Eddy Arsenault learned The Brae Reel from a fiddler named Preston MacKinnon. MacKinnon resided in a district called The Brae, which is located near the town of O'Leary in Western Prince County. Almost all versions now played on the Island trace back to Arsenault's.
Because both the Prince County Fiddlers and Queens County Fiddlers have featured this tune in their repertoires, and because it has been included in such recorded anthologies as House Party Acadien, and The Prince Edward Island Style of Fiddling: Fiddlers of Western PEI, the tune has lately begun to spread Island-wide and beyond.
"Brae" is the Scots word for "hill" (as in "yon bonny braes").
Notation for this tune as played by Edward P Arsenault is in Fiddle Music of Prince Edward Island.