Annotation:Cuddy Clauder
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CUDDIE CLAUDER. AKA and see "Cuddy Claw'd Her." Scottish, English; Jig. England, Northumberland. E Flat Major (Gow): G Major (Bruce & Stokoe, Peacock). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. "Old" remarks Gow, in the Sixth Collection (1822), and indeed, it appears in James Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion (London, 1760). The title in older, 18th century collections is "Cuddy Claw'd Her" rather than 'Clauder'. According to Gordon William's Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearian and Stuart Literature (2001, p. 248), claw, like frig, was a term for both coitus and masturbation. The ballad Daniel Cooper (1683) uses the word in the former sense:
The Fiddler kist the Piper's Wife,
The Blind-man sat and saw her;
She lift up her Holland smock,
And Daniel Cooper claw'd her.
"Cuddy Claw'd Her/Clauder" is a popular tune for variation sets by Northumbrian pipers, however, it does not appear to be originally a piping tune. John Stokoe cites a music manuscript copybook collection by one John Smith, dated 1752, whom Stokoe believed was a fiddler after examining the notation. Smith was also evidently from Northumberland, as the ms. contained a number of titles associated with Northumberland, including "Cuddy Clauder" (see Monthly chronicle of north-country lore and legend, p. 379 [1]).
"Cuddy Clauder" or "Cuddy Claw'd Her" was also a song, the air of which was printed with variations in Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion, vol. 5 (c. 1760). This stanza was printed in Sir Walter Scott's A Ballad Book :
Jenny lup ower the dyke
Cuddy bade her,
A' the lang winter night
Cuddy claw'd her.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Aird (Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 3), 1788; No. 504, p. 193. Bruce & Stokoe (Northumbrian Minstrelsy), 1882; p. 159. Charlton Memorial Tune Book, 1956; p. 26. Gow (Sixth Collection of Strathspey Reels), 1822; p. 34. Oswald (Caledonian Pocket Companion, Book V), 1760; p. 9. Peacock (Favorite Collection of Tunes with Variations), 1805; p. 10.
Recorded sources: Resilient Records RES005, Kathryn Tickell & Peter Tickell - "What We Do" (2008). Sargasso Sounds EELCD03, Dave Faulkner & Steve Turner - "English and Border Music for Pipes."
See also listings at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [2]