Scotland ~ Williams

Scotland ~ Williams Scotland ~ RSCDS

Scotland ~ Williams is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1698 in The Dancing Master, 10th ed., London. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2022. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. There is no progression in this dance. Originally this was a single progression dance. The dance lasts 16 bars. It is in the key: G major.

Playford's music is a slip-jig consisting of two 4 bar strains, both repeated.

Playford writes:

First man take the 2. man by the right hand, and turn a turn and a half, the 1 and 2 wo. do the same at the same time till they come into the 2. cu. place, back to back with your own, then turn your own, and back to back, sides-men go without-side the we. and come between them a quarter Figure, turn S. we. do the like
Note: Each Strain is to be play'd twice over.

Thus the neighbor turn will be right for the men and left for the women. and we might as well make the partner back to back be mirror with the men outside, and the partner turn be mirror with the men inside.

Now should the partner turn be once or once and a half (to match the neighbor turn)? If once then everyone is progressed and proper at the end of the A section, if once and a half everyone is progressed and improper, and needs to become proper again. Or should everything be once and a half, including the back to backs? That would put everyone home at the end of the A section, which is a common situation, but a back to back once and a half is unexpected and perhaps a bit awkward... Well, let's see what we make of the B section.

In the B section Playford says: men go without-side the we. and come between them a quarter Figure, turn S.. "a quarter figure" is presumably a quarter of a figure eight, which I think means people should cross the set into their corner's place. Then before that the men go outside the women, from which position a quarter figure would cause them to switch original places with each other. I'd describe it as a half figure eight walked backward.

Anyway my interpretation of that figure requires people to be in their original places, so they will end progressed. So I'm going to have every movement in the A section be once and a half. It should be possible to get around in 6 steps.

An alternative is to have every movement in the A section be once around, that would also leave people home for the start of B.

Or you could make the first turn once and a half, and none of the others, and turn the "quarter figure" into something that does not swap the two active dancers. For instance the men might go outside the women, return between them, without crossing the set.

Basically I think what Playford wrote does not work. Some change must be made to it. What change you choose is up to you.

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

A11-2Neighbor right hand turn once and a half
3-4Partner left back to back once and a half
A21-2Partner right hand turn once and a half
3-4Neighbor left back to back once and a half
B11-3Men reverse half figure eight through the women (M1 goes first)
4-4Men turn single
B11-3Women reverse half figure eight through the men (W1 goes first)
4-4Women turn single

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=Scotland-Williams

< Prev Top Next >

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2022 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 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.