The Goose And The Gridiron: A Song History

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"The Goose and the Gridiron" is an English country dance tune in 6/8 time, which the Traditional Tune Archive sets in A major and traces to Charles and Samuel Thompson's Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year 1768, where it is No. 75.[1] The Thompsons, London publishers, put out sets under that yearly title; a library record for the 1767 set notes that it supplied each dance with its tune and directions.[2] They brought it out again in 1773 in the third volume of their Compleat Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, and it was later copied, along with many other pieces from that volume, into a 1788 manuscript tune book kept by two Connecticut fiddlers, John and William Pitt Turner of Norwich.[1]

Watercolor of a narrow London street lined with brick houses, with carts and horses in the foreground and the great dome of St. Paul's Cathedral rising beyond.

Thomas Girtin, St. Paul's Cathedral, from St. Martin's-le-Grand, watercolor, pen and black ink over graphite, 1795–96. St. Paul's Cathedral, near whose churchyard stood the London alehouse that gives the tune its title; the watercolor does not show the alehouse and has no connection to the tune.

The title is the name of a small alehouse in London House Yard, off St. Paul's Churchyard; the earliest mention W. J. Williams could find was in Edward Ward's A Guide for Malt-Worms, published in 1713.[3] In his note for the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, Williams suggested that the odd sign probably mocked the swan and lyre of the Musicians' Company, and with it the well-known Mitre music house, which stood in the adjoining Mitre Court until the Great Fire of 1666.[3] The Tune Archive, drawing on Frederick Hackwood's 1909 book on inns, tells a similar story but has the goose-and-gridiron sign replacing the Mitre's at the same house, so sources differ on whether the two were one building.[1] Williams adds that Freemasons met there on 24 June 1717 to elect their first Grand Master, and that the house was pulled down in 1894; its sign was later displayed in the Guildhall Museum.[3]

A modern English country dance of the same name, for three couples in a longways set, is based on the Thompsons' 1768 print; one set of online dance notes credits the interpretation to Tom Cook in 1975.[4] A UK dance index lists recordings for it by Sue and John Stapledon and by Stradivarious, among others.[5] On mountain dulcimer, it is one of the tunes in Mark Gilston's English Country Dance Tunes, Volume 2, a 39-page download that pairs with a first volume to make a two-book set of his dulcimer arrangements.[6]

Our book that contains the song "The Goose And The Gridiron"

Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Goose and Gridiron (The)".
  2. Vaughan Williams Memorial Library Catalogue: "Twenty four country dances for the year 1767" (Chas. & Saml. Thompson).
  3. London and Middlesex Archaeological Society (Archaeology Data Service): W. J. Williams, "The Goose and Gridiron, St. Paul's Churchyard".
  4. Winston's dance notes (SLAC): "Goose and Gridiron".
  5. barndances.org.uk: "The Goose and Gridiron".
  6. Mark Gilston: "English Country Dance Tunes, Volume 2".
  7. Image: Thomas Girtin, St. Paul's Cathedral, from St. Martin's-le-Grand, watercolor, pen and black ink over graphite, 1795–96. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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