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THE BASKET OF OYSTERS Greensleeves, Irish Version, 1834
A BASKET OF OYSTERS, OR PADDY THE WEAVER From Aird’s “Selection,” 1788
Although “ssss1” is probably not a folk-tune, yet in some cases folk-tunes are apt to suffer a like degradation in character, although it must be clearly stated that tradition frequently holds them together in a wonderfully perfect manner.
In this latter case we may rank “ssss1,” which survives in the modern “ssss1,” with “Greensleeves,” and their histories are well worth recalling.
We may pass over the tradition that “Joan’s placket” was played at the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. The structure of the tune shows it to have been originally a trumpet tune, and strangely enough throughout the whole course of its existence it seems to have been used in defiance or ridicule. Mr Pepys tells us that when the English sailors left the deserted “Royal Charles” in the Medway in 1667, a Dutch trumpeter sounded the tune from the deck of the captured ship. After this period political lampoons were adapted to the melody. It is difficult to find out when the tune was first named “The Cock o’ the North,” or when, under that title, it was adopted as a British army tune, but there is a striking instance of its use during the siege of Lucknow in the Mutiny of 1857. It was the practice to signal by flag and bugle call from the City to the Residency, both in a state of siege. On one occasion a drummer boy, named Ross, after the signalling was over again climbed to the high dome from which it was conducted, and in spite of the Sepoy rifles sounded “The Cock o’ the North” as a defiance. We all know the story of the wounded piper, shot in the ankle during the rush at Dargai, crouching behind a rock and still sounding the pipe tune the “Cock o’ the North” that had inspired the onslaught. How little the traditional “Cock o’ the North” differs from “Joan’s Placket” the reader will be able to see from the following copies:—