The Haughs O' Cromdale ~ RSCDS
The Haughs O' Cromdale ~ RSCDS is a Scottish Country Dance. It is a traditional dance with no clear origin. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1927 and published in RSCDS Book 4. It is S8×16 2C/4C, a proper Duple Minor dance. St16.
The RSCDS claims Wilson is the source for this dance; I have my doubts. He certainly wrote dances with this name, but if his work is the source, it has been so modified by the interpretation that almost nothing of the original is left. The second "single figure" seems the closest, but even it only shares half of the first figure...
Wilson, on page 37, writes:
SINGLE FIGURE (Each strain repeated)
Hands 3 round on the ladies side hands 3 round on the gent: side lead down the middle up again & set to the top Cu:
OR THUS The 1st lady meets & turns the 2d. gent: the 1st. gent: meet & turn the 2d lady lead down the middle up again & allemande
DOUBLE FIGURE (Tune played twice thro' with repeats)
Set & change sides with 2d. Cu: set & back again 1st lady meets and turns the 3d. gent: the 1st. gent: meets & turns the 3d. lady promenade 3 Cu: & whole poussette
Wilson's music consists of 2 four bar strains, both repeated. Wilson's dance is not set to strathspey time.
Wilson spells his title "The Haughs of Cromdale" rather than "The Haughs O' Cromdale".
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.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
| 1-2 | M1+L2 half right turn |
| 3-4 | Others join for half right hands across... |
| 5-8 | ...and left hands back |
| 9-12 | Highland Schottische and two hand turn half into diamond poussette formation |
| 13-16 | Half diamond poussette |
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=TheHaughsOCromdale-RSCDS
I do not have a publication date for the dance and do not know whether it is under copyright or not. The interpretation is out of copyright in the US, but I'm not sure of other jurisdictions. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2024 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.