• Who wrote "The Fiddler" and when? Re-post with correction

    From Victor Rutledge@21:1/5 to Christine Barnes on Wed Jun 2 10:08:55 2021
    On Friday, June 21, 1996 at 2:00:00 AM UTC-5, Christine Barnes wrote:
    I'm trying to find who wrote the following song and when it was written.
    It seems to have a German influence in the names Frankfurt am Main and Walburgis (a German festival), but the tune sounds Elizabethan.
    There once lived a fiddler in Frankfurt am Main,
    His back had a hump, but his fiddling was fine,
    On the way to his house,
    He crossed the square, he crossed the square,
    A crowd of lovely ladies was gathering there.

    You poor hunchback fiddler come play us a tune,
    We promise to grant you a worthier spoon,
    Play a polka or waltz,
    So gay and bright, so gay and bright,
    For we are celebrating Walburgis tonight.

    The fiddler began how the fiddle did sing,
    The ladies went dancing around in a ring,
    When the fiddle had played,
    The fine old chord, the fine old chord,
    One lady said "Oh fiddler, come claim your reward"

    She tapped on his shoulder and counted to ten,
    The fiddler stood slender and tall once again,
    "Oh, I'll fiddle no more",
    Cried he with glee, cried he with glee,
    "For now the pretty maids will go dancing with me."

    Many thanks,
    Christine.

    ********************************************************************* Christine Barnes * Telephone: +61 6 201 5278
    Faculty Liaison Librarian * Fax: +61 6 201 5068
    University of Canberra Library * E-Mail: c...@isd.canberra.edu.au *********************************************************************
    I performed this song in University, and that was 1975. The Professor told us it was from the middle ages, and he had known of it since before the Bolshevik revolution. It may have actually been written by Brahms but Professor Galanfy attributed it to
    Bartok, who had written "Three Hungarian Folk Songs" much earlier.

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