The Whim: A Song History

← Back to Browse By Song

"The Whim" is an English country dance that first appeared, tune and figures together, in the ninth edition of The Dancing Master, published in 1695.[1] Robert Keller's index to the series finds it in every later edition through the eighteenth of 1728, the last two of which, in 1721 and 1728, call it "Bartholomew Fair, or The Whim."[1][2] The Traditional Tune Archive ties that added title to Ben Jonson's 1614 play Bartholomew Fair, whose name refers to the yearly fair at West Smithfield, and notes that John Walsh also printed the dance in his Compleat Country Dancing Master of 1718.[3]

Old photograph of a London churchyard with gravestones and a bare tree, overhung by tall old timber-framed houses.

Alfred and John Bool for the Society for Photographing Relics of Old London, St. Bartholomew's: The Churchyard Looking towards Cloth Fair, carbon print, 1877. St Bartholomew's churchyard looking toward Cloth Fair, photographed in 1877, near the West Smithfield fair that gave the tune its later title; the photograph has no connection to the tune.

In 1916 Cecil Sharp and George Butterworth described it in The Country Dance Book, Part IV as a longways dance "for as many as will," working from the 1695 printing.[4] The Archive lists the tune, a G-major melody, in Barnes's English Country Dance Tunes (1986), and the Albion Dance Band recorded it for The Prospect Before Us, an LP issued on the Harvest label in 1977.[3][5]

Dulcimer players can find it in English Country Dance Tunes, Volume 2, the second half of Mark Gilston's paired collection of old English dance melodies, which he publishes himself as a downloadable book.[6]

Our book that contains the song "The Whim"

Sources

  1. Country Dance and Song Society: "The Dancing Master, 1651–1728: Index W" (Robert M. Keller).
  2. Country Dance and Song Society: "The Dancing Master, 1651–1728: Whim, The" (Robert M. Keller).
  3. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Whim (1) (The)".
  4. Library of Dance: "Cecil J. Sharp and George Butterworth, The Country Dance Book, Part IV (1916)".
  5. Mainly Norfolk: "The Albion Dance Band: The Prospect Before Us".
  6. Mark Gilston: "English Country Dance Tunes, Volume 2".
  7. Image: Alfred and John Bool for the Society for Photographing Relics of Old London, St. Bartholomew's: The Churchyard Looking towards Cloth Fair, carbon print, 1877. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

← Back to Browse By Song