Big John McNeil

The Scottish fiddler Peter Milne (1824 to 1908) wrote it as "John McNeil," after a well known Highland dancer of the day. Milne taught and played alongside the young J. Scott Skinner and made his living in theater orchestras, but laudanum, first prescribed for rheumatism, left him busking on the ferries across the Firth of Forth.

The tune became a Canadian standard after Don Messer and His Islanders recorded it in 1942. Fiddlers in British Columbia, Ontario and New York learned it from his radio broadcasts and records, and on Prince Edward Island it is a favorite for step dancing.