Annotation:Drunken Hussare

Back to Drunken Hussare

---

DRUNKEN HUSSARE. English, Jig. B Flat Major/A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. A hussar is a type of 19th century cavalryman. Anne Gilchrist ["Old Fiddlers' Tune Books of the Georgian Period", JEFDSS, vol. 4, No. 1, Dec. 1940, p. 18] notes: "The curious rhythm of…the "Drunken Hussar" suggests a nursery rhyme in Mother Goose's Melody, 1791. English Hussars did not come into existence till 1806-7, but this rhyme is about a drunken Grenadier, and could easily have been adapted to the tune":

Who comes here?
A grenadier.
What do you want?
A pot of beer.
Where's your money?
I've forgot.
Get you gone,
You drunken sot!

Source for notated version: The melody is contained in the Joseph Kershaw manuscript. Kershaw was a fiddler who lived in Slackcote, Saddleworth, North West England, in the 19th century, and his manuscript dates from around 1820 onwards.

Printed sources: Knowles (The Joseph Kershaw Manuscript), 1993; No's. 15 & 16.

Recorded sources:

---