The Maid's Last Wish

The Maid's Last Wish is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1695 in The Dancing Master, 9th ed., London. It was interpreted by Tom Cook (mod) in 1979 and published in Again Let's Be Merry. Found in The Playford Assembly. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Playford writes:

The 1. man cross over with the 2. wo. and turn S. the 1. wo. cross over with the 2. man and turn S. the two men back to back, sides, the we. doing the same at the same time The back to back with their Partners, and right and left with your Partner till the 1. cu. come into the 2. cu. place, then lead up through the 1. cu and cast off into the 2. cu. place.

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.

The dance contains the following figures: turn single, circle, cast, lead, hey, circular hey, 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=MaidsLastWish

< Prev Top Next >

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1979 by Tom Cook (mod). My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2019 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.