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Description: | One of the 'big' tunes, named after the Irishman Jack Lattin (1711-31) who died as a result of his exertions in winning a wager in which he danced 'from Castle Browne To Morristown'. Jack was a friend of Larry Grogan, also commemorated by a tune (Vickers No. 297). The first known appearances of Jack's tune are in an Irish publication and a Scottish manuscript both dated 1734 so the tune, probably composed soon after his death in commemoration, had already begun its travels by then. It has since entered the traditional repertoires of the Irish, Northumbrian, Border and Highland pipes, is found in Scottish, Irish and English fiddle collections, and was used by Burns for his song The Lass Of Ecclefechan. It is the foundation of many variation sets which differ from each other as much as the spelling of Jack Lattin varies from one to another. 'Jackey Layton' is the Northumbrian pipers' title, and there are good smallpipe versions in the Peacock and Clough collections. The longest sets are in 18th century Scottish fiddle collections, the Brown manuscript version having 25 strains.The tune forms part of The 'Melodies Committee' manuscript, which appears to be a gathering together of tunes from which much of the contents of the Northumbrian Minstrelsy (1882) were selected, though its compilation continued after the date of the Minstrelsy's publication. It contains contributions in a number of hands from a number of sources, most of which are named. Items which directly reproduce other sources included on the FARNE site, such as Atkinson, Bell, Peacock and Mackintosh, have not been included, though alternative versions of tunes have been.This particular part of the manuscript was copied down by John Stokoe and was taken from the John Smith manuscript, which is now lost. A note on page 125 of the manuscript reveals more about its origins. It reads, 'Airs and dance tunes transcribed from an old ms. book now in the possession of Mr. Lewis Proudlock of Longhorsley by Morpeth. Mr Proudlock received the book from Mr Fish of Angerton five or six years ago, that is about 1881, who bought it at a farm sale amongst some old books. The book is an oblong quarto of about 90 pages containing about 200 tunes many of them minuetts [sic.] and old fashioned hornpipes in 6/4 tune. There are many of the old Northumbrian pipe tunes in it and I have copied verbatim from it into this book 20 tunes. On page 32 of the book is written in beautiful halftext 'John Smith's book 1752' and on page 51 is the Keel row with 10 variations as here copied. So far as I know or have searched, this is the earliest copy of our Tyneside melody extant. John Stokoe, Dec. 1887'. ; Collection of local tunes compiled by the Society of Antiquaries | Publisher: | compilers : Society of Antiquaries | Rights holder: | rights holder : Society of Antiquaries | Temporal: | start=1861;end=1900; | Source: | Folk Archive Resource North East | Identifier: | farne:R1112601 | Go to resource |
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