Hopkinson’s Favourite
Jack-in-the-Green track 2
We play this jig as the last in a set of three tunes from English fiddle players. Learned from Dave Townsend (and from its use as a dance tune by Rogue Morris from Oxford), Hopkinson’s Favourite comes from an eighteenth century Lakeland fiddler’s tunebook held at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. Bellowhead recorded this tune on their CD Burlesque and quoted us as their source. The CD booklet notes state- and these details would have been obtained from Dave Townsend - "It has the name Mathhew Betham (or possibly Botham), the date 1816, and the place-name Towcett (near Sharp Fell) on the inner pages. The internal names and dates are in the same hand as the titles of the tunes, but the outer sheet is transcribed with the mysterious 'William Docker Newby Head' in what looks like a completely different hand".
Hopkinson’s is in fact a minor key version of the first tune in this set, Mother Goose.
Paired with Mother Goose / The Priest and his Boots