Annotation:Peat Fire Flame

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PEAT FIRE FLAME, THE. AKA and see "Fireside Reel." Scottish; Air, Reel, March (4/4 time). E Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. As "Fireside Reel" the tune is quite old, and appeared in David Young's Drummond Castle Manuscript (1734). It is often identified as a "traditional melody from the Hebrides," and was included by Marjory Kenney-Fraser in her Songs of the Hebrides for Schools, identified as a "tramping song" in march time, "companion to 'Road to the Isles (The)'." Words to the tune were written in 1921 by Kenneth MacLeod, "to a tune played on the chanter by Malcolm Johnson." However, other than being the vehicle for MacLeod's song, there seems to be no particular connection of the melody with the Hebrides.

The 'peat-fire flame' around which stories were told in bygone days was used as a metaphor for a book on Scottish storytelling called The peat-fire flame: folk-tales and traditions of the Highlands & Islands (1937), buy Alasdair Alpin MacGregor.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources:

Recorded sources: Legacy Recordings, "Memories of Andrew Rankin" (2008).

See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]

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