Miller of Dee

There Was a Jolly Miller Once is a traditional folk song (Roud #503) from the Chester area in the north-west of England. It is often titled "The Miller of the Dee" or "The Jolly Miller".

The song was originally part of Isaac Bickerstaffe's play, Love in a Village (1762). Subsequently other versions of Bickerstaffe's original song were made by various other poets.

The city of Chester stands on the River Dee and a weir was built across the river here in the Middle Ages to maintain high water levels for several water mills which stood on its banks.

The River Dee rises on the eastern slopes of Dduallt in Snowdonia, Wales and enters the Dee Estuary on the outskirts of Chester. The English name for the river is derived from its Welsh name Afon Dyfrdwy. Its Latin name was Deva.

The song is usually sung to the Welsh harp tune "Llydaw" (the Welsh name for "Brittany"). Many settings of the tune have been made by British composers, most notably Benjamin Britten in volume three of his Folk-song arrangements (1947). Roger Quilter's setting of the song was included in the Arnold Book of Old Songs, published in 1950.

Several versions for choir also exist, such as that by John Rutter. In 1962 Havergal Brian wrote a comedy overture for orchestra based on the tune.

A 1997 local interest book on the history of the Mills and Millers in Chester was named after this folk song....

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