Annotation:Whim (1) (The)

Back to Whim (1) (The)

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WHIM [1], THE. AKA – “Bartholomew Fair.” English, Country Dance Tune (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Sharp): AABB (Barnes). The tune dates to 1695 where it appears in the 9th edition of Henry Playford’s Dancing Master. It was reprinted in 1721 in the 17th edition of the work, with the title “The Whim, or Bartholomew Fair.” Regarding the alternate title, Bartholomew Fair is the name of Ben Jonson’s play, written in 1614, and refers to an annual fair held in West Smithfield held between the years 1133–1855 on St. Bartholomew’s Day. So famous was the fair that aspects of it entered popular vernacular, at least for a time. For example, a ‘Bartholomew doll’ was a tawdry, overdressed woman, in association with a flashy, bespangled doll that could be found for sale at the fair. A ‘Bartholomew pig’ was a very fat person, derived from the fact that one of the chief attractions of the fair were pigs, roasted whole, and sold piping hot to the crowd. Shakespeare makes reference to this in Henry IV (ii 4) when Falstaff calls himself:

A tidy little Bartholomew boar-pig.

Bruce Olson finds the melody also published in Walsh’s Compleat Country Dancing Master of 1718, and reprinted by the same publisher in 1735 in his Third Book of the same work. John Glen (1891) finds the earliest appearance of a Scottish tune by this name in print in Robert Ross's 1780 collection (p. 12).

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Barnes (English Country Dance Tunes), 1986. Sharp (Country Dance Tunes), 1909; p. 53.

Recorded sources: Harvest 0777 7 81428 2 9, Albion Dance Band – “The Prospect Before Us” (1993. Orig. rec. in 1976).

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