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Fire on the mountain

Played by : The Wayfarers
Source  : Soundcloud
Image : Old Time String Band

Fire on/in the mountain A popular 'American' fiddle tune that has numerous variants (some quite distanced from each other) and is widely disseminated throughout the South and Midwest. It is typically played at breakneck speed, giving rise to popular folklore for the origins of the title: i.e. the fiddler plays so fast the fiddle catches on fire and lights up the woods (Lowinger, 1974). The title may be Celtic in origin: Scottish clans often used blazing bonfires on Highland hills as gathering signals (ironically, this also may be the origin for the Ku Klux Klan's blazing crosses).

Krassen (1973) notes his 'B' part has similarities with a 78 RPM recording of Pope's Arkansas Mountaineers' "Hog-eyed Man" Hog Eye (1) <div class="mw-ext-score" data-midi="/w/images/lilypond/4/u/4ugsu1swjhuzrhe56ch9eq455kb0gl0/4ugsu1sw.midi"><img src="/w/images/lilypond/4/u/4ugsu1swjhuzrhe56ch9eq455kb0gl0/4ugsu1sw.png" width="691" height="58" alt=" X:1 M:2/4 L:1/8 K:A e/f/e/d/ c/B/A/c/|B/A/=G/F/ E/F/G/A/|e/f/e/d/ c/B/A/c/|B/A/G/B/ A/B/c/d/:| "/></div> and Bayard (1981) also recognizes the similarity between the second parts of the same tunes, though a closer match to "Fire On the Mountain" he believes to be Betty_Martin <div class="mw-ext-score" data-midi="/w/images/lilypond/6/1/61luky457js94manbr0t3cuis8yeer2/61luky45.midi"><img src="/w/images/lilypond/6/1/61luky457js94manbr0t3cuis8yeer2/61luky45.png" width="595" height="52" alt=" X:1 M:4/4 L:1/8 K:G (e|e)fed cAAc|B2G2B2d2|efed c2 Ad|B2G2A3:| "/></div> which is "reminiscent all through." Guthrie Meade (1980) links the Kentucky version of the tune (which also goes by the name "Big Nosed Hornpipe") to the "Sally Goodin'" family of melodies. "It has been suggested that the tune originated from eastern European migrants, some of whom made commercial recordings in New York in the early part of the 20th century," says Mike Yates (2002). Winston Wilkinson, in the Southern Folklore Quarterly (vol. vi, I, March, 1942), gives a bar-for-bar comparison of the tune with a Norse 'halling' tune, set by the Norwegian composer Greig and published in Copenhagen in 1875 (Norges Melodier, 1875 & 1922, iv, p. 72). The tunes are so close as to be almost certainly cognate. Jeff Titon (2001), picking up this theme, speculates that the various related "Fire on the Mountain" tunes may have resulted from the influence of influential Norwegian fiddler Ole Bull, who toured the United States extensively in the 19th century.

Wilkinson's version of "Fire on the Mountain" collected from Albermarle County, Va., fiddler "Uncle Jim" Chisholm is similar to Glen Lyn, Giles County, southwestern Va., fiddler Henry Reed's version. Wilkinson's version is nearly identical to the tune as it appears in the 1841 music manuscript collection (with the title "Fire upon the Mountains") of Dublin dentist and music collection Henry Hudson (1798-1889), whose informant (for this and several other tunes) was a man named James Barton. Samuel Bayard records the tune's earliest American publication date is 1814 or 1815 in Riley's Flute Melodies (where it appears as "Free on the Mountains"), and as "I Betty Martin" in A. Shattuck's Book, a fiddler's manuscript book dating from around 1801. Mike Yates (2002) summarizes that "'Fire on the Mountain(s)' is one of a broad family of early 18th century (or earlier) tunes that shades into one another and are as old as 'Hey Betty Martin, Tip Toe.'"

The piece was recorded in the early 1940's from Ozarks Mountains fiddlers by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph for the Library of Congress. It is on Missouri fiddler Charlie Walden's list of '100 essential Missouri fiddle tunes'. Lowe Stokes (1898–1983), one of the north Georgia band 'The Skillet Lickers' fiddlers, remembered it as having been fiddled by his father. The Red Headed Fiddlers, A.L 'Red' Steeley and J.W. 'Red' Graham, recorded the tune in 1929, titled by the recording engineers as "Far in the Mountain"-evidently they were from the North and could not recognize the correct title when pronounced with Southern accents.

Verses are sometimes sung to the melody, especially in the variants by other names such as "Betty_Martin <div class="mw-ext-score" data-midi="/w/images/lilypond/6/1/61luky457js94manbr0t3cuis8yeer2/61luky45.midi"><img src="/w/images/lilypond/6/1/61luky457js94manbr0t3cuis8yeer2/61luky45.png" width="595" height="52" alt=" X:1 M:4/4 L:1/8 K:G (e|e)fed cAAc|B2G2B2d2|efed c2 Ad|B2G2A3:| "/></div> "Ten Little Indians," "Pretty Betty Martin" and Hog Eye (1) <div class="mw-ext-score" data-midi="/w/images/lilypond/4/u/4ugsu1swjhuzrhe56ch9eq455kb0gl0/4ugsu1sw.midi"><img src="/w/images/lilypond/4/u/4ugsu1swjhuzrhe56ch9eq455kb0gl0/4ugsu1sw.png" width="691" height="58" alt=" X:1 M:2/4 L:1/8 K:A e/f/e/d/ c/B/A/c/|B/A/=G/F/ E/F/G/A/|e/f/e/d/ c/B/A/c/|B/A/G/B/ A/B/c/d/:| "/></div>.

Wilkinson (1942) says that the following verse made its way into some editions of Mother Goose [see Mother Goose's Quarto, Boston, 1825]:

Fire on the mountains, run, boys, run,
Fire on the mountains, run, boys, run.

Other verses (some of which are floating) have been:

Fire on the mountain, run boy run;
Sal, let me chaw your rosin some.

Fire on the mountain, run, boys, run;
Fire on the mountain till the day is done.



...more at: Fire on the mountain - full Score(s) and Annotations

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X:1 T:Fire upon the Mountains [1] M:2/4 L:1/8 R:Reel N:"From James Barton." N:Henry Hudson music manuscript collection (1841, No. 311) Q:"Allegro" N:Hudson (1798-1889) was a Dublin dentist and an early collector. N:He was music editor of The Citizen or Dublin Monthly Magazine N:from 1841-1843. F: http://rarebooks.library.nd.edu/digital/bookreader/MSE_1434-2/#page/7/mode/1up Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G d/e/d/c/ BG|AF A/B/c|d/e/d/c/ BG|AF G2:| d/e/d/c/ Bc|de =f2|=f/e/d/c/ Bc|de/^f/ g2| d/e/d/c/ Bc|de =f2|=f/e/d/c/ BG|AF G2||