"John Paterson's Mare". (also: "Black and the Brown",
"Black and the Grey", "Horseman's Port", "Black and the
Brown", Northumberland, "New Market Jig", "Newmarket
Horse-Race" and, Scottish Jig and Air. There are
several assertions about the provenance of this melody.
It is often claimed as Irish, however, it has also been
suggested that "John Patterson's Mare" has Ayrshire
origins. Paul Roberts believes it may have been a
descendant of "Jack Warrel's Hornpipe" from Marsden's
volume Lancashire Ho...(+)
"John Paterson's Mare". (also: "Black and the Brown",
"Black and the Grey", "Horseman's Port", "Black and the
Brown", Northumberland, "New Market Jig", "Newmarket
Horse-Race" and, Scottish Jig and Air. There are
several assertions about the provenance of this melody.
It is often claimed as Irish, however, it has also been
suggested that "John Patterson's Mare" has Ayrshire
origins. Paul Roberts believes it may have been a
descendant of "Jack Warrel's Hornpipe" from Marsden's
volume Lancashire Hornpipes (1705). Marsden's printing
is a fiddle version of the tune (with 14 variations!),
he points out, but has every appearance of having
originally been a bagpipe piece (e.g. the majority of
the melody spans the range of the 9 note chanter).
Cowdery (1990) finds "John Paterson's Mare" in Highland
Piper Donald MacLeod's bagpipe collection (in a 6½
variation set) and is of the opinion that it is a
conscious adaptation in jig time of the melody
"Cameronian Rant (The)." Other writers have noted that
the tune straddles meters, and has been recorded as
being known in the form of a reel on the island of
Whalsay, in the Shetlands, for example (see "Black and
the Brown (The)"). [The 1999 note to the song lyrics at
Digital Tradition supplied the following information]
Chambers (1862) as described the song as "a rough
ballad descriptive of the confused horse-race which
used to take place at all country bridals long ago,
between the home of the bride's father and that of her
husband."
The lyrics begin: "The black and the brown cam nearest
the town, but Paterson's mare she came foremost; The
dun and the gray kept farthest away, but Paterson's
mare she came foremost. Fy, whip her in, whip her out,
six shillings in a clout, o'er the kirk-style and away
wi' her!"
A previous title for the tune was, according to Hogg,
"She's yours, she's yours, she's nae mair ours," who
says it was always played at the taking away of the
bride. Similarly, Henderson Berwick (1856), indicates
it was a bridal tune and gives the lines: "She's yours!
She's yours! She's nae mair ours-owre the Kirk-style
and away wi' her!"
Highland bagpipers have taken to the tune, found fairly
frequently in bagpiper repertoire. Editor James Davie
included the melody as the central piece in his "A
Highland Battle", a medley of tunes he composed or
adapted and arranged in programmatic form, honoring the
Scottish hero William Wallace. A similarly-titled
melody, "John Peterson's Mare," was in the repertoire
of John Stickle (1875–1957) of Lerwick, an
influential Shetland fiddler originally from Unst, who
was recorded in the field in 1947 by Patrick
Shuldham-Shaw. However, Stickle's tune is unrelated to
"John Patterson's Mare/Black and the Grey." See also
the 1862 manuscript version from James Hoseason, of
Yell, Shetland.
Source: TuneArch
(https://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:John_Patterson%27
s_Mare).
Although originally written for Traditional Irish
instruments, I created this Interpretation of "John
Paterson's Mare" Jig for Flute & Classical Guitar.
PARTITION