This jig probably dates from around 1780, and is one of the most popular and long-lived of traditional 6/8 tunes in history. It is also known by the colorful names Off She Goes for Butter and Cheese and Up She Got and Off She Went. It has been widely published and recorded.
Christmas Day Ida Moarnin' - D Major / E MinorJig, Airi
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D
A
G
G
A
A
A
D
:
:
Em
Em
D
Bm
Em
Em
D
A
:
Tune Information
Author: Friedemann Stickle
Origin: Shetland
The author was a famous Shetland fiddler in the 18th and early 19th century, and used to play this tune every Christmas morning in the hall of his laird, the Laird of Buness. Shetland fiddler, collector, and teacher Tom Anderson (1910–1991) stated that Friedemann had composed the tune on the road from his croft (tenant farm) at Burrafirth to Buness. He also remembered that Stickle was called 'Stumpie' because he walked with a limp, and thought it possible that the tune's rhythm reflects the rhythm of Stickle's walk. According to Cambridge NY fiddler and flutist Bliss McIntosh, who studied in the Shetland Islands in the summer of 1974, Friedemann would receive a free year's rent for his croft in return for being selected to play this tune; there were other similar cases as well, where fiddlers earned free rent by being selected to play a tune at Christmas.
This tune is generally associated with Coleraine in Northern Ireland and apparently also some of the prejudices between different groups on one side or the other of that particular divide. However, there is only one printed reference to the jig as being Irish, and its long association with New England contra dancing may indicate it originated there instead. The town of Coleraine in Massachusetts (also Colrain) was first settled by a colony from the north of Ireland, about the year 1736.