Fire on the Mountain

Fiddlers like to say the name comes from playing so fast the fiddle catches fire and sets the woods alight. A more sober guess points to the Scottish custom of lighting fires on hilltops to call the clans together.

The tune was in print in Riley's Flute Melodies (New York, 1814). Winston Wilkinson showed in 1942 that it is very close to a Norwegian halling tune, and Jeff Titon wondered whether the touring Norwegian fiddler Ole Bull helped spread it. Fiddlin' John Carson recorded it in 1926.