Scotch Jemmy
Scotch Jemmy is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Nathaniel Kynaston in 1711 and published in Twenty Four New Country Dances for the Year 1711. It was interpreted by Tom Cook in 1979 and published in Again Let's Be Merry. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 231. The minor set lasts 48 bars.
Kynaston writes (Walsh published):
Note Each Strain twice.
The 1st man cast off, the 2d wo. follow him below the 2d man and go round into each others place the 1st wo. cast off the 1st man follow her below the 2d wo. and go round into each others place the 1st cu: figure through the 3d cu. and cross up to the top, then the 1st and 2d cu take hands go half round and turn partners proper the 1st man lead his partner round him figure through the 3d cu. fall back two steps cast up and turn down the middle
As far as I can tell, Cook has the 1s+3s doing left shoulder siding in B2.7-8. The 3s back out of it in 9-10, but the 1s never seem to leave the center line. So I have them fall back when the 3s do.
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: hand turn (allemande), circle, cast, lead, figure eight, siding, cross go below, (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=ScotchJemmy
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1979 by Tom Cook. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2025 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This website is copyright © 2021-2025 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.