Scotch Reel ~ Coulon

The Foursome Reel was probably danced for about a hundred years before anyone bothered to publish it. The earliest Scottish source I can find is Smyth in 1830 who writes:

At the commencement, the Gentlemen place their partners at the end of the room, and stand either before or beside them. — If before them, all the four begin at once, but if otherwise the Ladies must begin first, each person describing the figure eight, and the Gentlemen set to the Ladies alternately.

A year later, the Lowe brothers said the same.

Unfortunately this description is misleading. The figure of a reel for four people is not a figure eight, it's a figure eight with an extra loop. The Fletts kindly point this out.

The earliest written description of the dance actually comes from Thomas Wilson's Analysis of Country Dancing, London, 1808 (page 120). His version is rather different. It starts with two facing couples, each couple turns (I presume a two hand turn), and then everyone turns their opposite, that repeats (turn partner, turn opposite), then the 1st couple crosses in between the second and hey with them. On the second iteration the 2nd couple cross to hey with the 1st.

Elias Howe is the first person I know of who published a description of the Scottish Reel in the US: American Dancing Master, Boston, 1862, but his description turns out to have been copied word for word from a work published in London in 1860: Coulon's Hand-Book; Containing all the last New and Fashionable Dances. Coulon's description has the men starting outside and the ladies in the center (while Smythe says the reverse), and he doesn't say whether the center dancers should alternate between facing their partner or neighbor. Coulon calls the reeling figure a "chain", which to me says the dancers take hands as they pass.