An Health To Betty

An Health To Betty is an English Country Dance. It was found in the Lovelace Manuscript (written somewhere around the 1640s) and later published in The English Dancing Master. It was interpreted by Charles Bolton (website) in 1985 and published in Retreads Vol.1. It is a proper 4 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 2413. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Playford writes:

Leade up all a D. forwards and back, set and turne S. That againe First Cu. sides, turn her once and a halfe about ·: Sides each with the 2. and turne them :: Doe this to the last, the rest following and doing the like.
Sides all, set and turne S. That againe First Cu meet a D. back againe, fall into 2. place and turne your owne ·: Doe this change to the last, the rest following.
Armes all, set and turne S. That againe First Cu. goe a D. back, meet againe, take both hands, slipe down between the 2. turne single ·: Doe thus to the last, the rest following.

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 Charles Bolton (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license by the CDSS Online Library.
An online description of the dance may be found here.

Intro.A1-4Up a double, and back
5-8Up a Double, and back (again)
Intro.B1-4Partner set and turn single
5-8That again: Set and turn single
A11-4End couples partner right shoulder siding (and fall back)
5-8Ends two hand turn once and a half and face neighbors
A21-4Neighbors left shoulder siding
5-8Neighbor two hand turn once and a half
B11-4Lines of four forward and back
5-8Two hand turn partner once around
B21-4Middle couples (1&4) fall back, and partner change
5-61s give hands and slip down as 4s separate and slip up to change places
7-8All turn single cloverleaf (top two couples up, bottom two down, all away from partner)
Final.A1-4Partner set and turn single
5-8That again: Set and turn single
Final.B1-4Up a double, and back
5-6Up a double
7-8Step right and honour presence

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=AHealthToBetty

< Prev Top Next >

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1985 by Charles Bolton. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.

This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023,2024 by George W. Williams V
Creative Commons License 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.