The Dashing White Sergeant

The tune comes from a song by the English composer Sir Henry Rowley Bishop (1786 to 1855), published in the mid 1820s and apparently meant for one of his operas, though there is no sign it was ever staged in one. Bishop wrote some 120 works for the London stage, is best remembered for "Home, Sweet Home," and was the first musician to be knighted.

The Dashing White Sergeant is also a Scottish ceilidh circle dance, and this is its namesake tune, played at the start and end with other reels in between. J. Scott Skinner, a dancing master before he made his name as a fiddler, taught a longways dance of the same name.