Category: Faerielore Music

I am very fond of this piece, because at the time I found it, Cornish (from the UK region of Cornwall) tunes were harder to find on my side of the Atlantic. It is a dancing tune related to the Bucca, a shape-shifting trickster whose name is cognate with pooka/púca(Irish)/pwca(Welsh). About twenty years ago, a Cornish youth group coreographed their own dance to this traditional tune, and after I grew fond of the tune and adopted it, a mutual friend choreographed a dance for the Fae Troupe with which I performed. I had the opportunity to play this for Peter S. Beagle.

As I sat by the fire with my son, Paidín,
A sudden change came over the scene.
Down the chimney came a little man so old,
And I asked him for his pit of gold.
“No gold have I, but good advice,
And if you heed it, you will be wise:
Grow small barley, and keep a pig,
And play this tune, the Luathradawn’s Jig.”
-Junior Crehan

On the day after St. Patrick’s Day, I’m wondering why the leprechaun became iconic in the Irish-American diaspora when the creature holds a minor role relative to the sidhe and other beings. I think it was more bucolic than the extensive tales of the Gentry, and simple daily luck played more importance to the lives of immigrants than grand battles. At any rate, some of the interesting related lore didn’t travel as far. I explain to my audiences that Luathradáns are similar to Leprechauns, but with the treasure of music instead of gold.

Junior Crehan, 1908–1998, a fiddler from County Clare, Ireland, was both a composer and a poet. In the poem he wrote for this tune, he credits it to a luathradán he and his son caught in their house one night. I have included three variations I have found- Crehan was known for improvising rhythmic variations. The first setting fits in the range of Irish whistle, which I use (double whistle) in my sets. The other two use the extended range of the fiddle.

Watching the beginning of Ken Burns’ Country Music documentary, I found myself shouting aloud in glee. The opening segment features a montage of multiple artists with various quotes about the genre. Before the title frame and episode title run, we hear Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show. He wraps up his fiddle solo with a single word: “Country,” he says.

“That’s Celtic faerie music.” I yell.

Let’s follow the tune he played, from its start as a composition by Nathaniel Gow (1763-1831) for dances in Fife, Scotland in 1802, to every corner of the British Isles and Ireland, and on to North America, to start our exploration of faerielore music. Most of the melodies I will share are completely credited to the fae or other supernatural beings. As a piece that can be traced to a specific composer, The Fairy Dance differs in that respect. What the tune and its many variations can show us is how folk music and the creatures of faerielore behave in similar ways. Like a traveling pooka, The Fairy Dance changed forms, acquired new names in each of the languages of the people it visited, and acquired stories about its origins- from giants, to trows, to wild hares.

NOTE:I have slowed the tempo on some of these for the benefit of those hearing these tunes and/or variations for the first time, but the rendering plugin I used should allow you to change the tempo for learning purposes. 

The piece was originally one of two, a reel and a procession, together called Largo’s Fairy Dance. For as far as the first travelled, the second was preserved in a single manuscript, so let’s listen to the arrangement that has both first, arranged as duets.

 

Let’s visit an early variation, a cante-fable from the Isle of Man. Manx is a q-Celtic (aka Goidelic) Celtic language, related to Irish and Scots-Gaelic. While Gaeilge and Gaelic both began being written using Roman letters during the period of Old Irish- using many letter combinations to convey sounds and sound changes that did not exist in Latin- Manx was not written until much later, and the spelling is based on the (already inconsistent) spellings of English.

Nathaniel Gow’s patron was the Duke of Atholl, whose title also extended, at the time to be hereditary ruler of the Isle of Man. There were certainly artistic exchanges between Scotland and Isle of Man under that patronage. While instrumental pieces and songs can begin in either direction- there are certainly examples of sung phrases being combined into larger instrumental works- looking at how the syllables line up with the underlying melody seems to suggest that the cante-fable borrowed from Gow.

It is at this point that our fairy becomes a giant. In the story, a lazy woman who doesn’t want to spin her own wool asks a giant to do it for her. With motifs you probably know from English and German stories such as Rumpelstiltskin, the price is to guess the giant’s name, or else he could claim all the wool as his own. The song contains both what the giant was overheard singing, and what the woman sang after learning his name.

 

Written down by Mona Douglas and Sophia Morrison when the Manx language was waning, now Snieu Queeyl Snieu (here with variant spelling) is a song commonly taught to young people learning about Manx language and culture:

 

Here’s a video of a hand game/rhythm, that accompanies the song:

 

Here are two Scottish versions, the first is closer to what you’ll hear in many sessions, with a more un-dotted rhythm than the Largo’s version at the start, the second uses triplets and what I think of as the In Excelsis Deo B part:

 

I lost the provenance on this next one, but I thought I should include it here because it seems to build on the version above it.

 

Here is a simpler version from Lancashire, England:

 

Here’s an Irish version from Joyce’s Old Irish Folk Music:

Here’s a fancier Irish variation in G. The tilde above the dotted quarter notes represents a roll, but the midi doesn’t render that. It is technically three of the same note divided by grace notes above and below the note, but the exact interpretation will depend on instrument and player:

 

In addition to its use in Snieu Queeyl Snieu, the full tune shows up in collections from the Isle of Man under various Manx names. Ferishyn is cognate with English faerie, but sheeaghyn is used in other songs (cf. Irish sidhe, Gaelic daoine sith.) You will also find this under the title Car ny Ferishyn.

 

 

Here’s a particularly beautiful snippet on guitar from Mark Lawrence:

 

This Welsh version features a dotted rhythm like the manuscript from Cumbria that also features the Fairies Advance. The Tylwyth Teg translates roughly to “bright tribe” and are hardworking, night-dwelling fae of Welsh lore. The limited range, as well as the dotted rhythm, makes me think this version may have been adapted for pibgorn, or bagpipes.

 

The Shetland Isles are now part of Scotland, but have had a complex cultural history, and their language and fiddling traditions have both been influenced extensively by contact with Scandinavian sea cultures. The trow is a night-dwelling, music-loving creature. In different tellings of the same stories from the Shetland Isles, different tellers might refer tto these beings as fairies, trows, or Picts. Trow is cognate with “drow elves” rather than trolls.

 

Dis een comes fae Yell an it seems it a fiddler comin hame fae a weddin set him doon ta rest upon a broo. He heard music comin fae a hole ida grund an he could hear da soond o dancin as weel. He kent it was da trows haddin a rant bit he wisna feard an sat still until he’d gottin da tøn in his head. Whin he got hame he never guid ta bed until he wis able to play him upo da fiddle. Bobbie Jamieson an Willie Barclay Henderson o Nort Yell played dis een wi da high bass, dat is, da back string set up ta A.
-Lynda Keenan, Brae School

 

 

James Scott Skinner (1843 –1927) was a prolific Scottish dancer, fiddler and composer, known as “the Strathspey King”. He created multiple variations of Nathaniel Gow’s piece. He also toured and performed in the United States, in areas with Scottish settlers that were eager for a virtuosic representation of Scottish traditional music. It was largely his influence, I suspect, that spread the tune around North America.

 

In the United States, particularly in areas of Celtic diaspora like Appalachia and the Ozarks, the tune of the Faerie Dance was transmitted not only from fiddler to fiddler, but vocally. It was in these American lyrics that, like a pooka, the dance transformed into a hare. Here is one of many lyrical versions of a trickster spirit we can all reference. (What’s up, Doc?)

Be forewarned, if you go looking for other versions of “Old Molly Hare” that some feature explicit racism.

 

 

 

As the Faerie Dance was indeed meant for dancing, while I’ve taken you by the hand to hear many versions, the element of choreography, and what we may surmise about how these were danced in various areas is also a worthwhile territory to explore. Lacking the background and footwork, we may revisit that when I talk with historical dance specialists later on. For now, I want to finish our journey that started in Fife, Scotland in the American Southwest, with The Old Crow Medicine Show that was with us at the start: