Love Lies A'Bleeding

Love Lies A'Bleeding is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1686 in The Dancing Master, 7th ed., London. It was interpreted by Cecil Sharp (website) in 1916 and published in The Country Dance Book (Part 4). It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 16 bars.

Playford writes:
Honour to the Presence, then to your we. Lead up all forward and back, that again.
The 1. man and wo. cast off into the 2. cu. place and meet, then go round each other back to back, and cast off into your places; then do the same over again. This to the first Strain of the Tune.
Then the two men clap hands with each other, and the two we. with each other, and then with your wo. then the 1. cu. cast off into the 2. cu. places and clap hands as before, then turn your own wo. once round; and so to the end. This to the second Strain.

Note: I am not sure it is possible to fold a cast and back to back into four bars of music. I can force any timing to work in this animation, but that is no guarantee that people can actually dance it. On the other hand, perhaps it is possible. This is made in the middle of the COVID crisis and I cannot test. I simply present what Sharp calls for.

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.

A11-41s cast down and then back to back as 2s lead up
A21-41s cast up and then left back to back as 2s lead down
B11-1Clap own hands, clap neighbor's (right with left and left with right)
2-2Clap onw hands, clap partner's as above
3-41s cast down as 2s lead up
B21-1Clap own hands, clap neighbor's (right with left and left with right)
2-2Clap onw hands, clap partner's as above
3-4Partner two hand turn

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=LoveLiesABleeding

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023,2024 by George W. Williams V
Creative Commons License 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.