One of the fun things about teaching fiddle camps is that the other teachers bring tunes to teach too, and sometimes I don’t know them. And when that happens, I can make it my fiddle tune a day. And, It’s especially cool when I can do it on the last day of fiddle camp and the kids all get to join me for Fiddle Tune a Day.
Cody Stadelmaier taught the Northern Colorado Fiddle Camp with me, and Fairy Dance Reel was one of the tunes that she brought to teach. Enjoy!
Fairy Dance Reel according to Fiddler’s Companion
FAIRY DANCE (Rinnce Na Sideoga/Sideog). AKA and see “Fisher Laddie,” “The Haymaker,” “La Ronde des Vieux,” “Largo’s Fairy Dance,” “The Merry Dance” (New England), “Old Molly Hare” (Old‑Time). Irish, English, Scottish, Shetlands, American, Canadian; Reel. D Major (most versions): G Major (Merryweather): A Major (O’Neill/1001). Standard tuning. AB (Honeyman, Raven): AAB (O’Neill/1001): AABB (Ashman, Brody, Ford, Martin, Sweet, Taylor, Trim): AABB’ (Kerr): AA’BB’ (Athole, Merryweather): AABCCD (Roche): AABBCCDDEEF (Cranford/Fitzgerald): AABBCC’DD’EEFF’GGH (Martin & Hughes). Often this tune is a “beginning tune” for fiddlers, and though simple, it seems to have retained its popularity through the years. It was one of 197 compositions claimed and published (in Fifth Collection,”1809) by Nathaniel Gow under the title “Largo’s Fairy Dance,” which dates it to the latter eighteenth or early nineteenth century. An early printing also appears in W.M. Cahusac’s Annual Collection of 24 Country Dances for 1809, which appears below. Breandan Breathnach states that it was composed by Niel Gow for the Fife Hunt Ball held in 1802, but this is only partly true, according to Nigel Gatherer, for it was actually a pair of tunes Gow wrote, the second being “The Fairies Advance.” Both tunes together make up “Largo’s Fairy Dance.” Emmerson identifies this tune in a class of tunes defined by the rhythm ‘quarter note‑two eighths‑quarter note‑two eigths,’ which includes “De’il Among the Tailors,” “Rachel Rae,” and “The Wind that Shakes the Barley” (which Emmerson {1971} says is substantially a set of “Fairy Dance”).
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In Ireland, it was learned by Joyce in his boyhood in County Limerick, c. 1840. He (1909) says a Donegal setting of this will be found in the Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society. O’Neill (1913) records that a special dance was performed to the tune in that country. Under the title “The Fairy Reel” the tune features in stories of enchantment by the wee folk. A tale is told by Padraig Mac Aodh-O’Neillin in his 1904 book Songs of Uladh (Songs of Ulster) of the origins of the tune which stem from a fiddler of the Mac Fhionnlachs from Flacarragh:
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There was a gathering of Bel-Taine on St. John’s Day (23rd of June), around
the bonfire in Caislean-na-dThuath in northern Dun-na-nGall about 150-160
years ago (~1850).
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“…the fire was wearing low, the dancing nearly over, and the sturdiest
steppers getting tired, a stranger came among the people, announcing himself
in the words: “Sonas, sonas–luck on all here! The music called me, and I
going to bed.” He said no more.
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He was attired only in his night-garments. Much consternation was
caused by his curious appearance and behaviour, the more so as he was quite
unknown to the festive-maker. He went around asking the young girls to
dance with him; but out of fifty or more assembled there, he found but one
(and she, happily, was not a native of the district) who expressed herself
willing to accept his invitation. There were three or four fidilers there
and one piper, and he called on them to turn on the “Fairy Reel.” But not
one of them knew it; every man of them declared that the air and the name
was new to him. Whereupon the mysterious stranger snatched the fidil out of
the hands of mac Fhionnlaoich, the Falcarrach man, who was nearest him, and
flourishing his bow with the grace of a master, turned on the tune himself,
the people standing around with their mouths wide open in wonderment.
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“Now,” he said to mac Fhionnlaoich, when he had finished the wonderful
tune, “there’s your fidil for you. Turn on the ‘Reel.’ Play it after me;
for you’re the only man in the Five Kingdoms can do that same!”
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So mac Fhionnlaoich complied–somewhat reluctantly, it must be said—and played the ‘Fairy Reel: through from beginning to end without a break, while the weird stranger and his fair partner danced, all the people looking on. When he had finished dancing with the girl he slipped a gold peiece into her hand, and turning solemnly towards the people, said: “Remove the fire seven paces to the North, and enjoy yourselves till daybreak. A Sonas, sonas–luck with all here!”
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And so saying, he strode off into the darkness, disappearing as
mysteriously as he had come.
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I give this story pretty much as I got it from my friend Padraig mac
Aodh o Neill, who got it from Proinseas mac Suibhne, the schoolmaster of
Losaid, in Gartan
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Another fairy tale collected (by Seamus Ennis) on Tory Island mentions the tune, is again related by Mac Aoidh, and has parallels in other cultures. It seems that an islander, while going to collect his sheep at Port Glas, overheard wonderful music emanating nearby and investigated. The fairy folk were playing the “Fairy Reel” and the man, being an avid and accomplished dancer, felt compelled to join in. The music and dancing lasted and lasted, and he danced and danced, unable to stop until by chance another islander came upon him. This second man heard no music, and saw nothing of the fairy celebration, and asked the first what he was doing. He got the reply that the dancer was enchanted and would not be able to stop until a mortal laid hand on him. This was done, and the dancer saved from his fate. Mac Aoidh translates: “The soles of his shoes and his socks were worn through and his feet were sore to the bone from the roughness of the place he was dancing on.” A similar tale is told by Canadian storyteller Alan Mills (to the accompanying fiddling of Montreal musician Jean Carignan) collected from French-Canadian tradition, which he calls “Ti-Jean and the Devil” (with the Devil substituting for Fairies).
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A Pennsylvania collected version appears in Bayard (1981) as “Rustic Dance” (No. 52, pg. 38), and, as “La Ronde des Vieux” it was recorded in the latter 1920’s by French-Canadian fiddler Willie Ringuette.
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The tune is associated with a traditional dance in the village of Askham Richard, which lies a few miles from York, England. The famous Dorset novelist Thomas Hardy, himself an accordion player and fiddler, mentioned the tune in The Fiddler of the Reels:
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Then another dancer fell out ‑ one of the men ‑ and went into
the passage in a frantic search for liquor. To turn the figure into
a three‑handed reel was the work of a second, Mop modulating
at the same time into ‘The Fairy Dance,’ as best suited to the
contracted movement, and no less one of those foods of
love which, as manufactured by his bow, had always intoxicated her.
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Wonderful musical performance !
Thanks, Michael.