George's Maggot #1

George's Maggot #1 is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1701 in The Dancing Master, 11th ed., London. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2021. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. There is no progression in this dance. Originally this was a single progression dance. The dance lasts 40 bars.

Playford has two dances named "George's Maggot" (or "Magott"), they have different tunes and different choreographies. The first first appeared in 1701, and the second in 1710.

Playford writes:
First man and wo. lead down the 2. cu. and cast up to the top, then cross over and turn one another in their proper places, then 1. man go round the 2. wo. the 1. wo. doing the same round the 2. man at the same time, the cross over to the top as they were at first.
Then 1. and 2. wo. and 1.man turn once round, and 1. man and wo. cast off below the 2. cu. then lead up through the 2. cu. and turn S then 1. and 2. man and 1. wo. turn once round, and 1. man and wo. cast off below the 2. cu. then lead up through the 2. cu. and cast below them again, and so on.

The only thing that confused me here was "then cross over and turn one another in their proper places,". At first I wanted this to mean "partner change and half two hand turn", but usually when Playford says cross over for a couple he means cross and cast, and the rest of the A section makes more sense if the 1s are in second place for A2.

So I figure that when Playford says "their proper places" the word "their" is modifying "proper" rather than "places". That is they don't go home, they got to their proper side of the line.

Thanks to Colin Hume's interpretations page for helping me figure this out.

(This looks like a dull dance for the 2s. I only interpreted it because I'm named George and felt I had to. I think Playford's other "George's Maggot" is more interesting.)

The animation plays at 120 counts per minute. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color.

The dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.

A11-41s lead below 2s and cast back to place
5-81s cross go below (as 2s move up) and two hand turn half
A21-41s half figure eight up through 2s
5-81s cross go to top as 2s lead down
B11-4M1 take hands with women, circle three
5-101s cast below 2s and lead up
11-121s turn single
B21-4W1+men circle three
5-101s cast below 2s and lead up
11-121s turn single

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=GeorgesMaggot1

< Prev Top Next >

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2021 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 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
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.