The Hare's Maggot ~ Hume

The Hare's Maggot ~ Hume is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Young in 1721 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the first, 17th ed.. It was interpreted by Colin Hume (website) in 2019 and published in Colin Hume's Website. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 231. The minor set lasts 28 bars. The tune is in triple time. It is in the key: A Minor. An online description of the dance may be found here.

In the 17th edition of the Dancing Master, John Young wrote:

The 1. Man goes in between the 3. cu. round the 2. Man, and turn the 2. Wo. His Partner does the same likewise on her side Both clap sides and cast off, Then Right and Left quite round Then go the double Figure in the third cu. then turn his Partner

While earlier Playford writes

The 1. man goes in between the 2. cu. round the 2. man, and turn the 2. wo His Partner does the same likewise on her side Both clap sides and cast off, right and left quite round Then go the double Figure in the third cu. then turn his Partner

The significant difference here is that John Young has M1 going between the 3s not the 2s.

Note that in both cases, a double Figure (of eight) is called for. Playford and Young do not use the term "double figure" often, so it is tricky at first to figure out what is meant by it. They also occasionally use the term "single figure". Colin Hume has analyzed these uses and concluded that in these dances a double Figure does not have the modern meaning. It just means a full figure eight.

However, if the 3s want to do a double figure of eight in the modern sense, they should certainly do so. In that case, the final cast up will flow naturally out of the figure.

The tune was published by Playford with the dance. It was performed by the Odd Sundays Garage Band (Judy Linsenberg, Shira Kammen and Patti Cobb). The music is used with permission from the Odd Sundays Garage Band.

The animation plays at 102 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 (no music plays during this slow set). 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: hand turn (allemande), cast, lead, figure eight, double figure eight, rights and lefts (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 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=TheHaresMaggot-Hume

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2019 by Colin Hume. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2025 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.