Fiddles – the Beginnings
The music of the fiddle has been played in Scotland for more than half a millennium. The origin of the name is obscure, but possibly came from the early Romanic vidula, though and old English fithele into the modern language as fiddle and into Gaelic as fidhel (pronounced fi’ull).
The Scottish fiddle today is the same instrument today as the modern violin. Centuries ago it was much less sophisticated, having an oval or guitar-shaped body with a flat back and front, joined by ribs, and played with a bow. Gradually lutes, viols and finally violins became the popular upper-class instruments of the day ; the fiddle was rejected as old-fashioned and out-of-date. In the end the fiddle itself disappeared, but the name stayed on through its associations with Scottish dance music.
Primitive as they were, the old fiddles, with their limited range and thin, scratchy sound, were once good enough for royalty ; ‘April 19, 1497 – Item, to the tua fithelasir that sang Greysteil to ye King…..iv.s.’ King James IV’s payroll also included three other fiddlers, the first whose names have survived, Adam Boyd, Bennet, and Jame Widderspune.
A ‘fidlar’ called Cabroch was employed by James V, but he may have soon been out of a job unless he was versatile, for James began ordering viols, the new favourite, from an English maker, Richard Hume. The viols had a more pleasant sound than the fiddles, and would have been easier to play in tune since they had lengths of gut tied round the fingerboard which, like guitar frets, could help stop the string accurately.
By 1538 fiddlers had been completely displaced at court by Continental ‘violers.’ Perhaps James was yielding to the French style to which his new wife was accustomed, but other more serious forces were at work too, like this pointed attack, a poem by James’s scribe, the cleric John Bellenden :
Show now what kinds of sounds musical
Is most seemly to valiant cavaliers
As thund’ring blast of trumpet bellical
The spirits of men to hardy courage stirs
So singing, fiddling, and piping not ever is
For men of honour or of high estate
Because it spouts sweet venom in their ears
And makes their minds all effeminate
Certainly, fiddlers were not universally liked. By the time of the Reformation, any ‘Vagabonds, fiddlers (and) pipers’ not in the service of the aristocracy or a burgh who refused to leave Edinburgh were burnt on the cheek then banished. In fairness, laws of this sorts were not entirely Philistine. Scotland had been plagued for years by a floating, homeless population which invaded the town trying to make some kind of frugal living. It would have been simple enough to get or make a crude instrument which might gain a beggar a penny or two more than his competitor. But holding a fiddle didn’t make a man a musician, and many must have used instruments to camouflage are more criminal pursuits.
Unfortunately, the mention of fiddlers in various anti-vagrancy Acts may have contributed to some people having negative attitudes to them :
The poor and wandering gleeman was glad to purchase his bread by singing his ballads at the alehouse, wearing a fantastic habit, and latterly sinking into a mere crowder upon an un-tuned fiddle, accompanying his rude strains with a ruder ditty, the helpless associate of drunker revelers, and marvelously afraid of the constable and parish beadle.
Perhaps there were some as badly off as this caricature, but with the destruction of so many Scottish records by Cromwell (who had taken them to the Tower where they were accidentally burnt), those which remain are Treasurers’ Accounts, records of trials and Acts of Burghs or of Parliament, the bias being towards the criminal rather than the praiseworthy. The majority of people involved in music, whether in the service of families or burghs or self-employed, would have led ordinary lives, and remained relatively unknown.
The Reformation
Different and wider-reaching restrictions overwhelmed Scotland with the arrival of the Reformation, which sought to eliminate the Catholicism which had been the country’s religion. Music in the church – the sung mass, the playing of the organ – vanished ; the Calvinists in power went on to ban the traditional May Day games, New Year celebrations and Christmas itself, all unsanctioned by the Bible.
Gradually, men such as John Knox tried to extend their control over all amusements no matter how innocent. Dancing, however, Knox was unable to forbid even while reprimanding Mary, Queen of Scots, for enjoying it with her luters and violers. But Knox certainly made it sound a morally dangerous pastime.
Of dancing, Madam, I said that, albeit in the Scriptures I found no praise of it, and in profane writers that it is termed the gesture rather than those that are mad and in frenzy than of sober men ; yet I do not utterly condemn it, providing that two vices be avoided. (Firstly) that the principal vocation of those that use that exercise must not be neglected for the pleasure of dancing ; secondly, that they dance not, as did the Philistines their fathers, for the pleasure that they take in the displeasure of God’s people. If they do either, they shall receive the reward of dancers, and that will be to drink in Hell, unless they speedily repent, and so shall God turn their mirth into sudden sorrow.
The only musical part of Mary’s brief reign which Knox found pleasure in was her reception when she first arrived in Edinburgh ; “Fire of joy were set forth all night, and a company of the most honest, with instruments of music, and with musicians, gave their salutations at her chalmer window. The melody (as she alleged) liked her weel ; and she willed the same to be continued some nights after.”
What kind of music could have drawn praise from Knox? The psalms, naturally, although Brantome, Mary’s French historian, was much less elevated by the experience ; “An open air concert of nasty violins (mechans violins) and little rebecs, which are as bad as they can be in that country, and accompanied then with singing psalms, but so wretchedly out of tune and concord that nothing could be worse.” (Brantome’s use of the word violins suggests that violins had already appeared in Scotland, but he was writing after the event, when such instruments would have become more common).
Not all Scots immediately gave up their old lives to settle down and meekly sing psalms. Indeed, in the 1580s the Kirk felt its moral housekeeping had accomplished little “Scotland,” it complained, had “ugly heaps of all kinds of sin lying in every nook and part……..with abusing of the blessed name of God, with swearing, perjury, and lies, with profaning of the Sabbath-day with mercats, gluttony, drunken-ness, fighting, playing, dancing etc., with rebelling against magistrates and the laws of the country.”
The De’il and the Reel
But there were far greater evils facing the Kirk. Scotland, under the kingship of Mary’s son, James VI, and with the whole-hearted support of his book Demonology, suddenly discovered witches in its midst. Many psychological reasons for this kind of behaviour are given today – the judges might be called sadists, the witches hysterical or masochistic personalities, or simply those with the misfortune of having unpleasant habits which did not endear them to their neighbours. Whatever the explanation, the phenomenon seems inextricably tied up with the very repressions and resultant guilt and frustration which the Kirk helped create.
It is no surprise to find that music and dance played a part in these dangerous goings-on, since one of the underlying purposes of the witches’ meetings must have been to do, or claim to do, those things which the Kirk was most strongly against. The witch hunters’ and reformers’ fires would have been fuelled by reports like this, an extract from Newes from Scotland (1591) :
Agnes Thompson…..confessed that upon the night of All-Hallow Even last, she was accompanied (by) a great many witches to the number of two hundredth and that they all went together….to the kirke of North Barrick in Lowthian, and that after they had landed (they) took hands on the land, and daunced this reill or short dance (accompanied by ‘a small trump, called a Jewe’s trump,) until they entered into the kerke of North Barrick.
Ironically, since Agnes was strangled, then burnt, for her role, this is the first record of a reel as a type of dance being performed in Scotland. The names of the tunes they used are known, if not the music ‘Silly bit chicken’ and ‘Cummer, go ye before; Cummer, go ye before; Gif ye will not go before, Cummer, let me,’ which they all sang.
Interested? This is just an extract taken from Mary Anne Alberger’s book – ‘Scottish Fiddler’s and Their Music.’ Her book is crammed full of the history of the fiddle. The detail must have meant many, many hours checking and verifying. Yet it is written in a very readable manner. Still interested? Then contact Victor Gollancz Ltd, 14 Henrietta Street, London, WC2E 8QJ.
Box and Fiddle
January 1984
The Scottish fiddle today is the same instrument today as the modern violin. Centuries ago it was much less sophisticated, having an oval or guitar-shaped body with a flat back and front, joined by ribs, and played with a bow. Gradually lutes, viols and finally violins became the popular upper-class instruments of the day ; the fiddle was rejected as old-fashioned and out-of-date. In the end the fiddle itself disappeared, but the name stayed on through its associations with Scottish dance music.
Primitive as they were, the old fiddles, with their limited range and thin, scratchy sound, were once good enough for royalty ; ‘April 19, 1497 – Item, to the tua fithelasir that sang Greysteil to ye King…..iv.s.’ King James IV’s payroll also included three other fiddlers, the first whose names have survived, Adam Boyd, Bennet, and Jame Widderspune.
A ‘fidlar’ called Cabroch was employed by James V, but he may have soon been out of a job unless he was versatile, for James began ordering viols, the new favourite, from an English maker, Richard Hume. The viols had a more pleasant sound than the fiddles, and would have been easier to play in tune since they had lengths of gut tied round the fingerboard which, like guitar frets, could help stop the string accurately.
By 1538 fiddlers had been completely displaced at court by Continental ‘violers.’ Perhaps James was yielding to the French style to which his new wife was accustomed, but other more serious forces were at work too, like this pointed attack, a poem by James’s scribe, the cleric John Bellenden :
Show now what kinds of sounds musical
Is most seemly to valiant cavaliers
As thund’ring blast of trumpet bellical
The spirits of men to hardy courage stirs
So singing, fiddling, and piping not ever is
For men of honour or of high estate
Because it spouts sweet venom in their ears
And makes their minds all effeminate
Certainly, fiddlers were not universally liked. By the time of the Reformation, any ‘Vagabonds, fiddlers (and) pipers’ not in the service of the aristocracy or a burgh who refused to leave Edinburgh were burnt on the cheek then banished. In fairness, laws of this sorts were not entirely Philistine. Scotland had been plagued for years by a floating, homeless population which invaded the town trying to make some kind of frugal living. It would have been simple enough to get or make a crude instrument which might gain a beggar a penny or two more than his competitor. But holding a fiddle didn’t make a man a musician, and many must have used instruments to camouflage are more criminal pursuits.
Unfortunately, the mention of fiddlers in various anti-vagrancy Acts may have contributed to some people having negative attitudes to them :
The poor and wandering gleeman was glad to purchase his bread by singing his ballads at the alehouse, wearing a fantastic habit, and latterly sinking into a mere crowder upon an un-tuned fiddle, accompanying his rude strains with a ruder ditty, the helpless associate of drunker revelers, and marvelously afraid of the constable and parish beadle.
Perhaps there were some as badly off as this caricature, but with the destruction of so many Scottish records by Cromwell (who had taken them to the Tower where they were accidentally burnt), those which remain are Treasurers’ Accounts, records of trials and Acts of Burghs or of Parliament, the bias being towards the criminal rather than the praiseworthy. The majority of people involved in music, whether in the service of families or burghs or self-employed, would have led ordinary lives, and remained relatively unknown.
The Reformation
Different and wider-reaching restrictions overwhelmed Scotland with the arrival of the Reformation, which sought to eliminate the Catholicism which had been the country’s religion. Music in the church – the sung mass, the playing of the organ – vanished ; the Calvinists in power went on to ban the traditional May Day games, New Year celebrations and Christmas itself, all unsanctioned by the Bible.
Gradually, men such as John Knox tried to extend their control over all amusements no matter how innocent. Dancing, however, Knox was unable to forbid even while reprimanding Mary, Queen of Scots, for enjoying it with her luters and violers. But Knox certainly made it sound a morally dangerous pastime.
Of dancing, Madam, I said that, albeit in the Scriptures I found no praise of it, and in profane writers that it is termed the gesture rather than those that are mad and in frenzy than of sober men ; yet I do not utterly condemn it, providing that two vices be avoided. (Firstly) that the principal vocation of those that use that exercise must not be neglected for the pleasure of dancing ; secondly, that they dance not, as did the Philistines their fathers, for the pleasure that they take in the displeasure of God’s people. If they do either, they shall receive the reward of dancers, and that will be to drink in Hell, unless they speedily repent, and so shall God turn their mirth into sudden sorrow.
The only musical part of Mary’s brief reign which Knox found pleasure in was her reception when she first arrived in Edinburgh ; “Fire of joy were set forth all night, and a company of the most honest, with instruments of music, and with musicians, gave their salutations at her chalmer window. The melody (as she alleged) liked her weel ; and she willed the same to be continued some nights after.”
What kind of music could have drawn praise from Knox? The psalms, naturally, although Brantome, Mary’s French historian, was much less elevated by the experience ; “An open air concert of nasty violins (mechans violins) and little rebecs, which are as bad as they can be in that country, and accompanied then with singing psalms, but so wretchedly out of tune and concord that nothing could be worse.” (Brantome’s use of the word violins suggests that violins had already appeared in Scotland, but he was writing after the event, when such instruments would have become more common).
Not all Scots immediately gave up their old lives to settle down and meekly sing psalms. Indeed, in the 1580s the Kirk felt its moral housekeeping had accomplished little “Scotland,” it complained, had “ugly heaps of all kinds of sin lying in every nook and part……..with abusing of the blessed name of God, with swearing, perjury, and lies, with profaning of the Sabbath-day with mercats, gluttony, drunken-ness, fighting, playing, dancing etc., with rebelling against magistrates and the laws of the country.”
The De’il and the Reel
But there were far greater evils facing the Kirk. Scotland, under the kingship of Mary’s son, James VI, and with the whole-hearted support of his book Demonology, suddenly discovered witches in its midst. Many psychological reasons for this kind of behaviour are given today – the judges might be called sadists, the witches hysterical or masochistic personalities, or simply those with the misfortune of having unpleasant habits which did not endear them to their neighbours. Whatever the explanation, the phenomenon seems inextricably tied up with the very repressions and resultant guilt and frustration which the Kirk helped create.
It is no surprise to find that music and dance played a part in these dangerous goings-on, since one of the underlying purposes of the witches’ meetings must have been to do, or claim to do, those things which the Kirk was most strongly against. The witch hunters’ and reformers’ fires would have been fuelled by reports like this, an extract from Newes from Scotland (1591) :
Agnes Thompson…..confessed that upon the night of All-Hallow Even last, she was accompanied (by) a great many witches to the number of two hundredth and that they all went together….to the kirke of North Barrick in Lowthian, and that after they had landed (they) took hands on the land, and daunced this reill or short dance (accompanied by ‘a small trump, called a Jewe’s trump,) until they entered into the kerke of North Barrick.
Ironically, since Agnes was strangled, then burnt, for her role, this is the first record of a reel as a type of dance being performed in Scotland. The names of the tunes they used are known, if not the music ‘Silly bit chicken’ and ‘Cummer, go ye before; Cummer, go ye before; Gif ye will not go before, Cummer, let me,’ which they all sang.
Interested? This is just an extract taken from Mary Anne Alberger’s book – ‘Scottish Fiddler’s and Their Music.’ Her book is crammed full of the history of the fiddle. The detail must have meant many, many hours checking and verifying. Yet it is written in a very readable manner. Still interested? Then contact Victor Gollancz Ltd, 14 Henrietta Street, London, WC2E 8QJ.
Box and Fiddle
January 1984