Annotation:Elk's Festival (The)

Back to Elk's Festival (The)

ELK'S FESTIVAL, THE. AKA - "Elk's Hornpipe." Scottish?, English (?); Hornpipe or Reel. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. A latter 19th century hornpipe of uncertain provenance, perhaps Scottish. "Can be used as a Clog," states Ryan's Mammoth Collection. A version of this tune appears in Bayard's 1981 collection as "Tune Used in the Lancers" (Appendix, No. 5, p. 574) collected from a fiddler reared on Prince Edward Island. Don Meade notes the two parts of the tune are frequently found as the last parts of "Derry Hornpipe (The)" while researcher Conor Ward finds the first and last (parts 1 and 6) of Francis O'Neill's "Londonderry Hornpipe (The) are the same two strains as "Elk's Festival." Other tunes that resemble it in whole or part are "Texas Quickstep (2)" (Jarman) and "Little Black Moustache (1)" ('A' part only).

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Cole (1000 Fiddle Tunes), 1940; p. 102. Craig (The Empire Collection of Hornpipes), c. 1890's; p. 4. Kennedy (Fiddlers Tune Book), vol. 2, 1954; p. 4. Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 2), c. 1880's; No. 361, p. 40. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 171. Ryan's Mammoth Collection, 1883; p. 138

Recorded sources: Topic Records TSCD678, The Orkney Strathspey and Reel Society - "Orkney: Traditional Dance Music from Orkney" (Recorded by Peter Kennedy in 1955).

See also listing at:
Alan Snyder's Cape Breton Fiddle Recordings Index [1]