Annotation:Frogs' Frolic
X:1 T:Frogs' Frolic T:Dunkeld House [1] M:6/8 L:1/8 S:Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:Emin {F}EDE G2E | B2G G2E | F2D DFA | ABA AFD | {F}EDE G2E | B2E G2A | (Bc)B (AG)F | BGE E2 z :|| {f}(gb)g e2f | (gb)g e2f | (faf) d2f | {f}(gb)g e2f | (gb)g e2f | (gfe) (bge) | (ef)e e2f | {f}(gb)g e2f | (gb)g e2g | (faf) d2f | (efg) (fga) | (gab) e2B | (Bc)B AGF | BGE E2z ||
FROGS' FROLIC. AKA and see "Dunkeld House (1)," "Judy McFadden (2)." American (originally Scottish), Jig. E Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. See also the cognate first strain of "Grey Goose (3) (The)." Blackface minstrel composer and performer George H. Coes included the jig in his Coes Album of Jigs and Reels (1876) under the title "Judy McFadden (2)." The tune was printed in Elias Howe's Musician's Omnibus Nos. 6 & 7 (1880-1882) as "Irish Reel", and printed again a year later by Howe's employee, William Bradbury Ryan in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883) as "Frogs' Frolic." In Ireland, "Frog's Frolic" is cognate with "Jackson's Rowly Powly" (although somewhat melodically distanced). While Howe may have obtained it from Irish sources, the jig is the work of Scottish fiddler-composer Niel Gow (1727-1807), who composed it as "Dunkeld House (1)" in the 1770's for his patron John Murray, the Duke of Atholl -- Dunkeld House in Perthshire was one of the latter's seats, and lies "no more than a stone's throw" from Inver, the birthplace of the great fiddler.
