The Fairy Dance
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"The Fairy Dance", in Gaelic "Rinnce Na Sideoga/Sideog" is also known as "Fisher Laddie",<br> "The Haymaker", "La Ronde des Vieux", "Largo's Fairy Dance", "The Merry Dance" (New England),<br> "Old Molly Hare" (Old-Time) or "Rustic Dance" is a reel known in Ireland, England, Scotland,<br> Shetlands, America and Canada in D Major (most versions): G Major (Merryweather): A Major<br> (O'Neill/1001).<br> This tune is often now considered a "beginning tune" for fiddlers, and though simple it<br> seems to have retained its popularity through the years. It was one of 197 compositions<br> claimed and published (in Fifth Collection, 1809) by Nathaniel Gow (1763-1831) under the<br> title "Largo's Fairy Dance", which dates it to the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century.<br> An early printing also appears in W.M. Cahusac's Annual Collection of 24 Country Dances for<br> 1809, the same year Gow published his original.<br> In Ireland, "The Fairy Dance" was learned by collector P.W. Joyce when in his boyhood in<br> County Limerick, c. 1840 in the south of Ireland. He (in Irish Folk Music and Songs, 1909)<br> says a County Donegal (north Ireland) setting of this will be found in the Journal of the<br> Irish Folk Song Society. O'Neill (1913) records that a special dance was performed to the<br> tune in Ireland.<br> A Pennsylvania collected version appears in Bayard (1981) as "Rustic Dance" and, as<br> "La Ronde des Vieux" it was recorded in the latter 1920's by French-Canadian fiddler<br> Willie Ringuette. The Shetland "Faery Reel" is a distanced version of "Fairy Dance",<br> similar primarily in the second strain. An adaptation for the blackface minstrel stage<br> can be found in James Buckley's New Banjo Method (1860), set by his brother G. Swaine<br> Buckley (1829–1879), who was the lead banjo player for the troup Buckley's Sereneders.<br> It was printed in Ashman' Ironbridge Hornpipe (1991), Bain's 50 Fiddle Solos (1989),<br> Brody's Fiddler's Fakebook (1983), Buckley's Buckley's New Banjo Method (1860),<br> Cahusac's Annual Collection of Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year 1809 (1809),<br> Donnellan's Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society, vol. 2, no. 2 (1909),<br> Ford's Traditional Music of America (1940), Galwey's Old Irish Croonauns (1910),<br> Honeyman's Secrets of the Gaelic Harp (1898), Joyce's Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909),<br> Kerr's Merry Melodies, vol. 1 (1880's), Martin's Taigh na Teud (1990),<br> Cole's 1000 Fiddle Tunes (1940), Martin & Hughes's Ho-ro-gheallaidh, vol. 1 (1990),<br> Merryweather's Tunes for English Bagpipes (1989), J. Kenyon Lees' Balmoral Reel Book (1910),<br> O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems (1907), Raven's English Country Dance Tunes (1984),<br> Roche's Collection of Traditional Irish Music, vol. 3 (1927),<br> Skinner's Harp and Claymore (1903), Stewart-Robertson's The Athole Collection (1884) and others.<br> It has been recorded by various people but I haven't heard any of the recordings.<br>
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