Old Hob

The Mousetrap

Old Hob or The Mousetrap is an English Country Dance. It was published by Walsh in 1719 in The Compleat Country Dancing-Master, London. It was interpreted by Andrew Shaw in 2002 and published in The She Favourite. Found in The Playford Assembly. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Walsh writes:

Note: Each Strain is to be play'd twice over.

The 1st Man turn the 2d Wo. then cast off with his Partner The 2d Man do the same with the 1st Wo. Then the 1st Man change Places with the 2d Wo. and the 2d Man with the 1st Wo. Hands half round, then the 1st Cu. cast off The 1st Cu. lead down the Middle then cast up behind the 3d Cu. into the 2d Cu. Place and turn Hands

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), circle, cast, lead (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=OldHob

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2002 by Andrew Shaw. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2020 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.