Country Courtship ~ Hume
Country Courtship ~ Hume is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Young in about 1726 in The Dancing Master, The Third Volume, 2nd ed.. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. It is a double progression dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars. The tune is a jig.
John Young writes:
Note: Each Strain twice.
The first Couple cast off and half Figure with the third Couple, then cross over to the top and cast off The other Couple do the same Then the first Man change places with the second Woman and second Man with the first Woman, and Hands all four half round and cast off Then back to back and Right and Left quite round
I found this interpretation on Colin Hume's website. For lack of better information I am attributing it to him.
This version is almost the same as Pat Shaw's except that this has the rights and lefts with the next 2s rather than with their neighbors, and it only does three changes becoming double progression.
The tune was published by John Young with the dance and the music was synthesized using Colin Hume's software.
The animation plays at 100 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 (no music plays during this slow set). 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.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
| A1 | 1-2 | 1s cast down as 2s lead up |
| 3-5 | 1s half figure eight down through next neighbors | |
| 6-8 | 1s half figure eight up through current neighbors | |
| A2 | 1-2 | 2s cast down as 1s lead up |
| 3-5 | 2s half figure eight down through previous neighbors | |
| 6-8 | 2s half figure eight up through current neighbors | |
| B1 | 1-4 | 1st corner change, 2nd corners change |
| 5-6 | Circle left half | |
| 7-8 | 1s cast down as 2s lead up | |
| B2 | 1-4 | Partner back to back |
| 5-8 | Face partner: three changes of rights and lefts with next neighbors |
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=CountryCourtship-Hume
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. I do not have a date for the interpretation, so it may be under copyright. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2025 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.