The Reel of Glamis ~ RSCDS
The Clever Lad ~ RSCDS
The Reel of Glamis ~ RSCDS or The Clever Lad ~ RSCDS is a Scottish Country Dance. It was published by Walsh in about 1735 in Caledonian Country Dances, 2d Edition, London. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1938 and published in RSCDS Book 12. It is S8×32 2C/4C, a proper Duple Minor dance. St32.
RSCDS Book 12 attributes this to Johnson's Caledonian Country Dances of 1748 but it appears earlier.
According to Robert Keller's site in Walsh's Caledonian Country Dances, 2d Edition he published a dance called The Reel of Glames with essentially this figure. Then in his The Second Book of the Compleat Country Dancing-Master, The 3d. Edition, ~1736, he published a dance called The Cleaver Lad, or The Gin I was a Bonny Lad with the same figure.
In Wright's Compleat Collection of Celebrated Country-Dances, Vol. 1 he published a dance called The Reel of Glamis with the same figure. And this one I can find online.
Later Johnson published the same figure and called the dance The Reel of Glamis.
Wright writes:
Each Strain twice
The 1st Man turns the 2d Wo. and fall back and turn S. the 1st Wo. sett to the 2d Man, and fall back and turn S. the 1st Man change places with the 2d Wo. then the 1st Wo. change places with the 2d Man, then all four meet and turn S. then the 1st Cu. being in the 2d Cu. place, lead thro' and cast off
The music consists of 2 four bar strains, both repeated. Given that they need to be played at four counts per bar to fill out the figure.
There is one big problem with this description of the figure: both the 1s and the 2s end the corner changes progressed by improper, and there is nothing in the description to get them proper. But the description doesn't quite fill up the music, and there is easily room to throw in hole in the wall cross with partner.
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.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), set, cast (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=TheReelOfGlamis-RSCDS
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1938 by RSCDS. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2024 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.