Song
Egg Hornpipe (The)
Source: Allen Ash Manuscript
Composer: Trad.
Region: South Central
Circa: 1800-1849
Year: 1840

The Egg Hornpipe is the second tune in this medley - played on long-necked mandolin. Anne Lederman and Ian Bell. The other tunes are Reel 17, Ash Air, Mrs. Griffith's Hornpipe, and Lady Montgomery's reel. From the Muddy York lp "Scatter The Ashes", 1984.
Full disclosure: This is one of the first tunes I learned out of the Ash collection when I first got a photocopy of it in 1982. I've been playing it ever since. As I'm going through my now-battered copy of the manuscript in 2016, I find I've lost the page that this tune was on. So here it is from my own playing. I'm sure Allen Ash would recognize it. I play it as a clog-hornpipe in a dotted rhythm throughout. This tune is more often found under the name "Ricker's" "Richer's" or "The Rackett". It is in "Ryan's Mammoth Collection", "Cole's 1000 Fiddle Tunes" and in other 19th century manuscripts. "The Egg Hornpipe" is a generic name for a dance performed by stage performers who placed eggs and lit candles on the floor and blindfolded, danced around them, sometimes gathering the eggs onto a handkerchief with movements of their feet. and then picking them up as the grand finale. I have seen references to this dance being done in 19th century Canada. There are European painting of versions of the dance going back to the 1500s.

An American political cartoon based on the Egg Dance.
Page from the Ash MS.

Themes


DANCE

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