Lord Hume's Reel ~ RSCDS

Lord Hume's Reel ~ Williams Lord Hume's Reel ~ RSCDS

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:

  1. lead down the middle up again may be found on pages 10-11 and means: "lead down two couples, turn, lead up to the place of the couple who were below (who move up)" So this involves progression, and it only takes 4 bars. Wilson does not specify a hand hold for the lead, nor whether the 2s take hands.
  2. allemande may be found on page 7 and appears to mean going about your partner in a circle. In a later edition of Analysis Wilson adds the phrase "back to back". Wilson does not define a "back to back" figure. His allemande is a bit rounder than a normal back to back but perhaps that is the closest equivalent. Note this is not progressive and only takes four bars.
    This is an unusual meaning for "allemande", but, as best as I can understand, that is what Wilson describes.
  3. set 3 across & set 3 in your places is only described as "set three in their places and set three across" (opposite order) and is found on pages 76-77, and means: "Two lines of three across set, the ones move to their own places, everyone sets again." This takes 8 bars. Wilson does not say whether they take hands when setting. Wilson does not indicate whether the corners set when the 1s move.
  4. Chain figure for four may be found on page 76 of the 3rd edition of the Analysis (1811) and boils down to what anyone else would call rights and lefts. This takes four bars.

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

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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
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.