Graies Inne Maske

Mad Tom

Tom a Bedlam

Graies Inne Maske or Mad Tom 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 Fried de Metz Herman (website) in 1995 and published in Ease and Elegance. Found in The Playford Assembly. It is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. There is no progression in this dance. It is a USA dance. The dance lasts 120 bars.

Lovelace writes:

Leade up once, and downe agayne, and then cast of all, downe to the other end and then leade up all agayne that way, and downe againe all into your places;

The men shall take each his woeman, by both hands, and set them all in a straight line, the man standing all above the woeman, and then backe into their places againe, like as they stood at first All the woemen shall stand still, and all the men shall sett each to his woeman, and then they standing still the woemen shall set to them;

All the men shall congee each to to his woeman, and salute her she standing still, and then the woemen shall do the like unto him;

The men shall turn each his woemen once forward, and once backward;

Both men and woemen shall fall of backewards, and leade round three times before they come to the bottome, and the same back againe, till they come to the toppe after the same maner all in your places;

Sides all once at the top, and then fall downe, and sides all at the end, and then fall backe unto your places, and then doe all the same over gayne, only what, the men did first soe fore the woemen shall doe itt first now, like as the man dide sett first before, the woemen shall now first, and then the woeman salute first before the man, and soe all the same, only the woemen shall doe first that which the man did before;

Armes all once at the top, and once att the bottome, like before at leading up and all setting, then doe the first over againe, only the men and woemen shall salute this time both together, and as they did sett before singly, they shall now sett both men, and woemen together, and after they shall have done all those six parts, after siding, and turning, they may leade downe, and if they please the rest may doe the like, every couple of them;

Playford writes:

Lead up all forwards and bac, set and turn S. That again All a D. to the left hand Back again Back all And change places ·:

Sides all, set and turn S. That again As before As before

Arms all, set and turn S. That again As before As before


Honour all, salute Turn your own change places Men the S. Hey We. as much


As before As before As before


As before As before As before

Sometimes "salute" meant "kiss".

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 dance contains the following figures: USA, hand turn (allemande), set, turn single, lead, hey, circular hey, siding, arming (and probably others).

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=GraiesInneMaske

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1995 by Fried de Metz Herman. 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.