Annotation:Jaunting Car (1)

Back to 

 JAUNTING CAR. AKA and see "Dickey Gossip (2)," "Dublin Hornpipe (3) (The)," "Lodge Gate," "Pound Hill," "Russell's Hornpipe," "Woodcock Hill." American, Scottish; Hornpipe. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The composition is credited to J. Hand in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883), referring to Jimmy or Johnny Hand, New England performers who were related in some way. "Can be used as a Clog" (Cole). Despite this attribution, it seems unlikely that one of the Hands had anything to do with composing it, for the melody appears under a variety of titles in England, Ireland and Scotland. In fact, its provenance is uncertain. It appears in the mid-19th century music manuscript collection of Church of Ireland cleric and uilleann piper James Goodman (County Cork) as "Dickey Gossip (2)" and in Kerr's Merry Melodies (published around the same time as Ryan's Mammoth Collection) as "Dublin Hornpipe (3) (The)" and "Jaunting Car." A jaunting car was a light, two-wheeled horse drawn carriage.  Source for notated version: Tom Doucet (Nova Scotia/eastern Mass.) [Phillips].  Printed sources: Cole (1000 Fiddle Tunes), 1940; p. 96. Kerr (Merry Melodies), vol. 2; No. 372, p. 41. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), vol. 2, 1995; p. 203. Ryan's Mammoth Collection, 1883; p. 131.

 Recorded sources: Fiddler FRLP001, Tom Doucet - "The Down East Star."

Back to