The original version is evidently English, mid-seventeenth century, called Joan’s Placket is Torn (referred to by Pepys, 1667), which appears in Playford’s Dancing Master, 1686. In Manson (1853), I.10, as a “Gaelic Strathspey”.

Joan’s Placket first appears in print in 180 Loyal Songs (1685), p. 143 [repr. in Simpson, BBBM 389]. Geo. R. Gleig, Family History of England, 1836, II, 110-111, prints “the air which was played by the band at Fotheringay-Castle, while Mary was proceeding to execution” in 1587; which is called by Simpson “a military version of ‘Joan’s Placket,’ in slow tempo”; repr. by Chappell (PMOT II, 519), who reasonably doubts the tradition. Also in Kerr’s Merry Melodies II.34 (no. 311); Kerr’s Cal. Coll. 7; pipe version in Logan’s Complete Tutor (1963). In Aird’s Selection of Scotch, English, Irish, and Foreign Airs II (1782), no. 96, titled When I followed a lass. Words are quoted in The Fiddler’s Companion:

When I followed a lass who was froward and shy
I stuck to her, stuff
Til I mad her comply.
I took her so lovingly round the waist,
And hugged her tight and held her fast;
When hugged and hauled,
She screamed and squalled.
But, tho’ she vowed all that I did was in vain,
I pleased her so well, that she bore it again.
I pleased her so well, that she bore it again.
Hoighty toity, whisking frisking,
Green was her gown upon the grass,
* * *Oh, those were the joys of our dancing days,
* * *Oh, those were the joys of our dancing days.

[Fiddler’s Companion gives some interesting background:]

The ‘Cock o’ the North’ was an honorary title of the (fifth and last) Duke of Gordon, who held sway over the northern part of the Scottish Highlands (from a note in a monograph on William Marshall printed in his 1845 Collection). It was published by Oswald (Vol. 10) c. 1758, by Feuillet in Recueil de Contredanses (1706) in Paris, and by Playford in the 1674 and 1686 editions (and all subsequent editions) of his Dancing Master, each time under the title “Jumping Joan.” In fact, a Shetland reel version of the tune from the island of Whalsay collected in modern times still goes by the name “Jumping John” (Cooke, 1986).

 

The dance and ballad air was assumed into martial repertory, and it has been recorded that the melody helped win Gordon Highlander Piper George Findlater the Victoria Cross in 1897. It seems that while leading the charge storming Dargai Heights with other pipers, he was shot through both legs; “undaunted, he propped himself against a boulder, and continued to play” the stirring air to encourage the successful action (Winstock, 1970, p. 212). Kidson (1915) relates another military story of its earlier use in the siege of Lucknow during the Indian Mutiny of 1857. The British were initially hard pressed and were for some time besieged in various locations in the city by native Indians. Signals had been regularly sent between the forces defending parts of the besieged town, and those under attack in the Residency quarters. A drummer boy named Ross, after the signalling was over, climbed to the high dome from which signals were sent and despite harassing fire from the Sepoys he sounded “Cock o’ the North” in defiance, rallying the English with his bravery (though being a drummer, exactly how he ‘sounded’ the tune remains a mystery, ed.) [Though beating out the rhythm would probably do the trick.- M.S.]

In England, Andrew Bullen (Country Dance and Song, May 1987, Vol. 17, pg. 11). suggests there is some evidence to think that “Cock of the North” was the tune traditionally used in the famous horn dance of Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire (currently performed in most Christmas Revels pageants). This standard version,: he states, “taken from Pruw Boswell’s ‘Morris Dancing of the Lancashire Plain’, is used in the Wigan St. John’s Dance.” Wade records that the tune is still used for a single step dance in the North-West Morris tradition.

Miscellaneous notes:

The tune was used by Robert Burns for his song “Her Daddie Forbad and Her Minnie Forbad.” In America, it was given to Bayard that there was an obscene New England song to the tune called “Chase Me, Charlie,” but he did not hear it. It is not, as has been proposed by Johnson-Stenhouse, the progenitor of “Lillibulero”. Some printings: Bayard Dance to the Fiddle (1981) 513 (no. 580); Hunter Fiddle Music of Scotland (1988), no. 299; Kerr Merry Melodies II, 34 (no.311); McDonald Gesto Collection (1895), 135; Raven English Country Dance Tunes (1984), 105.

To the second (chorus) part of the tune [d’-s l-s etc.] a ribald rhyme is sung:

Auntie Mary had a canary
Up the leg o her drawers,
For hours an hours it cursed the Boers
And won the Victoria Cross.

[…and note the rhyming of “drawers” and “Cross”, which reflects the words spoken with a Scottish accent.]