“The Mummers’ Dance” was an unlikely but substantial hit for Loreena McKennitt in the late 1990s. Released on her 1997 album The Book of Secrets, it reached No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100—quite an achievement for a song filled with Celtic influences and centuries-old imagery.
McKennitt largely stepped away from recording after a devastating personal tragedy. In 1998, her fiancé, Ronald Rees; his brother, Richard; and their friend Gregory Cook drowned in a boating accident. McKennitt subsequently devoted considerable energy to a memorial fund supporting water-search-and-safety programs. Eight years passed before she released another studio album, An Ancient Muse, in 2006.
Part of what makes “The Mummers’ Dance” so distinctive is its unusual collection of sounds, including the hurdy-gurdy—a stringed instrument whose strings are sounded by a hand-cranked wheel. Those ancient textures, combined with McKennitt’s haunting voice and a surprisingly accessible melody, made this one of the strangest and most memorable pop hits of the 1990s.