The Butterfly: A Song History

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"The Butterfly" is an Irish slip jig, a dance tune in 9/8 time, usually played in E minor (or E Dorian) and built from three parts.[1][2] It grew out of an older two-part slip jig known as "Skin the Peeler," which appears in the mid-nineteenth-century manuscript collection of the Church of Ireland clergyman and piper Canon James Goodman and in Ryan's Mammoth Collection of 1883; the "peeler" of the title is a policeman, the nickname coming from Sir Robert Peel.[3] The tune as now played is credited to the Dublin fiddler Tommie Potts (1912–1988), whose father, John, was a noted uilleann piper.[1][4] The Traditional Tune Archive says Potts learned two parts from his father and added a third, while irishtune.info describes his contribution as a new first part, so sources differ on exactly which strain is his.[1][2] The Archive also passes on a story told by Caoimhín Mac Aoidh that Potts, working in his garden, found the idea in the darting, uneven flight of a butterfly.[1]

Chinese woodblock print of a butterfly hovering over pink peonies and iris, with an inscription at the top

Butterfly on Peony and Iris, polychrome woodblock print; ink and color on paper, 18th century. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the tune.

Potts recorded the tune on The Liffey Banks, made in County Wicklow in August 1971 and issued by Claddagh Records in 1972, the only album of his playing released in his lifetime.[5][6] The Bothy Band put it on their 1975 debut album, and James Galway and the Chieftains opened a set called "The Red Admiral Butterfly" with it on their 1986 album.[1][2] It became a fixture of Irish sessions, so much so that the Tune Archive remarks that overexposure has worn out its welcome with many players.[1]

Phyllis Gaskins includes "The Butterfly" among the E minor tunes in Pig In A Pen (And Other Fiddle Ditties For Galax Dulcimer), a book devoted to the playing and building style of the Galax dulcimer, which suggests retuning the drone strings to E or using a partial capo for those tunes, and also gives instructions for DAD tuning; it is published by Fingers Of Steel.[7]

Our book that contains the song "The Butterfly"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Butterfly (3) (The)".
  2. irishtune.info: "Butterfly" (tune #254).
  3. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Skin the Peeler".
  4. Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy: "Tommie Potts".
  5. irishtune.info: "The Liffey Banks" (Tommy Potts).
  6. Musical Traditions: "Tommie Potts" (review).
  7. Fingers Of Steel: "Phyllis Gaskins, Pig In A Pen (And Other Fiddle Ditties For Galax Dulcimer)".
  8. Image: Butterfly on Peony and Iris, polychrome woodblock print; ink and color on paper, 18th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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