Thursday 10 August 2017
Tune of the Day: The Piper's Whim
Traditional Scottish slip jig
Both John Glen (1891) and Francis O'Neill (1922) find the earliest appearance of this tune in print in Scottish music publisher Robert Bremner's 1757 Collection of Scots Reels and Country Dances, under the title “The Piper's Maggot”. However, a printing by London publisher John Johnson (A Choice Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol. 3, 1744) predates Bremner by 13 years, so the tune might actually be of English provenance. What is certain is that this old slip jig has had wide and long currency throughout Great Britain and Ireland.