{"id":9264,"date":"2017-04-11T09:23:16","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T08:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/?p=9264"},"modified":"2017-04-11T09:23:16","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T08:23:16","slug":"how-willafjord-was-found-new-book-recounts-fiddler-maurices-greenland-trek-to-trace-popular-tunes-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/how-willafjord-was-found-new-book-recounts-fiddler-maurices-greenland-trek-to-trace-popular-tunes-history\/","title":{"rendered":"How Willafjord Was Found – New book recounts fiddler Maurice’s Greenland trek to trace popular tune’s history"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>LEADING Shetland fiddle exponent Maurice Henderson has published a new book documenting his travels to Greenland to trace the roots of one of the most popular isles reels.<\/p>\n

Copies of In Search of Willafjord<\/a><\/b> arrived on Tuesday, just in time for Christmas, much to Maurice\u2019s delight. He describes the glossy, illustrated paperback \u2013 being published by The Shetland Times \u2013 as a mixture of detective work, social history and travelogue.<\/p>\n

Article taken from Shetland News<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

Willafjord is one of Shetland\u2019s most popular and enduring tunes: \u201cone of the first ones that you learn\u201d and one of several Greenland or whaling tunes brought back from the Arctic whaling days.<\/p>\n

Maurice hadn\u2019t intended to make it the subject of the book, instead thinking \u201cthere\u2019d maybe be an article in it\u201d, but after conducting research and visiting Greenland for over a fortnight in September 2015 decided it was \u201cworth putting together a story on it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you ask around and try to find out where Willafjord is, nobody knows except it\u2019s somewhere in the Arctic, could be in Greenland, and it just kinda intrigued me \u2013 you must be able to find somewhere a bit closer,\u201d he told Shetland News.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhilst researching some other old stories I came across a few clues and decided to follow it up. I went there with no concept really what the place was like or what the settlements were like, or the way of life there or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

To find out exactly where he went and what he discovered, you\u2019ll have to read the book for yourself \u2013 suffice to say that Maurice found it to be a \u201ctruly spectacular place\u201d.<\/p>\n

A particular highlight of last year\u2019s Greenland visit was an impromptu night of tunes outside a local\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

The cover artwork of In Search of Willafjord. The cover artwork of In Search of Willafjord.<\/p>\n

\u201cI discovered that they could dance to the Shetland tunes \u2013 they knew how to dance to them, so I think that one night there with the dancing probably made the trip in a sense. There was a familiarity as soon as you struck up the notes.\u201d<\/p>\n

His research also took him to folk music archives in Copenhagen and Shetland\u2019s own archives.<\/p>\n

In addition to some spectacular photos of scenery, landscape and people taken on his travels, Maurice has unearthed some great archive images including interwar footage of Greenlanders playing the fiddle.<\/p>\n

The instrument was introduced to the area by whalers working on boats in the Arctic, with fiddles regularly played on board to keep spirits up, and Maurice likens it to the many decades of Dutch traders frequenting Shetland and taking stories home with them.<\/p>\n

Just as those days came to a halt, the historical whaling connection with Greenland is \u201cnow beyond living memory, but remembered in the tunes\u201d.<\/p>\n

As anyone who knows Maurice well can testify, he has a real thirst for knowledge about the storytelling side of his musical craft.<\/p>\n

He explains that the social history relating to traditional tunes is something to which he constantly returns: \u201cIt always kind of intrigues me, simple little tunes \u2013 sometimes the stories behind them could be more memorable [than the tunes themselves] in some ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maurice thinks there are many more connections to be drawn and links to be made, so while In Search of Willafjord may be his first foray into publishing, it\u2019s unlikely to be his last.<\/p>\n

In the more immediate future, he is looking forward to his group Fiddlers\u2019 Bid curating a night of Hogmanay entertainment at Mareel.<\/p>\n

The band \u2013 celebrating 25 years together \u2013 are putting together an early evening concert followed by a night of dancing, music, food and drink including a 1920s-themed caf\u00e9-bar.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow the boys are arriving home \u2013 Kevin [Henderson] and Chris [Stout] are home, and I\u2019ve just been ins speaking to folk at Mareel \u2013 they\u2019re pulling out the stops and rigging the stage and the building for the big night.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s gonna be an exciting night. We\u2019ve done a few Hogmanay nights with Fiddlers\u2019 Bid away from Shetland, including in Edinburgh and out in Donegal, and we had such real memorable party nights that we thought it\u2019d be great to do something back in Shetland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maurice Henderson will be signing copies of In Search of Willafjord at The Shetland Times Bookshop between 6.30-8.30pm on Thursday (22 December) and you can also buy the book online here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LEADING Shetland fiddle exponent Maurice Henderson has published a new book documenting his travels to Greenland to trace the roots of one of the most popular isles reels. Copies of In Search of Willafjord arrived on Tuesday, just in time for Christmas, much to Maurice\u2019s delight. He describes the glossy, illustrated paperback \u2013 being published […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,37],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-newsletter","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/files\/2017\/04\/img_0372.jpg","featured_image_src":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/files\/2017\/04\/img_0372.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/files\/2017\/04\/img_0372.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"simon","author_link":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/author\/simon\/"},"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcv15g-2pq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9265,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9264\/revisions\/9265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}