Elsie Marly
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Elsie Marley", also known as "Alce Marly", "Ailsey Marly", "Alcy Marly" or "Elsie Marly" is a<br> Scottish and English jig and song in G Mixolydian (Bremner, Callaghan, Raven, Vickers, Williamson or<br> E Flat Mixolydian (Bruce & Stokoe). The parts are played AB (Raven, Bruce & Stokoe), AABBCC<br> (Callaghan, Gow, Johnson), AABBCCDD (Bremner) or one part (Williamson).<br> Elsie (or Alice) Marley was the wife of an innkeeper at the Barley Mow Inn, Picktree, near<br> Chester-le-Street, just south of Newcastle upon Tyne. When Joseph Ritson published his Bishopric<br> Garland in 1784, he included it in that collection.<br> In Sykes Local Records August 5, 1768:<br> The well-known Alice Marley, who kept a public house at Picktree, near Chester-le-Street, being<br> in a fever, got out of her house and went into a field, where there was an old coal pit full of<br> water, which she fell into and was drowned.<br> Elsie Marley's pub was at Barley Mow, which is between Chester-le-Street (just across the border<br> from Northumberland, in County Durham) and Birtley. It may have been called The Wheatsheaf, and<br> indeed, a pub (though not the original) by that name is there today in which occasional ceilidhs<br> are held.<br> The tune is mentioned in the Northumbrian pit mining song Bykker Hill in the lines:<br> Geordie Charleton, he had a pig,<br><br> He hit it with a shovel and it danced a jig;<br><br> All the the way to Walker Shores,<br><br> To the tune of 'Elsie Marley'.<br> The banjo tab is from Ken Perlman's book New England and Irish Fiddle Tunes for Clawhammer<br> Banjo (1980). Ken's thinking is that there is no good reason for not playing any kind of tune<br> on the banjo. His Banjo Camp classes covering jigs (6/8), slip jigs (9/8) and slides (12/8)<br> are always fun.<br> It was printed in Bremner's A Collection of Scots Reels (1757),<br> Bruce & Stokoe's Northumbrian Minstrelsy (1882),<br> Callaghan's Hardcore English (2007),<br> Gow's Complete Repository Part 4 (1817),<br> Johnson's The Kitchen Musician No. 10: Airs and Melodies of Scotland's Past (1992) (revised 2001),<br> Northumbrian Pipers Tunebook (2nd ed. 1970),<br> Petrie's Fourth Collection of Strathspey, Reels, Jiggs and Country Dances (1796),<br> Raven's English Country Dance Tunes (1984),<br> Seattle's Great Northern/William Vickers (1987) and<br> Williamson's English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish Fiddle Tunes (1976).<br> It was recorded by Florida on Hardcore English (2007) and Florida,<br> Tom Clough (1929) and<br> Bonnie Rideout on Scottish Fire (2000).<br>
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