Folk Music in ShetlandSource: Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol. 4, No. 5 (Dec., 1944), p. 210Published by: English Folk Dance + Song SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4521224 .

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VARIA ATQUE BREVIORA

FOLK MUSIC IN: SHETLAND

A CO-NCERT of folk music and dances was, given in th-e Town Hall of: Lerwick onn Decemiber 6th and repeated on Decinber 7th, 1944, at which a number of origi-nal Shetlan-d airs, for voice and for fiddle, were brought to public performance, tales and poems of modern composition but local provenance recited, and reels danced by Shetland teams. The event was plainly of more than local importance, and in so far as it was local it was of great value to its own community. The project arose out of a suggestion made during the Music Festival Week in the previous July (the festival incidentally which took D. W. G. Whittaker to Shetland as adjudica:tor just before he died).

An appeal was mnade for folk-songs, and many were received, some complete, some needing words or a- title, a collection of fiddk tunes was forthcoming, and the dances were arranged by the Lerwick Folkloree Society. Shetland Idialect, which contains, more words of Scandinavian origin than Lowland Scots,, gives a special colour to the songs. Of the dances Foula Reel' is described as a version of " Strip the Willow ',' The Pin Reel ' as an example of ' grab and leave out" for an unequal number of lads and lasses, the odd one being known as 'pinny '." Some of the tunes were arranged-the programme names an -orchestra of five who played selections of the fiddle tunes-by local or Scottish mrusicians. We may hope that Mr. Neil' Mattheson, the post- Im1aster of Lerwick, who was one of the moving spirits behind the concert,, will be able to arrange for some more permanent preservation of the tunes he has salv7aged.

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