Margery Cree
Margery Cree is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Young in 1721. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2025. It is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. The dance lasts 80 bars. The tune is a jig. It is in the key: G Minor.
John Young writes:
The first Man sides with his Partner, and turn her and goes to the 2. Wo. and his Partner to the 2. Man, and sides with the Man and turn as before, and so to on to the bottom, and the 1. Man sides with his Partner, and turn her off her own side, and side and turn all the way to the top.
Every Man take his Partner by the Right-hand, and all lead up and down, and the 1. Man cast off to the bottom, all the Men follow, and the 1. Wo. cast off on her side at the same time, and all the We. follow, then one Man takes his Partner and leads up to the top, and all the rest follow
The first Man takes his Partner by the Right-hand, and his left to the 2. Wo. and so goes round, and the 1. Wo. Right and left on the Man's side at the same time round the 1. Man, and so on as long as they please.
Playford published this tune in 1651 as "Mage on a Cree" but provided a different figure. This figure is for "as many as will", but because there is no progression works best if not too many will it.
I'm going to assume that in the first part people only side right (or perhaps alternate sides) and don't also do a side left. That way the side and turn sequence fits into one time through the strain.
The tune was published by Playford with the dance, Mage on a Cree. (Pat Shaw later composed a matching B tune which is not used here), and the music was synthesized by Colin Hume's software.
The animation plays at 115 counts per minute. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color.
The dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
| I.A1 | 1-4 | 1s right shoulder siding |
| 5-8 | 1s two hand turn once and a half and face 2s | |
| I.A2 | 1-4 | 1s left shoulder side with 2s |
| 5-8 | 1s+2s two hand turn once and a half | |
| I.A3 | 1-4 | 1s right shoulder side with 3s |
| 5-8 | 1s+3s two hand turn once and a half, 1s face partner | |
| I.A4 | 1-4 | 1s left shoulder siding |
| 5-8 | 1s two hand turn once and a half and face 3s | |
| I.A5 | 1-4 | 1s right shoulder side with 3s |
| 5-8 | 1s+3s two hand turn once and a half, 1s face partner | |
| I.A6 | 1-4 | 1s left shoulder side with 2s |
| 5-8 | 1s+2s two hand turn once and a half, 1s face partner | |
| II.A1 | 1-4 | All up a double and back |
| 5-8 | Again, up a double and back | |
| II.A2 | 1-8 | 1s, followed by others, cast to bottom and lead up to places |
| III.A1+2 | 1-16 | 1s face partner, start a progressive grand chain |
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=MargeryCree
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2025 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 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.