The Rose Tree

The name comes from the song "A Rose Tree in Full Bearing" in William Shield's comic opera The Poor Soldier (1782), with words by John O'Keeffe. Shield adapted an older tune, possibly Irish, rather than writing it, and James Aird had already printed it in Scotland around 1778 as "The Dainty Besom Maker."

By the late 1780s it was a reel and country dance tune in Scotland. It is a morris tune in the Cotswold villages of Bampton and Brackley, a polka in North West England and a contra dance tune in New England, and it is often one of the first tunes beginners learn.