Forked Deer

"The Forked Deer" first appears in print in George Knauff's Virginia Reels, published in Baltimore around 1839. Missouri collector R. P. Christeson heard a likeness to the Scottish tune "Rachel Rae." The Forked Deer is also a river in West Tennessee.

Older players often had more than two parts. Ed Haley and Charlie Bowman played five, and West Virginia fiddler John Johnson played six he learned from an Arthur Smith record. When Johnson played it for Clark Kessinger, Kessinger, who knew only two parts, told him that wasn't "The Forked Deer." Jeff Titon thinks records did much to trim the tune down to the two parts most people play now.