Meg Merrilees ~ MS3860

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Meg Merrilees ~ Karpeles Meg Merrilees ~ RSCDS Meg Merrilees ~ Smyth Meg Merrilees ~ MS3860

Meg Merrilees ~ MS3860 is an old Scottish Country Dance. It was devised by MS3860 in about 1825 and published in NLS MS 3860. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2026. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 24 bars.

From The National Library of Scotlands' MS 3860:

1st: G. turns the 2d L. with the right hand; while 1st: L. turns the 2d Gentleman also wt right hand
4 b
The same done back again each to each with left hands
4 b
These four join hands and down the middle all a:breast, or in a cross line:
4 b
At the bottom separate; wheel round, and up again also in a line
4 b
The 2d: L. and 2d G. forming the extremes of the line close up, at the top; [line hands four round]
These two Couple Poussette
8 b
In all
24 b

The Poussette is also described in that manuscript.

I'm not entirely sure what a cross line, but I'm guessing it means taking hands with the person on your left with your right hand, and using the left for the person on the right.

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 dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.

1-41s cross down to right turn 2s (M1+L2, L1+M2)
5-8Same pairs left hand turns, ending in a line of four facing down, 1s (improper) in the middle of the line
9-16Line of four lead down, drop hands, pull left shoulder back to face up, take hands, lead up and bend the line, ending close to partner
17-242s+1s poussette, 1s becoming proper

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2026 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2026 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This website is copyright © 2021-2026 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.