Athol Brays ~ Williams is an English Country Dance. It was published by Walsh in 1731 in The Compleat Country Dancing Master vol 1. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2022. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
Walsh writes:
The 1st Cu. foots it and cast off The 1st Cu. foots it again, 1st Man casts down and the 1st Wo. cast up The 1st Man Heys with the 2d and 3d Wo. 1st Wo. Heys at the same Time with the 2d and 3d Men First Man Heys with the 2d and 3d Men, 1st Wo at the same Time Heys with the 2d and 3d We. The 1st Man foots it with the 3d Wo. and turns her, the 1st Wo. does the same at the same Time with the 2d Man Then the 1st Man foots it with the 2d Wo. and turns her, the 1st Wo. does the same at the same Time with the 3d Man The 1st Cu. leads through the 2d and 3d Men, and turn in the 2d Cu. Place Then the 1st Cu. leads through the 2d and 3d We. and turn in the 2d Cu. Place.
The music consists of four 4 bar strains, each repeated.
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 | 1-4 | 1s set and cast down as 2s move up a little |
A2 | 1-4 | 1s set and cast left (man down, woman up) as 3s move up a little |
B1 | 1-4 | 1s pass 1st corners right to hey on their opposite sides |
B2 | 1-4 | 1s pass 3rd corner right to hey on their own sides |
C1 | 1-4 | 1s+1st corners set and two hand turn |
C2 | 1-4 | 1s+2nd corners set and two hand turn |
D1 | 1-4 | Lead out sides: 1s lead through the men, loop around them, and two hand turn in the middle |
D2 | 1-4 | 1s lead through the women, loop around them and two hand turn to places |
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=AtholBrays
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2022 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 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.