Hunt the Squirrel
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Hunt the Squirrel", also known as "The Geud Man of Ballangigh" is an English, Scottish, Irish,<br> American; Country Dance Tune in 6/8 time and A Major (Fleming-Williams, Johnson,<br> Karpeles, Raven, Sharp), G Major (Barnes, Oswald) or F Major (Stanford/Petrie).<br> The parts are played AB (Stanford/Petrie): AABB (most versions): AABBCCDD (Oswald).<br> Barlow lists it in The Complete Country Dances from Playford's Dancing Master (1984)<br> as having appeared in the 14th edition of 1709.<br> Both dance instructions and melody of this English piece appear in Walsh's Country<br> Dancing Master of 1718 and in Playford's (then published by John Young) The Dancing Master,<br> volume I, 17th edition (after 1721). Directions for the dance to this tune have also been<br> recovered from the Holmain MS. (c. 1710-1750) from Dumfries-shire, Scotland.<br> The dance involves a gentleman following or 'chasing' his partner for a phrase of music, after<br> which she turns and 'hunts' him; the whole being a coy stylization of pursuing love.<br> "Hunt the Squirrel" was the vehicle for a number of songs in ballad operas. It was employed<br> in John Gay's Polly (1729), The Fashionable Lady; or, Harlequin's Opera (1730), The Generous<br> Free-Mason; or, The Constant Lady (1731) and Sylvia; or, The Country Burial (1731). Use of<br> melodies in ballad operas and for dancing went both ways.<br> Playwrights and producers may have been attempting to make their products accessible to a general<br> audience by employing relatively well-known or popular tunes for songs or perhaps publishers<br> expediently reused plates from their country dance collections when they needed to insert an<br> air in their opera publications, and selected melodies that scanned to the words.<br> It was printed in Barnes' English Country Dance Tunes (1986),<br> Fleming-Williams & Shaw's English Dance Airs; Popular Selection, Book 1 (1965),<br> Johnson's Twenty-Eight Country Dances as Done at the New Boston Fair, vol. 8 (1988),<br> Karpeles & Schofield's A Selection of 100 English Folk Dance Airs (1951) (appears as "The<br> Geud Man of Ballangigh"), Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion, Book 11 (1760),<br> Raven's English Country Dance Tunes (1984), Sharp's Country Dance Tunes (1909),<br> Stanford/Petrie's Complete Collection (1905) and<br> Walsh's Complete Country Dancing-Master, Volume the Fourth (1740).<br>
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