Friday 25 October 2024
Tune of the Day: The Flitch of Bacon
Traditional Irish jig
This jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's collection Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1903, but it is almost certainly significantly older. The title, at any rate, can be traced all the way back to the 1778 comic opera “The Flitch of Bacon” by English composer William Shield.
There was an old English custom, recalled in plays, ballads and anecdotes, whereby a flitch of bacon (a side of unsliced bacon) was awarded to married couples who could swear to not having regretted their marriage for a year and a day.