Goddesses

Goddesses 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 Cecil Sharp (website) in 1911 and published in The Country Dance Book (Part 2). Found in The Playford Assembly. It is a proper 4 Couple Longways dance. There is no progression in this dance. The dance lasts 176 bars.

Lovelace writes:

Leade up twice, and then breake of, and fall downe, to the bottome, all ye rest following, goeing soe as they stand, and then meeting att ye bottom, breake of againe and come to theire places;

All the men shall follow each other, the first man leading of them about the woemen, till they come to the last and then they shall goe backe againe into theire places, and then falle backe like before to the bottome, and then then to theire places agayne, the woemen must doe the same

The men shall begaine againe, and goe round againe halfe way, and there make a little stand, and then goe forwards quite, all following him, and soe come into theire places, and then cast of and come upwards agayne, like as before

The men shall dance the Hay backwards and forewards, the women standing still, till they come to their owne places, and then cast off againe both men and woemen, as before;

All ye men shall take hands, and dance round and backe againe, till they come into their places, and then cast off, as before;

The men take hands backwards, and doe like as before running rounde backwards, and forewards, and casting off, as before;

Note that after every one of the mens parts the woemen doe the same;

Playford writes:

Lead up a D. forward and back That again Cast off, meet below Cast off below, beet above

Men go down on the outside of the we. Back again This as before

We as much Back again This as before

Men go quite round about the we. This as before

We. as much This as before

We. as much This as before

Then all hands and go half round back again This as before

Men the S. Hey This as before

We. as much This as before

Then D. Hey This as before

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

I.A11-4Up a Double, and back
I.A21-4Up a Double, and back (again)
II.A11-4M1 head up followed by other men, loop around W1 ending behind W4
II.A21-4M4 turn up followed by other men back to place
III.A11-4W1 head up followed by other women, loop around M1 ending behind M4
III.A21-4W4 turn up followed by other women back to place
IV.A11-8M1 followed by other men, skip clockwise around the women back to place
V.A11-8W1 followed by other women, skip counter-clockwise around the men back to place
VI.A11-4Men circle four left
VI.A21-4and back right
VII.A11-4Women circle four left
VII.A21-4and back right
VIII.A11-4All eight circle half left
VIII.A21-4and back right
IV.A11-8Men right shoulder hey for four, M1 face down, M2 up, M3 down, M4 up
X.A11-8Women right shoulder hey for four, W1 face down, W2 up, W3 down, W4 up
XI.A11-8Circular hey, 1s+4s pass partner, 2s+3s pass neighbor
B11-41s cast down followed by others to invert the set
B21-41s cast up followed by others back 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.

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=Goddesses

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2020 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.