The Britain ~ 3 Couple

The Britain ~ 3 Couple or The Brittainne is an English Country Dance. It was published by John & William Neal in 1726 in A Choice Collection of Country Dances. It was interpreted by Rich Jackson & George Fogg in 1990. It is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 231. The minor set lasts 72 bars. The music is a medley.

The Neals write:

the minuett first part twice, & 2^th. part once.
1^d. ma: wy^e. his right hand leads his par: by her left round 2^th. ma: in minuett step into 2^th. cu: place:
1^d. wo: wy^e. her right hand leads her par: by his left round 2^th. wo: in minuett step into their own places:
1^d. cu: sett, cast off into 2^th. cu: place & cast off into 3^th. cu: place, sett & cast up into 2^th. cu: place, & sett & cast up into their own places:
1^d. cu: dance & cast off into 2^th. cu: place, & y^e same into 3^th. cu: place:
Dance again & cast up into 2^th. cu: place, dance & turn single in 2^th. cu: place:
1^d. cu: clap hands wy^e. one another turn single & whole figure wy^e. 2^th. cu:
clap hands again turn single & figure wy^e. 3^th. cu:

The A and B strains are in 3/4 time while C and D are in 2/4"

Jackson and Fogg do not say how the 1s should loop M2 to end proper in second place. I've come up with a solution, you may have a better one. That's a lot of music for a fairly short distance. The original instructions say to use a minuet step, perhaps that is slow.

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.

Note: This list may be incorrect or incomplete, also it only shows the figures used by the interpreter, not necessarily the deviser.

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 transience of my youtube URLs. 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=TheBritain-3Couple

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1990 by Rich Jackson & George Fogg. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2023 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.