Annotation:Three Jolly Sheepskins (1)
THREE JOLLY SHEEPSKINS [1]. English, Sword Dance Tune (2/2 time). A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Bayard (1981) in tracing the ancestry of the American tune "Black Eyed Susie," dates the tune to the 17th century and says it was popular then and throughout the 18th century. Versions have appeared in Aird (1778, vol. 1, No. 178), Oswald (1760, Caledonian Pocket Companion, vol. 2, p. 10), Dauney (1838, No. 31, p. 228), Walsh (1731, Compleat Country Dancing Master, vol. 1, No. 20), John Gay's Polly (Air 24), Moffat and Kidson (Dances of the Olden Time, 1912, p. 18) and Kidson (Old Country Dance and Morris Tunes, 1913, p. 4).
The sword dance is from the seaside village of Flamborough, east riding Yorkshire, England, however, the tune printed with the dance by Cecil Sharp in his Sword Dances of Northern England Book II (1912) was not the one the Flamborough musicians played that day, by rather one collected from a “gipsy fiddler in Herefordshire.” Sharp’s “gipsy fiddler” was named John Locke, of Leominster, Hereford, and Sharp had made wax cylinder recordings of his playing in 1909 (although he gave credit to "Mrs. Leather" for collecting the tune). In his small volume Sharp justified this tinkering with 'tradition' in the preface: “the tunes played on that occasion were neither particularly interesting nor suitable, and were not, moreover, in any way traditionally associated with the dance.” He does not even mention what melody was played by the Flamborough musicians in 1910.
A sheepskin reel involves a line of three dancers moving around three stationary objects, dancers or other target. See also "Three Sheepskins."
