I am not sure if this song is traditional Irish or not, but I am pretty sure it is at least traditional. Does anyone know it?
Probably best known as the tune of “One Misty Moisty Morning” by English folk-rock group Steeleye Span, recorded on “Parcel of Rogues”, Track 1. They supposedly borrowed the tune from John Gay’s “The Beggar’s Opera” (1728). And Gay borrowed Scottish tunes from Allan Ramsay’s “The Gentle Shepherd” (1725). So the tune is at least that old, and may be Scottish in origin.
Adding: Found it. The tune appears in a variant form in Act II of The Beggar’s Opera as the song “Before the Barn Door Crowing”, sung to the air “All in a Misty Morning”. I’m guessing that Steeleye reworked and simplified it a bit. But I don’t see it in The Gentle Shepherd, so this one Gay apparently took from a different source.
Cool thanks. I also researched more from your knowledge and I guess Handel did music for this opera? I also found this: http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/song-midis/How_DYou_Do.htm - looks like a different version of the 2 you mentioned. I’ll be interested to see if anyone knows anything else about this.
No, I don’t think Handel had anything to do with The Beggar’s Opera, except as a source for a few of the popular melodies that Gay lifted. As a librettist, Gay had earlier collaborated with Handel on the opera “Acis and Galatea” (1717), and was certainly familiar with the composer’s work.
Anyway, to fill in the final (and correct) pieces …
Gay almost certainly lifted his Barn Door tune not from Ramsay, but from Henry Playford, Pills to Purge Melancholy, Volume 4 (pub. 1706-19) [1]. It was a popular publication, and Gay would have been familiar with it. In fact, Cyrus Day states, “Gay drew from it over half the tunes in The Beggar’s Opera.” [2] Playford’s tune matches Gay’s exactly. And the lyric matches Steleye Span’s: the broadside ballad “The Wiltshire Wedding” with a documented publication date around 1685. Which makes “All in a Misty Morning” probably an English folk song, not Irish, dating from at least 1680-1720.
As for Steleeye, they either followed this same path from Gay to Playford, or went directly to Playford or a derived source, selected verses nearly as-is, and normalized the somewhat odd melody, creating the one that’s more familiar today. In that sense, the specific tune of your midi file dates only from the album date of 1973.
Here are links for the above citations, if you want to take a look for yourself:
[1] Henry Playford, Pills to Purge Melancholy: http://books.google.com/books?id=Eq4QAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA148&lpg=PA148&dq="All+in+a+Misty+Morning"&source=bl&ots=M0aIj7Zc41&sig=nIWsByhrF_Z2WSZVqAzyNjHtnho&hl=en#v=onepage&q="All%20in%20a%20Misty%20Morning"&f=false
[2] Cyrus Day, Oxford Journals: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://res.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/os-VIII/30/177.pdf&sa=U&ei=TONRTaPDOon0tgPuyczsBg&ved=0CCIQFjAH&usg=AFQjCNFP-oSuVl6M-gRbRcHNX7OZaCJJTw
That was fun. 
Ah, there’s more.
Another name associated with the “Wiltshire Wedding” / “All in a Misty Morning” ballad cluster is “The Friar and the Nun”. And indeed, the tune (no lyric) “The Fryar and the Nun” appears in the 1651 (et seq.) edition of The Dancing Master by John Playford, Henry’s father. This is the obvious source for the setting in Pills, as the melody is virtually unchanged. Which pushes the confirmed date of the tune back to 1651.
The Fiddler’s Companion also gives a number of related titles, and cites a mention of “The Friar and the Nun” as early as 1542 - though that’s no guarantee that either text or tune are the same as here.
Playford, Dancing Master: http://www.izaak.unh.edu/nhltmd/indexes/dancingmaster/
Fiddler’s Companion: http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/FRA_FRI.htm#FRIAR_AND_THE_NUN_[1]
And more …
Our tune appears in a lute arrangement as “A Toy [The Friar and the Nun]” in Jane Pickering’s Lute Book, a commonplace manuscript book compiled ca. 1616-45 and thought to contain an older-than-contemporary repertoire. Which pushes the date as far back as possibly 1616.
Here’s a performance of the Pickering setting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVs2ozFZSJ4
Here’s the 1542 citation, in Nicolas Udall’s translation of The Apothegm[e]s of Erasmus, reprinted 1877, page 274, footnote:
There was in Campania a toune called Fescenium, the first inhabitauntes whereof issued from the Atheniens (as Seruius reporteth.) In this toune was first inuented the ioylitee of minstrelsie, and singying merie songes and rimes, for makyng laughter and sporte at marriages, eyen like as is now vsed, to syng songes of the Frere and the Nunne, with other semblable merie iestes, at weddynges, and other feastynges.
The 1877 reprint commentator notes in the Appendix (p. 455):
The words of the Friar and the Nun are now lost, which probably is something to be thankful for, as from various allusions to it by writers of the period, it was evidently a most abominable filthy song.
Actually, the words are no longer lost, if you care to look for them, imagining what friars and nuns might be accused of …
Interestingly, the texts I’ve seen don’t scan well to our melody in question. Which suggests that a different tune was used. But there’s no way to know without evidence.
Nicolas Udall, Apothegmes: http://books.google.com/books?id=V1kJAAAAQAAJ&lpg=PR3-IA19&ots=iDofcwygpS&dq=Udal%20Erasmus&pg=PA274#v=onepage&q=Friar&f=false
Well MTGuru I think this makes you the foremost scholar on this song in the world L:)L. So if I’m not mistaken here are all the possible titles found so far:
The Friar and the Nun
Before the Barn Door Crowing
A Misty Moisty Morning (aka: All In a Misty Morning)
How D’You Do?
I found an mp3 of Before The Barn Door Crowing: http://www.fluffhouse.org.uk/lynnette/beggars/
The MIDI version I have is from an old game called Sid Meier’s Colonization. The music was done by Jeff Briggs, Ken Lagace, and Roland Rizzo. I think it is the only song on that game without a title, and its a lot of peoples’ favorite. Personally if I decide to do my own rendition of this song I am sticking with The Friar and the Nun as a title
I think you’re right. Now I can sit back and wait for all the lucrative job offers to pour in for a qualified Misty Moisty expert.
Were the other game tunes composed for the game? If so, maybe they were trying to duck copyright on this one by keeping it anonymous, since it’s pretty clearly a rip of the Steeleye Span version.
Anyway, thanks for the challenge. That was fun to explore. 
Have I mentioned before that my favourite word is “moist”?
It is burned into my brain.
Thankyou for the information, I have been wondering about the origins of this song for over a decade.
Most if not all the other songs in the game are traditional in origin, though I don’t think the theme song is. There may be a couple of fife and drum songs in the game that are original, but it is doubtful, I have found most of them with limited research.
As far ducking copyrights I don’t know, I think that the Colonization version is significantly more advanced. However I have only heard the live version of Steeleye Span’s version on YouTube so I can’t say for sure.
Apropos of nothing but sheer coincidence, one Alma Mater of mine is performing this evening: Acis and Galatea.
Now I know why MT is blinking back tears. It’s the longing for his island home.
Great tune, though. Gotta dig out the Steeleye again! 