The Country Farmer - Neal
The Country Farmer - Neal 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 Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 24 bars.
Although Playford has a dance with this name it shares neither figure nor tune with this dance from the Neal Collection.
The Neals write:
1st cu: sett, & cast off int 2d cu: place:
1st ma: sett cast off below 3d cu: his par: cast up into her own place at ye same time, he betweene 3d cu: & she betweene 2d cu: facing one another:
1st ma: whole figure with 3d cu: his par: ye same with 2d cu: at ye same time ending as began:
1st ma: whole figure with 2d cu: his par: ye same with 3d cu: at ye same time ending in 2d cu: place:
While Playford writes:
The 1: Man cast off and his Partner follows him The 2. cu. does the same The 1. Man being in the wo. place, change places with the 2. wo., the 2. man cross over with the 1. wo. then cast up Hands quite round till you are in your places, then Right and Left quite round
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: set, cast, lead, figure eight (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=TheCountryFarmer-Neal
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.
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.