Lord Hume's Reel ~ RSCDS is a Scottish Country Dance. It was devised by Thomas Wilson in 1816 and published in A Companion to the Ball Room. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1951 and published in RSCDS Book 16. It is S8×40 3C/4C, a proper Triple Minor dance. St40.
In his A Companion to the Ball Room, 1816, Thomas Wilson published Lord Hume's Reel, wherein he writes:
SINGLE FIGURE (1st. strain repeated 2d. played straight thro')
The 1st. lady leads down the 2d. gent: the 1st. gent: leads down the 2d. lady lead your partner down the middle up again & right & left with top Cu:
OR THUS Set & half right & left with 2d. Cu: set & back again lead down the middle up again & set to the top Cu:
DOUBLE FIGURE (Tune played twice thro' as marked)
Hands 3 round with 2d. lady hands 3 round with 2d. gent: lead down the middle up again allemande set 3 across set 3 in your places lead thro the bottom & chain figure 4 round with top Cu:
The music consists of a four bar strain and an eight bar strain. The RSCDS has picked the third figure (the one marked "DOUBLE FIGURE") which means the music should be played AABAAB. "" indicates two repetitions of a of the first strain, and "" indicates one repetition of the second (each accounting for 8 bars of music).
Wilson defines his figures in his An Analysis of Country Dancing. Many of them mean what you expect, but a few are surprising:
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.
The dance contains the following figures: set, circle, cast, lead, rights and lefts, allemande round, promenade round, down the middle and 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=LordHumesReel-RSCDS
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1951 by RSCDS. 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.