I've just come back from two music/dance camps in ethnically Hungarian parts of Romania (Fundu Racaciuni in Moldavia and Gyimes in Transylvania). At the Gyimes camp, one theme was dances from Felcsik. I was startled to see one Felcsik dance which used the tune of "John Brown's Body". The dance was almost the same as the Scottish "Gay Gordons", but the dancers sang along. I'm told the words begin "My 70-year-old grandfather is getting married again - he's clicking his heels together like a dancer", and continue for up to 40 mostly bawdy verses. The chorus begins "Golya, golya" (Stork, stork).

The person who told me this said the tune is found in other dances and songs from central/eastern Europe. Do they all have something in common? How come they took it up for dancing when the British, who would have got the tune more directly, didn't? Why did it get popular in this part of the world? Or is it originally an eastern European folk tune? - it doesn't sound very Hungarian.