Devil’s Dream – Fiddle Tune a Day – Day 357

I used to get so sick of hearing classical violinists play Devil’s Dream. Let me clarify. I have no problem with classical violinists as a whole. I play classical violin myself, and enjoy classical music. Nor do I have a problem with Devil’s Dream. It’s a cool tune, that happened to get caught in the crossfire. And, when I was 12, I remember being totally entranced by Jana Jae’s version of Devil’s Dream.

What I do have a problem with is when a classical violinist learns the notes to Devil’s Dream and thinks that they are now a qualified fiddler. To me, it feels like a devaluing of fiddling, as if it is less than violin playing.

In reality, fiddling isn’t even just one discipline. Within the world of fiddling, there are many subgenres. And mastering just one can take years of diligent study and practice.

Just a handful of these include: Scottish, Irish, French Canadian, Metis, Appalachian Old Time, Texas Style, Texas Swing, Contest Style, New England Style, Cajun and Missouri Style. And some of these can be broken down into even more specific styles.

Enough about that. After not playing Devil’s Dream for a number of years, I came across this recording of Jean Carignan playing Devil’s Dream (Le Reve Du Diable) and my faith in the tune was revived.

Devil’s Dream is an important fiddle tune, and I didn’t want to just play the basic tune if I was going to play it, so I worked this up for you!

Devil’s Dream according to Fiddler’s Companion

DEVIL’S DREAM [1] (Aisling An Diabail). AKA and s see “The De’il Among the Tailors,” “Satan’s Nightmare.” See note for “Parody.” British Isles, Canadian, American, Old‑Time; Reel or Hornpipe. USA; Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Michigan, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky. England, Shropshire. Canada; Quebec, Prince Edward Island. A Major (most versions): G Major (Hardings, Shaw). Standard tuning. One part (Burchenal, Lowinger): AB (Silberberg): AABB (most versions): AABBCC (Kershaw, O’Neill/1001): AABCDEFG (Kerr). Despite its occasional appearance in the South, it is known as a Northern tune. Linscott (1939) thought the tune to be of Irish origins, but it has since been rather easily traced to a Scottish reel, “The De’il Among the Tailors,” composed c. 1790, and it appears in the Scottish Kerr collection (vol. 4) as “Devil’s Dream.” In America it has almost invariably been known by the “Dream” title, while in the British Isles it is always found under the Tailor/Taylor title–notwithstanding its appearance in Kerr as “Devil’s Dream,” which may have been evidence of a transatlantic return of the piece.  Bayard (1981) notes that the tune, like “Soldier’s Joy,” has been transplanted to Scandinavia. It was of the tunes cited by Lettie Osborn (New York Folklore Quarterly) as having been commonly played for dances in Orange County, New York, in the 1930’s. Linscott recorded a dance, also called “Devil’s Dream,” for which this tune was played in Hinsdale, N.H., and Howe (c. 1867) and Burchenal (1918) also printed New England contra dances of the same name to the tune.  It was in the repertoire of Arizona fiddler Kenner C. Kartchner, who said of it “plenty old and difficult to play properly.” New Englanders Tolman and Page (The Country Dance Book) have this to say about the tune: “All fiddlers are jealous of their accomplishments, you know, and it is an absolute impossibility to be accepted into their clan unless one can perform both ‘Devil’s Dream’ and ‘Speed the Plow’ in a creditable manner, preferably with home‑made variations. Old Theophilus (Parse) Ames used to say that a fiddler without his own version of ‘Devil’s Dream’ was of ‘as much account as a string of wampum in the Washington mint'” (pg. 112). Boone County, Missouri, fiddler Cyril Stinnet (1912-1986) probably didn’t agree, for although it was the first tune he learned on the fiddle at age 8, he once later remarked he did not much care for the piece. The tune was rumoured (in New Jersey, for one place)  to have been composed by Satan himself (and played on the ‘devil’s box’, or the fiddle) {Cauthen, pg. 202}. It was in the repertories of fiddlers Uncle Jimmy Thompson (1848‑1931) {Texas, Tenn.), Harry Daddario (Union County, Pa.), and Henry Ford’s late 1920’s champion Mellie Dunham (Maine). It was recorded in the early 1940’s from Ozark Mountain fiddlers by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph for the Library of Congress, and recorded in 1951 by Malvin Artley for his eventual 1955 dissertation on the West Virginia Country Fiddler from the playing of Arden Wilson, of Harrisville, West Virginia (AFS 14,087).

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Thomas Hardy, English novelist, fiddler and accordion player, mentions the tune in his novel The Return of the Native  (Book Second, chapter 5):

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The air was now that one without any particular beginning,

middle, or end, which perhaps among all the dances which

throng an inspired fiddler’s fancy, best conveys the idea of

the interminable ‑ the celebrated ‘Devil’s Dream’. The fury

of personal movement that was kindled by the fury of the

notes could be approximately imagined by these outsiders

under the moon, from the occasional kicks of toes and

heels against the floor, whenever the whirl round had been

of more than customary velocity.

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Sometimes lyrics such as these have been attached to the tune:

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Forty days and forty nights

The Devil was a‑dreaming,

Around the bark, old Noah’s ark

The rain it was a‑streaming.

The monkey washed the baboon’s face,

The serpent combed his hair,

And up jumped the Devil

With his pitchfork in the air. (Ford)

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The title is among those mentioned in Patrick J. McCall’s 1861 poem “The Dance at Marley,” the first three stanzas of which goes:

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Murtagh Murphy’s barn was full to the door when the eve grew dull,
For Phelim Moore his beautiful new pipes had brought to charm them;
In the kitchen thronged the girls – cheeks of roses, teeth of pearls –
Admiring bows and braids and curls, till Phelim’s notes alarm them.
Quick each maid her hat and shawl hung on dresser, bed, or wall,
Smoothed down her hair and smiled on all as she the bawnoge entered,
Where a shass of straw was laid on a ladder raised that made
A seat for them as still they stayed while dancers by them cantered.

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Murtagh and his vanithee had their chairs brought in to see
The heels and toes go fast and free, and fun and love and laughter;
In their sconces all alight shone the tallow candles bright –
The flames kept jigging all the night, upleaping to each rafter!
The pipes, with noisy drumming sound, the lovers’ whispering sadly drowned,
So the couples took their ground – their hearts already dancing!
Merrily, with toe and heel, airily in jig and reel,
Fast in and out they whirl and wheel, all capering and prancing.

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“Off She Goes,” “The Rocky Road,” “The Tipsy House,” and “Miss McLeod,”
“The Devil’s Dream,” and “Jig Polthogue,” “The Wind that Shakes the Barley,”
“The First o’May,” “The Garran Bwee,” “Tatther Jack Welsh,” “The River Lee,” –
As lapping breakers from the sea the myriad tunes at Marley!
Reels of three and reels of four, hornpipes and jigs galore,
With singles, doubles held the floor in turn, without a bar low;
But when the fun and courting lulled, and the dancing somewhat dulled,
The door unhinged, the boys down pulled for “Follow me up to Carlow.”

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Seattle fiddler and musicologist Vivian Williams writes: “’Devil’s Dream’ was played by fiddler Jake Lake (originally from Cook County, Illinois) at the wedding of Henry Van Asselt and Catherine Jane Maple in a cabin on the Duwamish River, near Seattle, on Christmas Day, 1862, according to an account written by the bride’s brother, John Wesley Maple.  Other tunes played at that wedding:  ‘’The Unfortunate Dog’, ‘Fishers Hornpipe’, ‘The King’s Head’, ‘Gal on a Log’, ‘Arkansas Traveller’.”

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