There's Nae Luck About the House - Williams
There's Nae Luck About the House - Williams is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Thomas Wilson in 1816 and published in A Companion to the Ball Room, London. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2024. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
In his A Companion to the Ball Room, 1816, Thomas Wilson published There's Nae Luck About the House:, wherein he writes:
SINGLE FIGURE (Each strain repeated)
Hands 3 round on the ladies side hands 3 round on the gent: side lead down the middle up again & right & left at top
OR THUS Set & change sides with 2d. Cu: set & back again lead down the middle up again & hands four round at top
DOUBLE FIGURE (Tune played twice thro' with repeats)
Cast off 2 Cu: & back again swing with right hands top & bottom set contrary corners & the double triangle.
The music consists of 2 four bar strains, both repeated. The RSCDS has picked the third figure (the one marked "DOUBLE FIGURE") which means the music should be played AABBAABB. "" indicates two repetitions of a strain.
Wilson defines his figures in his An Analysis of Country Dancing.
- Cast off 2 Cu: (& back again) is defined on pages 8-9 and means: "active couple cast down, go outside the set, passing two other couples, then turn away from each other to face up, and return to places."
- swing with right hands top and bottom this is defined on pages 87-88: "Partner right turn half, using the momentum to loop round your partner's place, and cast down below the 2s to meet in the middle between them and the 3s, again right turn half casting up on their own sides back to original places.
- set contrary corners may be found on pages 55-57 and means "move to 1st corner and set, pass partner right moving to 2nd corner, set, return to places the easiest way". Wilson does not show the corners setting back.
- the double triangle does not appear until the 3rd edition of the Analysis on page 113 and means: the middle couple loop first corner right shoulder pass outside partner's place, then loop 2nd corner right shoulder and return to place.
This is completely different from the RSCDS version of double triangles.
Wilson doesn't specify where progression is to happen.
Cast down and cast back leaves the 1s where they began. Swing top and bottom also leaves them where they started. But set contrary corners expects them to start in the middle.
I'm going to put the progression in the first figure: cast off 2 Cu:, and have the 1s only come up to the 2nd place as the 2s move up.
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 dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
| A1+2 | 1-8 | 1s cast below 3s, take a peek (at each other) and cast back up to 2nd place as 2s lead up |
| B1 | 1-4 | 1s cross by right hand and cast below 3s |
| B2 | 1-4 | 1s (again) cross by right hand and cast back to 2nd place |
| A3+4 | 1-8 | 1s set to 1st corners, pass right, set to 2nd corners, return home |
| B3+4 | 1-8 | Wilson's double triangle: 1s loop 1st corner right, pass partner's place left, 2nd corner right, return home |
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.
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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2024 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 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.