G2 C4d2| c2F2 ABcA|c2F2 ABcA|G4 A3G|F2 D4:| |:c2|f3g (Tg3f/g/)|a2 F4c2|f3g (Tg3 f/g/)|a2G4 de| f2 ef g2 fg|a2 ba g2 fe|defd cdcA|F2 D4:|]
WILLIE WINK(IE)'S TESTAMENT [2]. AKA – “Willie Winks,” “Willie Winkie”.” AKA and see "Cobbler's Hornpipe (2)," "Connolly's Reel," “Craig's Pipes,” "Edenderry Reel (The)," "Fiddler is Drunk (The)," "Foxhunters Reel (1)," “Greg's Pipe Tune,” “Gregg's Pipes,” “Gun Do Dhuit Am Bodach Fodar Dhomh” (Old Man Wouldn’t Give Me Straw (The)), "Kerry Huntsman (The)," "Kregg's Pipes," “Limber Elbow (The),” “Manchester (The),” "My Daddy's left me gear enough," "Píopaí Greig,” "Willy Wilky." Scottish, Strathspey. English, Air, Hornpipe (whole time). F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Surenne): AABB (most versions). Early versions were printed in London as a dance tune by John Walsh in his Caledonian Country Dances (1731) and as a song by William Thompson in his Orpheus Caledoneus (2nd edition, vol 2, 1733). More sophisticated northern dance versions are to be found in Robert Bremner's Scots Reels (c. 1757, p. 61), and Neil Stewart's Collection of the Newest and Best Reels or Country Dances (Edinburgh, c. 1775, p. 19, as "Willie Winckie"), with rather more 'Scots snaps' (compare John Walsh's and Robert Bremners versions). A similar version of the melody was entered into in the 1770 music manuscript collection of Northumbrian musician William Vickers (about whom, unfortunately, nothing is known), under the title “Willy Wilky, or, Cobler’s [sic] Hornpipe,” but with one 'snap'. Later versions of "Willie Winkie" were usually set in strathspey time, supplanting the earlier air and hornpipe-like versions that have been found in England.
A comic song version was printed by William Thomson in Orpheus Caledonius (1725) as "Willie Winkie's Testament", and by James Johnson in his Scots Musical Museum, vol. 6 (1803) under the title "My Daddy's left me gear enough," which is the first line in the song which relates a curious inventory of goods and chattels. The first two stanzas (from Thomson) go:
My daddy left me gear enough:
A couter, and an auld beam-plough,
A nebbed staff, a nutting-tyne,
A fishing-wand with hook and line;
With twa auld stools, and a dirt-house,
A jerkenet, scarce worth a louse,
An auld pat, that wants the lug,
A spurtle and a sowen mug.
A hempen heckle, and a mell,
A tar-horn, and a weather's bell,
A muck-fork, and an auld peak-creel,
The spakes of our auld spinning-wheel;
A pair of branks, yea, and a saddle,
With our auld brunt and broken laddle,
A whang-bit, and a sniffle-bit:
Cheer up, my bairns, and dance a fit.
According to Charles Mackay in Jacobite Songs and Ballads of Scotland from 1688 to 1746 (1861, pp. 48-49),
Willie Winkie, Willie Wanbeard, and Willie the Wag, were all nicknames popularly bestowed on William III [of England]. Even after his death, the enmity of the Jacobites was not appeased, as appears from this song, evidently written after his fatal fall from his horse at Hampton Court [1702]...King William's death was occasioned by his horse stumbling on a mole hill. "The Little gentleman in black velvet", or the mole, was afterwards a favourite toast with the Jacobites.
