Annotation:Nottingham Swing

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NOTTINGHAM SWING. AKA - "Hilly-Go Filly-Go All the Way," "Cumberland Reel," "King of the Cannibal Islands." English, Jig. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The Nottinghamshire town was much contested in the wars between the Danes and the Saxons. Two years after the Norman invasion William I established a castle here (1068). Prince John was left in charge at Nottingham when Richard I left on his Crusade, thus the close association of the town with John and Robin Hood. In 1642 Charles I raised his standard here, signaling the start of the English Civil War.

There is an English ceilidh dance called the Nottingham Swing, from northern England, adapted from notes by Miss Silvia Thursfield, who collected it in the 1930's. The dance was first published by Sibyl Clark in her book Seven Midland Dances (1955). In her introduction she notes:

The "Nottingham Swing" started the hunt for local dances in Northants. It was an argument between dancers from Benefield, Oundle and Titchmarsh as the "right way to do it" that made me and the local dancers realize that there was still a very live tradition of country dancing in Northants. The version included here is from Mr. Donald Spendlove, and is, he says, the "way it has always been done," at least in Titchmarch, in his lifetime!

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Kennedy (Fiddlers Tune Book, vol. 1), 1951; No. 86, p. 42 (appears as "Hilly-Go, Filly-Go All the Way"). Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 107.

Recorded sources:

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