Hunting The Hare (slip jig) on The Session

In the chat over someone’s recent submission of a ‘straight’ slip jig as a mazurka, I realized this similar slip jig hadn’t yet been submitted to the site…

It sort of reminds me of ‘Top it Off’ which I think is posted., but has differences in the second half. Nice tune though.

Interesting to compare:

https://thesession.org/tunes/2608

Do you think these two slip jigs could’ve originated as the same tune, but diverged through time to produce two tunes with noticeable differences and similarities? Any possibility that they were written by the same hand?

I think you’ve got it in one Jakki. I’ve come across this sort of thing many times. Even when collecting what was supposed to be the same tune from half a dozen musicians within an area of a few square miles in say Fermanagh. You’d think they’d have some agreement. Sometimes there would be, but sometimes you’d get enough difference that you could call them different tunes from the same root. While others work heatedly to ‘standardize’ everything, that evolutionary spark is one of the proofs there’s life. It excites me to find things that you suddenly realize are really from a shared root, in the same genetic line. You find that with the dances too. I’ve done ‘The Lancers’ all over the place, including a Finnish version, a French Canadian one, several varieties of Cape Breton’s way with it, on two versions, US, Canada, Eire and even Carribean… What a kick, each distinct but each from a common parent…

Quick note: Ha! - there was usually greater difference between generations than by geography…

I have this tune under the title of ‘Wigsborough Hunt’ I play this as the first of a set of three, namely ‘The Irish jig’ (a slip jig) and ‘Jack in the Green’. Jack in the Green has a super ‘B’ music. Will post these shortly.