Butterfly (5) (The)

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 Theme code Index    
 Also known as    
 Composer/Core Source    
 Region    Ireland
 Genre/Style    Irish
 Meter/Rhythm    Air/Lament/Listening Piece
 Key/Tonic of    A
 Accidental    NONE
 Mode    Aeolian (minor)
 Time signature    6/8
 History    
 Structure    AB
 Editor/Compiler    Biography:Edward Bunting
 Book/Manuscript title    
 Tune and/or Page number    
 Year of publication/Date of MS    
 Artist    
 Title of recording    
 Record label/Catalogue nr.    
 Year recorded    
 Media    
 Score   ()   


BUTTERFLY [5], THE. Irish, Harp Air (6/8 time). A Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Bunting noted in his manuscript that this was either the second, third or fourth tune learned by beginning harpers. Ann Heymann notes that there is an old Irish belief that the butterfly represented a dead soul waiting to enter Purgatory, and that folklore has it that the spirit of a living person can also leave the body while asleep and travel in the form of the insect.

Source for notated version: Bunting's manuscript, noted from the ancient harper Patrick Quin of County Armagh, one of ten harpers in attendance at the Belfast Harp Festival, held in 1792 [Heymann].

Printed source: Heymann (Secrets of the Gaelic Harp), 1988; p. 55.


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