Annotation:Green Mountain Petronella
X:1 T:Green Mountain Petronella M:2/4 L:1/8 R:Reel B:Ralph Page – “Northern Junket”, vol. 10, No. 2, 1970 (p. 19) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:G DG G/F/G/E/|DB B/^A/B|cA A/B/c/d/|ed d2| DG G/F/G/E/|DB B/^A/B|cA A/G/F/G/|AG G2:| |:g/g/g f/f/f/z/|e/e/e/z/ d2|ed gB|cA Az| g/g/g/z/ f/f/f/z|e/e/e/z d2|ed gB|AG Gz:|]=
GREEN MOUNTAIN PETRONELLA. American; Reel, Polka or Country Dance. USA, New England. G Major (Brody, Miller & Perron/1983, Phillips, Spadaro, Sweet): F Major (Miller & Perron/1978). Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB (Miller & Perron/1978): AABB (Brody, Miller & Perron/1983, Phillips, Spadaro, Sweet). Canterbury, New Hampshire caller and musician Dudley Laufman has been credited with finding and disseminating this tune. Nick Barber inexplicably identifies the tune as from Newfoundland, however the title refers to the Green Mountains of Vermont. The title came about due to 20th century New England adaptations of the Scottish country dance "Petronella", as first described by New England musician and dance prompter Ralph Page (Northern Junket, Vol. 10 No. 2, 1970). At some point it became customary for the 'inactives' during the dance to join in a figure, where previously they had stood by. Caller Dudley Laufman tongue-in-cheek referred to that variation of the dance as "Citronella", although there were other minor figure variations as well (some of which 'stuck' while others dropped out of fashion among dancers). Page wrote that the tune named "Petronella" was disliked by many of the fiddlers he knew, as was "despised" by the dancers. Substitutions for it for the dance were “Girl I Left Behind Me (1) (The)" and "Finnegan's Wake”, among others, but the "Green Mountain Petronella" was Page's favored substitution: "The nearer you got to Vermont the surer you were to dancing "Pat'nella" to this tune."
