MOUNTAIN SPRITE, THE. American, "Sand Jig." C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (Cole): AA'BB'CC (Craig, Kerr). "The Mountain Sprite" is credited to Frank Livingston in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883), one of several melodies in that volume attributed to him. He may have been a journeyman composer in the Boston area. A "sand jig" was a syncopated duple-metre banjo tune popular in the 1870's and 1880's, particularly as the vehicle for a kind of solo clog dancing. It was often performed on a stage that had been sanded to reduce friction to facilitate the dancer's footwork, and thus the type became known as "sand jigs".
Additional notes
Printed sources : - Cole (1000 Fiddle Tunes), 1940; p. 83. Craig (The Empire Collection of Hornpipes), c. 1890's; p. 5. Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 2), Glasgow, c. 1880's; No. 415, p. 47. Ryan's Mammoth Collection, Boston, 1883; p. 116.
