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If I Had Maggie in the Wood

If I Had Maggie in the Wood is a New England Contra Dance. It was devised by Colin Hume (website) in 1985 and published in Dances with a Difference, Vol. 2. It is an improper duple minor longways dance. It is a mixer. The minor set lasts 32 bars. Someone thought this dance was Easy / Intermediate.

For the men this is a single progression dance, for the women a triple progression.

The tune is a traditional one. It was performed by "Wild Thyme" (Dave Brown, Julia Blombield, Tina Brown, Elvyn Blomfield, and John Blomfield) for the book "Dances with a Difference, Vol. 2". The music is used with permission from Colin Hume.

The animation plays at 116 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 (no music plays during this slow set). 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 dance contains the following figures: circle, hands across, ladies chain (courtesy turn), swing, back to back (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=IfIHadMaggieInTheWood

This website is copyright © 2021-2025 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.