Annotation:Fickle Fortune
Tune properties and standard notation
FICKLE FORTUNE. Irish, Reel. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The 'A' part is the same as "Stirling Castle," as well as "Grey Daylight."
Source for notated version: from the playing of North Kerry fiddle master Jeremiah Breen ("who hailed from the parish of Ballyconry, between Listowell and Ballybunnion"), as noted down by his pupil Thomas Rice and later copied by Sgt. James P. Walsh of the Chicago police. Breen, who was blind, was much in demand as a fiddle teacher to farmer's sons, and as a dance fiddler; he often paired with Tom Carthy, "the 'centenarian' piper of Ballybunnion." One of his students, the well-regarded fiddler Michael Kissane, also made it to Chicago and became a businessman, although Francis O'Neill makes no mention of him in Irish Minstrels and Musicians.
Printed sources: O'Neill (Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody), 1922; No. 279.
Recorded sources: