"Hangman's Reel" is an old-time breakdown from southwestern Va. in A Major. It is played in AEae or AEac# fiddle tunings. The parts are played AABB, ABCD (Silberberg), AABCCDD (Songer), AABBCCDD (Kuntz) or AABBCC'DD (Phillips). The origins of the tune are somewhat obscure. Some players claimed a British source but many collectors doubt it. Susan Songer and Clyde Curley (1997) report that New York fiddler Judy Hyman (of the Horseflies) believes it originally derived from the Québecois tune "Reel du Pendu" (Hanged Man's Reel) and that it was rendered in a Southern old-time style by younger upstate New York fiddlers. Whether the tune was a Southern traditional tune or a "revival" processing, it has since become a very popular "festival tune" among younger old-time fiddlers and frequently heard at square dances. It was printed in Phillips' Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 1 (1994), Silberberg's Tunes I Learned at Tractor Tavern (2002)(appears as "Hanged Man's Reel" and Songer's Portland Collection (1997). It was recorded by Kirk Sutphin on Old Roots and New Branches (1994), John McCutcheon on The Wind That Shakes the Barley (1977), The Heartbeats on Living in Black and White (1990), Bill Northcutt, Bill Clemmons and Doc Hamilton on Old Time Hoedown (1968).