Mungo's Delight ~ Duple
Mungo's Delight ~ Duple is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Ignatius Sancho in 1779 and published in Twelve Country Dances for the Year 1779. Set for the Harpsichord, London. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2023. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
Sancho writes:
Turn your Partner with the Right hand foot it turn back with the Left hand Lead down 2 Cu. up again and cast off turn opposite Corners Lead out sides
The music consists of two 8 bar strains.
Most of the interpretations I have seen have the 1s turning half, and "half" left out. They then turn "foot it" into a two bar set, and insert another set at the end of the left turn. But "foot it" is often 4 bars so perhaps what is intended is two bars of turning, four bars of setting and two more bars of turning? Or could it be a right turn three quarters followed by two bars of setting, and a left turn three quarters. I doubt that was what Sancho intended, but I find it interesting.
I know of four very different meanings for "lead out sides".
The first was used by Keller & Sweet in A Choice Selection of American Country Dances of the Revolutionary Era, in it the 1s meet in the center, take hands and lead out between the women, cast away from each other, looping around the corner, meet again in center, lead out between men cast away, loop corners and return home.
The second is defined by Wilson in his An Analysis of Country Dancing, page 51, in it the 1s again meet in the center, lead to between the men, turn around, lead to between the women, turn around, lead back to center, where he leaves them.
The third involves having everyone face out, lead out, turn and lead back.
The fourth meaning was used by Bernard Bentley in The Happy Pair where the 1s start between the women, lead out in a line of four with them, turn and lead back, the 1s two hand turn moving to the men's line, stand between them and lead out with them in a line of four with them, turn, and lead back.
The first seems more interesting to me, and the best use of 8 bars of music.
The 3s do very little, we can make this a duple minor.
The tune was published with the dance. It was performed by the Odd Sundays Garage Band (Judy Linsenberg, Shira Kammen and Patti Cobb). The music is used with permission from the Odd Sundays Garage Band.
The animation plays at 103 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 dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
| A1 | 1-3 | 1s right hand turn three quarters |
| 4-5 | 1s set | |
| 6-8 | 1s left turn three quarters | |
| A2 | 1-8 | 1s lead down, turn alone, lead back and cast down as 2s lead up |
| B1 | 1-4 | Turn contrary corners: 1s turn 1st corners right, partner left |
| 5-8 | 1s turn 2nd corners right partner left, end facing to women's line | |
| B2 | 1-4 | 1s lead out through the women, loop around them to meet in the middle |
| 5-8 | 1s lead out through the men, loop around them to places |
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=MungosDelight-Duple
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2023 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2023 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.