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Aberdeen

The De'il's Dead

Aberdeen or The De'il's Dead is an English Country Dance. It was published by John & William Neal in 1726 in A Choice Collection of Country Dances. It was interpreted by Rich Jackson & George Fogg in 1990. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 64 bars.

The Neals write:

each strain twice.
The 3 first men hey:
1^st. ma: turn's 2^d. wo: w^th. his right hand and his partner w^th. his left:
The 3 first women hey:
1^st. wo: turn's 2^d. ma: w^th. her right hand and her partner w^th. her left:
1^st. cu: cross over y^e 2^d. cu: and then y^e 3^d. cu:
Lead up to y^e top and honour: casting off into 2^d. cu: place:
1^st. cu: lead abreast with 3^d. cu: (y^e 1^st. cu: in y^e middle facing y^e lower end of y^e room) half figure into 2^d. cu: place improper:
Then lead a breast with 2^d. cu: (1^st. cu: in y^e middle facing y^e upper end of y^e room) and half figure into 2^d. cu: place:

The animation plays at 120 counts per minute normally, but the first time through the set the dance will often be slowed down so people can learn the moves more readily. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color, however the border of each dancer indicates what role they currently play so the border color may change each time through the minor set.

The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), cast, lead, figure eight, hey, cross go below, (and probably others).

If you find what you believe to be a mistake in this animation, please leave a comment on youtube explaining what you believe to be wrong. If I agree with you I shall do my best to fix it.

If you wish to link to this animation please see my comments on the perils of youtube. You may freely link to this page, of course, and that should have no problems, but use one of my redirects when linking to the youtube video itself:
https://www.upadouble.info/redirect.php?id=Aberdeen

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1990 by Rich Jackson & George Fogg. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2023 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This website is copyright © 2021-2025 by George W. Williams V
My work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Most of the dances have more restrictive licensing, see my notes on copyright, the individual dance pages should mention when some rights are waived.