Parson upon Dorothy
The Shepherd's Daughter
Parson upon Dorothy or The Shepherd's Daughter is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1652 in The Dancing Master, 2nd ed.. It was interpreted by Charles Bolton (website) in 1992 and published in Retreads Vol.6. Found in The Playford Assembly. It is a Facing Couples dance. There is no progression in this dance. It is a USA dance. The dance lasts 72 bars.
There are three different dances in Playford's various editions named Parson upon Dorothy, and this particular dance was also called The Shepherd's Daughter.
Lead up forwards and back That again First two men and last two men hands, and lead to each wall, we. doing the same, change hands and meet all First and 3. men lead up, the other leading down, change hands and lead the Co. way Turn each others We. Turn your own Sides all That again As before As before Arms all That again As before As before
Playford describes this dance as Longwayes for eight and gives directions for four couples.
The animation plays at 120 counts per minute. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color.
The dances of Charles Bolton (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license by the CDSS Online Library.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
| I.A1 | 1-4 | Up a Double, back |
| I.A2 | 1-4 | Up a Double, back (repeat) |
| II.A1 | 1-4 | Right Siding |
| II.A2 | 1-4 | Left Siding |
| III.A1 | 1-4 | Right Arming |
| III.A2 | 1-4 | Left Arming |
| I.B1 | 1-4 | Lead neighbor to men's wall, turn, lead back |
| I.C2 | 1-4 | Lead partner up, turn, lead back |
| II.B1 | 1-4 | Lead neighbor to women's wall, turn, lead back |
| II.C2 | 1-4 | Lead partner down, turn, lead back |
| III.B1 | 1-4 | Lead neighbor to own wall, turn, lead back |
| III.C2 | 1-4 | 1s lead partner up, 2s down, turn, lead back |
| C1 | 1-4 | 1st corners two hand turn, as M2 scoot behind M1 to two hand turn W1 |
| C2 | 1-4 | Partners two hand turn, M1 scoots behind M2 |
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=ParsonUponDorothy
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1992 by Charles Bolton. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2020 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023,2024 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.