Tommy Jarrell photo © 1989 David Holt These poems, stories, songs, quote, and art have been gathered from all over the world, partly via FIDDLE-L, an online list for fiddlers and those who love fiddle music. dhebert@crocker.com

The Old Fiddler 1882.09.27 (KEENE) NH SENTINEL The old fiddler! What has become of him? The dear old-fashioned fiddler of our boyhood, who occupied the one chair in our kitchen, and beat such heavy time to his music on the bare oak floor. Ah! What a whole-soled thing his foot was! No dainty and inaudible pulsation of the toe, but a genuine, flat-footed "stomp," whose boisterous palpitations, heard high above the rhythmic patter of the dancers feet, jarred and jingled the little eight-by-ten window panes at his back and thrilled every chine on the "cubbard" shelves. There were no affectations about the old fiddler. His instrument was just a fiddle; he a fiddler, and for this homely reason alone, perhaps, it was the youthful listener felt the vibrant currant of the tune in every vein, with such ecstatic spurts of inward mirthfulness at times he felt his very breath sucked up in swirls of intoxication, as one may feel it lost and caught up, swooping down the breezy atmosphere in a long pendulating grapevine swing. And what quaint old tunes he played. "Guilderoy" was the name of one of them; the "Grey Eagle" was another, and "The Forked Deer" and "Old Fat Gal:" - all favorites. Telling the names over again in fancy they all come whisking back - and the bottom of the present is knocked out, and peering through a long maelstromic vista! We see the fiddler, through the dust, Twanging the ghost of "Money Musk," We see the dancers scurrying to their places; we feel once more encased in our best clothes - and all mechanically our hand goes up again to stroke the bear-greased roach upon our forehead ere we salute our blushing pardner who, for all her shining face and chaste and rustling toilet, has still an odor of dishwater clinging to the mellow hands we love to clasp no less. We pause impatiently as the fiddler slowly "rosums up" again; we hear the long premonitory rasping of the bow; we see the old man cross his legs with the old time abandon, and with a bewildering flourish of wrist and elbow the frolicsome old tune comes cantering over the strings like a gamesome colt down a road, and then "Salute your pardners! Corners! All hands round!" and away we go, too happy, happy, happy, to recall the half of the long vanished delight from this old, hopeless and bald-headed standpoint of today, and the magician - the maestro - the old fiddler whose deft touches wither lulled or fired our blood in those old days. Ah! Where is he? We wander wearily in quest of him. We do not find him at the banquet, the crowded concert hall, the theatre. They do not want him in the opera. The orchestra would blush to have him there. In all the wide, wide world he had nowhere to lay his head, and so the old musician wandered on, simply because His instrument, perhaps, was made Afar from classic Italy. And yet we sadly, sadly fear Such tunes we nevermore may hear, Some were so sad, and some so gay. The tunes Dan Harrison used to play. Reprinted by Ralph Page in Northern Junket: vol. 9, no. 1. Submitted by Michael McKernan: Teaching Fellow, Boston University