Money Musk ~ Saltator
If youtube's captions annoy you as much as they annoy me click on the [CC] button at the top right of the video. (It doesn't show until you start playing the video).
Inspired by Keith Rose's Crib Diagrams.
Money Musk ~ Saltator is an American Country Dance. It was published by Saltator in 1802 in A Treatise on Dancing. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2026. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
Monymusk is an estate in Aberdeenshire is Scotland.
Cracking Chestnuts says the tune was written by Daniel Dow and published in Thirty Seven New Reels and Strathspeys in 1776.
The Thompson brothers published a dance called "Money Musk" in their Thompson's Complete Collection of Country Dances and Cottillons, ~1780 but I have been unable to find a copy as yet.
Werner Book XVIII For the Year 1785 (London, 1785) writes:
Turn your partner with the right hand; quite round, and cast off one Cu. Turn with the left quite round, Set three and three top and bottom, and turn your Partner, Set three and three sideways and turn your Partner. Hands six quite round and back again Lead out sides and turn your Partner with both hands.
In Preston's Twenty four Country-Dances for the Year 1786:
Turn your partner with the right hand and cast off one couple turn your partner with the left hand and cast back, the lady falling in at the top, the Gent: at the bottom set three and three and turn your partner set three and three sideways and turn your partner hands six round and back again lead through the bottom and come up one Cu: lead through the top
In Saltator's A Treatise on Dancing
First couple cross over, down the out side, promenade round the gentlemen fall between the second couple, the lady between the third, six dance address, first couple promenade and fall below the second, six demicircinate, right and left atop.
I am perplexed by the "promenades". Saltator defines the term:
PROMENADE, is to lead with one hand, or both hands, a lady from one place to another, or round any number of the choir.
Firstly, I assume there should be a comma after promenade round so it's not promenade round the gentleman but promenade round, the gentleman fall....
Saltator does not mention the "three couple promenade" so I assume "promenade round" doesn't mean that either.
It's hard to see how leading, or promenading could end up with the man between 2s, and lady between 3s.
Is it possible that "promenade round" means a hand turn? He does not define anything that does mean a hand turn, and previous versions of the dance would use a hand turn here. So I shall assume that.
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 dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
| A1 | 1-4 | 1s cross go below, as 2s move up |
| A2 | 1-4 | 1s left hand turn once and a quarter to end with the man between the 2s, and the woman the 3s |
| B1 | 1-4 | Lines of three across set twice |
| B2 | 1-4 | 1s right hand turn three quarters, ending 2nd place proper |
| A3 | 1-4 | Circle six left... |
| A4 | 1-4 | ...and back to the right |
| B3+4 | 1-8 | 2s+1s face partner rights and lefts |
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.
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https://www.upadouble.info/redirect.php?id=MoneyMusk-Saltator
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2026 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2026 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This website is copyright © 2021-2026 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.