Annotation:Garster's Dream
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GARSTER'S DREAM. Shetland, Jig. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. This tune is known as a Trowie (Fairy) tune from the Shetland Island of Fetlar (which means 'the fat isle'), which was heard by a man named Garster in a dream (or, as another version has it, coming from a hole in the ground) while resting by a Trowie Knoll when he was coming home from a wedding. The tune was first noted by J.T. Hoseason in December, 1862, and his version includes "hesitations," which may indicate that this tune, like some other Shetland tunes, was actually played in a rhythm somewhere between 2/4 and 6/8. The tune is still popular today, though in strict jig time (Cooke, 1986). The tune appears in J. Hoseason's Manuscript and the Shetland Folk Society's Da Mirrie Dancers.
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Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Anderson & Georgeson (Da Mirrie Dancers), 1970; p. 12. Anderson (Ringing Strings), 1983; p. 28. Cooke (The Fiddle Tradition of the Shetland Isles), 1986; Ex. 26 (a and b), p. 76.
Recorded sources: Shanachie 79002, "The Boys of the Lough" (1973).
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