CLEAN PEA(SE) STRAW/STRAE. AKA and see "Pea Straw," "Pease Strae," "Pease Straw," "What'll All the Lasses Do" (Shetland). English, Scottish, Shetland; Hornpipe or Reel. England, Northumberland. D Mixolydian. Standard. AAB. Glen (1891) finds the tune earliest in print in Robert Bremner's 1757 collection (pg. 65). Hall & Stafford (Charlton Memorial Tune Book), 1974; pg. 21. Honeyman (Stathspey, Reel and Hornpipe Tutor), 1898; pg. 12. Kerr (Merry Melodies), Vol. 1; Set 14, No. 6, pg. 10. MacDonald (The Skye Collection), 1887; pg. 72. Mooney (Choicest Tunes/Lowland Pipes), pg. 25. Raven, 1984; pg. 184. Seattle (William Vickers), 1987, Part 2; No. 203. "Fiddle Me Jig" (c. 1978).
OLD BUTTIE WAS A BONNIE LAD. AKA and see "Clean Pease Strae," "Pease Straw." Shetland, Mainland Shetland.
PEA STRAW. AKA and see "Pease Strae," "Clean Pease Straw."
PEASE STRAE/STRAW. AKA and see "Bathget Bogs," "Clean Pease Straw," "Pea Straw" (U.S.). Scottish, English, American; Reel or Country Dance Tune. England, Northumberland. D Mixolydian or D Major (Johnson). Standard. AAB (Athole, Johnson, Skye): AABB' (Seattle/Vickers). A popular dance tune in the British Isles and America throughout the 18th century and into the 19th. Instructions for a country dance to the melody can be found in the Scottish Holmain Manuscript, c. 1710-50, where it is alternately titled "Bathget Boys," and the tune itself is contained twice in the Gillespie Manuscript of Perth (1768). Johnson (1988) also prints a contra dance of the same name with the melody. Flett and Flett (1964) record that the same Scottish dance went by different names according to which tune was played to accompany it in a particular locale; thus the dance also was called "Duke of Perth" and "Brown's Reel" in East Fife, Perthshire and Angus, and "Keep the Country, Bonny Lassie" in the upper parts of Ettrick. The title Pease Strae for the series of steps was used in the area around Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, Arran and Galloway, and was taught by all the local dancing masters. An English version was printed c. 1740 in the imprint MWA, 200 Country Dances (pg. 79), and the title appears in Henry Robson's list of popular Northumbrian song and dance tunes ("The Northern Minstrel's Budget"), which he published c. 1800. The melody was recorded as one of the tunes danced to at a 1752 "turtle frolic" at Goats Island, near Newport Rhode Island (a turtle frolic was a special event which occured when a West Indies turtles, towed astern from the Caribbean, arrived in port). Later, the piece appeared in print in America in A Collection of Contra Dances, printed in Walpole, New Hampshire, in 1799. Charlton Memorial Tune Book, 1956; pg. 21. Gow (Complete Repository), Part 3, 1806; pg. 36. Johnson (Twenty-Eight Country Dances as Done at the New Boston Fair), Vol. 8, 1988; pg. 7. Kerr (Merry Melodies), Vol. 1; pg. 10 (appears as "Clean Pea Strae"). MacDonald (The Skye Collection), 1887; pg. 72. Mooney, pg. 25. Morrison (Twenty-Four Early American Country Dances, Cotillions & Reels, for the Year 1976), 1976; pg. 35. Seattle (William Vickers), 1987, Part 2; No. 203. Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; pg. 86. North Star NS0038, "The Village Green: Dance Music of Old Sturbridge Village."
T:Pease Strae
L:1/8
M:C|
R:Reel
B:The Athole Collection
K:D
A|defd gefd|eA A/A/A c2 c>e|defd gefd|egfe d2d:|
f|afdf afdf|eA A/A/A c2 c>f|afdf afdf|egfe d2 d>f|
afdf afdf|eA A/A/A c2 c>f|afge fdec|Agfe d2d||
WHAT'LL ALL THE LASSES DO. AKA and see "Clean Pease Strae," "Pease Straw." Shetland. Cooke (1986) prints the following text to this dance tune, collected in Shetland:
What'll all the lasses do when the lads gings awa,
Some will pee their peticots, and some will burst their gaa'.