Morris Hey
Bars: 8.
A Morris Hey is a variant of a Mirror Hey except that most mirror heys have the top couple dancing in between the middle couple to start while the middle couple moves out, in a morris hey the top couple cast out, while the middle couple dances up and in.
Scottish Country Dancing uses the figure, but doesn't seem to have a term for it, just calling it a mirror reel.
Variants
Mirror heys can be done with any number of couples. A three couple hey is the most common, but there are also dances with 4 couple mirror heys. I haven't seen any for 5 or more dancers, but there could be.
History
Henry Playford probably describes half a morris hey in Twelfe Eve, in 1702. There are a number of dances after that where John Young or Walsh have the 1s doing a Hey with the 2s+3s on the sides, followed by the 1s casting down. A modern interpreter who looks at this will call for a morris hey (because it will flow nicely into the cast), but it's not clear that's what was originally intended. An example of this is Kynaston's Tomson's Whim from 1718.
The first use of the term that I can find is from Porter, Heffer & Heffer's interpretation of A Trip to Highgate (a dance written by Thompson in 1777 and the original does not include any heys at all).
Some dances which (probably) use this figure
- Dances for which I have animations
Note: This list may be incorrect or incomplete.
See Also
This website is copyright © 2021-2026 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.