"The Old Mole" is an English country dance tune in 6/4 or 6/8 time in D Major. The eight-bar melody and country dance were first published by John Playford in his English Dancing Master (1651) and were retained in subsequent editions of the Dancing Master through the seventh edition of 1686. The first edition tune was set in G major and is slightly different from the tune of subsequent editions. Chris Bartram, writing in his article "The Fiddle in England" (Strad, Dec. 1999), finds that East Devon fiddler Harry Denslow (d. 1950's), knew "The Old Mole" from local tradition and concludes that the tune had survived in the East Devon countryside for around three hundred years, passed on by ear. Moreover, photographs of Denslow reveal that he held his fiddle and bow in a manner which would have been familiar to players of the instrument during the Baroque era and Bartram suspects that techniques of older traditional players of southern England would have changed as little as did Denslow's "The Old Mole" from Playford's original. It was printed in Barnes's English Country Dance Tunes (1986), Barlow's Complete Country Dance Tunes from Playford's Dancing Master (1985), Bartram's English Fiddle (2009), Karpeles & Schofield's A Selection of 100 English Folk Dance Airs (1951), Raven's English Country Dance Tunes (1984) and Sharp's Country Dance Tunes (1909). It was recorded by The Albion Dance Band on The Prospect Before Us (1977), Maddy Prior & the Carnival Band on Hang Up Sorrow & Care (1995), Belshazzar's Feast on John Playford's Secret Ball.