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Extract from The Journal of The Lakeland Dialect Society, Issue No.1, November 1939, p16.
"My acquaintance with most of these old lake-country musicians
is limited to what one may learn from the little oblong manuscript
tune-books they have left us for their memorial. But from the
faded ink of their generally beautiful manuscript the tunes of
well over a hundred years ago spring to life again, and thus it is
possible still to call up a picture of the social amenities of old
country life and custom in the Lake District - not greatly changed
between the latter part of George III's reign and the early years
of Victoria's - atime when the waltz, the polka, and the
schottische were beginning to supplant the old hornpipes,
reels,strathspeys, jigs, and country-dances.
The social customs of the dalespeople were closely associated with
music and dancing, and the fiddler was an indispensable part of
every "lake", wedding, loosening,tea-party, "auld wife's hake",
young folk's assembly, hay fair, flower show, and friendly
society's ball. Most of these gatherings were held at inns and
taverns, for, as has been remarked, a century ago and earlier
every decent country inn possessed a room large and pretentious
enough for such festivities. "Dancing was dancing in those days
and fiddling , fiddling." Speaking of the furious energy of the
dancing, the son of one of the old fiddlers says: "It was no
uncommon thing to see a dalesman throw off his coat, rol up his
trousers, and go for it, till he had to desist from sheer
exhaustion - the women entering into the contest with equal
vigour." Local poets describe this fury of energy, as at the
"Worton Wedding", where Tamar, in her stocking feet banged out
Wully in his clogs," and again in Mark Lonsdale's "Th' Upshot,"
where it is recorded that Tom Little, the dancing master, took the
floor, and while dancing a "famish" jig gave such a spang that the
loft boards broke and he "stuck a-straddle cocked o' the hallan."
No wonder there was a favourite hornpipe called "Iron Legs!"
There were famous fiddlers in the old days, Gillespie, of Keswick,
being a king among them. William Irwin, of Elterwater, his pupil,
who had the highest admiration for his playing, became probably as
famous in his own day. The best of these fiddlers could also
compose their own hornpipes, reels, and jigs - especially
hornpipes - and one notices that they were more apt to name them
after the places they visited and where they played them than
after the ladies and gentlemen of the nobility, as in Scotland.
Thus we get "Bonny Cumberland" and equally "Bonny Westmorland",
"Keswick Bonny Lasses" "Latrigg Side" "Stybarrow Crag" "Raughton
Head" "Dalston Forge" (composed by Bill Adams), "Windermere
Regatta" "Orton" "Brampton", and many another town or village
celebrated in reel, quickstep, or hornpipe. William Irwin's wife
was also commemorated by "Miss Greenup's Reel" before he married
her, but one finds no flattery of patrons.
Irwin's diary has been preserved - he was born in 1822 and died in
1889 - and although it is a purely business one, dealing with his
receipts for performing at various events, and covering the years
from 1839 into the sixties of last century, it sheds light upon
the usage of the times. A fixed sum was sometimes agreed upon for
a night's fiddling, while other entries containing odd pence and
halfpence suggest more homely gatherings. At some, a penny for the
fiddler would seem to have been collected off each dancer, at
others it has been suggested that the fee was a halfpenny a dance
for each person. In the forties Irwin started a long connection
with the King's Arms, Hawkshead, but from his home at Elterwater
he visited many other localities, "travelling - often alone - over
the lonely mountain passes under almost every condition of
weather," thus fully earning his fees. His "Elterwater Quickstep
is here printed. (see W.Irwin ABC file, Village Music project).
One of the most profitable of his engagements was connected with
"hunsupping" at Christmas - an old and delightful custom now
apparently extinct. It took its curious name from the old music of
arousal which became known generically as a "hunt's - up", from a
tune and song "The King's Hunt Is Up" which dates from the reign
of HenryVIII, and was one of the popular secular tunes converted
to pious or political uses.
["The hunt is up, the hunt is up,
And it is well-nigh day,
And Harry our king
Is gone a-hunting
To bring the deer to bay"]
In the Dales a small band of musicians would go the round of their
neighbour's houses ("It wad be deeth to leave oot a hoose") in the
early hoursof Christmas morning, playing this ancient air in a
traditional version, modified by centuries of usage, to arouse the
inmates. The tune was played over once for each person, and each
time an announcer, chosen for his stentorian voice, would
thereafter wish that member of the household by name, down to the
infant in the cradle, a happy Christmas, the greeted one being
expected to appear at the window to acknowledge the compliment.
[Wordsworth alludes to the custom as observed at Grasmere, in the
Introduction to the Duddon Sonnets, 1820.] The money seems to have
been collected at a later date. This custom of "hunsupping" (ie
hunt's upping) was carried into the Isle of Man, possibly by the
retinue of the Stanleys when L:ords of Man, and here again, though
the custom survived, the meaning of "hunsup" became so obscure
that a new folk-etymology was furnished for it, and "Yn Unnysup"
or "Antisop" or even "Wandescope" came to denote the money given
to the fiddler; and being translated (as if a Manx-Gaelic
word) as meaning "The deserving", thence more widely as "one's
deserts", so descending reached the last stage as indicating a
fitting punishment! [ See the Journal of the Folk Song Society Vol
VII, pp190-194 for further notes on the tune and custom].
Meanwhile, in its native dales a "hunsup" lost its high estate in
coming to mean a noisy clamour or disturbance, as illustrated in
"Dick Watters":
"Thy fadders comin' frae the croft-
A bonny hunsup, faith, he mek!"
- or as addressed to quarrelling children: "What's all this hunsup
about?"
To return to our fiddler after this excursion, Irwin, who was born
in Keswick, was by trade a cooper - for not all these old
musicians found full employment in fiddling - and worked for the
Elterwater Gunpowder Company most of his life. He was considered a
"character" and was a well read man, interested in literature and
various sciences, acquiring most of his library by the money he
earned by his fiddle. He collected one of the first sets of
"musical stones" from Skiddaw and the bed of the Greta. His music
books, dating from 1838 onwards, contained hundreds of tunes,
including popular airs of the day as well as a large number of
hornpipes, reels, et., and at a later period waltzes, polkas, and
schottisches. His own "La'al Schottische" might still be heard on
the concertina in the Lake District not so many years ago.
Irwin's pupil, Henry Stables, of Walthwaite, was another Lakeland
fiddler, (d1906) and it is from his music book that I quote the
old "hunsupping" tune, here called "hunsup through the wood", from
one of the old verses attatched to it.
["Hunsup through the wood,
Hunsup through the wood,
Merrily goes the day!
Get up, old wives,
And bake your pies,
It's Christmas day in the morning"]
He probably learnt it from Irwin.
Another old fiddler's book in my possession is that of Matthew
Betham, of Towcett (near Shap). Of him I know nothing except his
name and the date "1815" after it on one page. This, though a good
collection of current airs of his day, contains few tunes with
local names. (It seems to have come later into the possession of
William Docker, of Newby Head). Some of these old dance airs have
intriguing titles which leave one guessing how they got them. "Due
Mungo" (brilliantly played by Gillespie), "Soldier's Joy", "The
Wind That Bloeth The Barley", ""The Devil's Dream", a whole set of
Morgiana tunes, showing that this mysterious lady was at different
times in England, Scotland , Ireland, France, and "Lord
Wellington's Camp In Spain"; and in a Carlisle collection a tune
called "The Birthday Of The Little Doctor" (who, Ihave been told,
was as Carlisle worthy of some hundred years ago). It is evident
that one fiddler often learnt a tune from another without ever
seeing its name in print, hence "Heel And Fling (Highland[Hieland]
Fling)", "The Self (Sylph)", and a localisation of "Maggie Lauder"
as "Maggie Lowther".
A famous Cumberland fiddler was William (Bill) Adams, an excellent
country musician, particularly noted for jigs and strathspeys....
Well known at fairs, Merry nights, kern suppers and "clay daubins"
(at which it is said a primitive cottage might be raised in a
single day by many willing hands, to make a home for a bridal
pair).
The hornpipe and the jig seem to have been the usual music
measures for step-dancing, for which the dales were famous, and
there are still dancers who remember some of these steps. Some
years ago, at a wedding party in Liverpool, one of the guests, who
came from Elterwater, astonished the company by his Westmorland
step-dancing performance for their entertainment, the verdict
being that they had "seldom seen neater stepping" on the stage. A
friend of mine, born in Crosthwaite, Kendal, learnt
step-dancing as a girl from one of the possibly still
surviving dancing masters, Thomas Casson, Punch Bowl, Underbarrow
(afterwards removing to Gretna) and furnished me with a list of
the various steps he taught. Though these were solo dances, more
than one took part in this "exhibition" dancing as it would
now be called, the hornpip, for instance, being performed by a row
of dancers advancing across the ballroom or assembly floor. But
each of them had been taught some special steps, which
became, as it were, his or her own property. This list may
be worth recording for its curious titles:-
Shuffle Off
Crow Walk
Single Shuffle
Side Step
Double Shuffle
Hagram Crawl [hagworm ie snake]
Heel and Toe Step
Cranch
Over and Cranch
Over and Cranch Twice
Treble Shuffle
Highland Fling
Half Cut
Double Cut
Pick and shovel
Rocking Step
Double Cranch
Treble Shuffle Sideways
Shuffle, Cranch, and Kick Forward
Pick and Shovel Cranch Step
Slip, Kick Over, Cranch
Treble Shuffle, Over and Kick
To this last I may add the oddly name "Leather te Patch" (which
may be the same as the equally obscure "Clutter de Pouch") and
"Cross the Buckle", mentioned in Anderson's "Bleckell Murry Neet".
As to the village dancing schools which seem to have existed as
far back as the last years of the eighteenth century, an old
statesman at Grayrigg told me (in 1903) that it was the custom in
the early years of last century for a dancing master with his
fiddle to settle in a village for two or three months. The lads
and lasses went regularly to dancing school in the winter
evenings, the school being generally held in a barn. Each pupil
would learn a few steps at a time of a hornpipe, jig, or other
dance, and then retire to a corner to practise the steps till
perfect, returning to learn another set.
And then at the country assemblies or balls, the dancing was
something to see! In his own words, it was "chronic!" To this long
past period belongs an allusion, in an old rhyme probably dating
from the last party of the eighteenth century and describing
places in the neighbourhood of Lancaster:
Poulton and Torrisholme are good places for the poor,
And as for Little Heysham it sits upon the shore,
[Theres Heaton for windmills] and Middleton for grips,
There's Overton for dancing schools and Sunderland for ships.
Poulton-le-sands was renamed Morecambe when the railway reached it
in 1848. Little Heysham was Lower Heysham. (I have filled the gap
in memory by introducing Heaton Hill, where a windmill formerly
stood). "Grips" are wide drainage ditches. But though there may
still be dancing in Overton, ships no longer lie before Sunderland
- once the port of Lancaster. All-all is changed. But surely some
echoes still linger among the hills and dales of Cumberland and
Westmorland and northern Lancashire of the nimble and untiring
fingers on the fiddlestrings and the nimble and untiring steps on
the floor - the "Merry nights" of a sturdy dalesfolk who
entertained themselves and each other independent of the outside
world - a time I have here tried to recall for a later generation.
ANNE G. GILCHRIST.
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