Scottish Ramble or The Scotch Ramble ~ RSCDS is a Scottish Country Dance. It was published by Johnson in about 1752 in Two Hundred Favourite Country Dances, Vol. 8, London. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1929 and published in RSCDS Book 5. It is S8×32 3C/4C, a proper Triple Minor dance. St32.
RSCDS Book 5 attributes this to Caledonian Country Dances, ~1754. Several people were publishing works with that title around that time, but I can't find this dance in any of them (or none that I have access to).
Note: RSCDS Book 10, for the dance The Lady's Breist Knot has a more nearly complete attribution: "Jno Johnson Caledonian Country Dances Vol. II, c. 1754" but I still can't find it.
Note: RSCDS Book 28, for the dance Not I contains the comment "The source given is Caledonian Country Dances, 1754 but attempts to trace this manuscript have been unsuccessful.
Johnson calls the dance The Scotch Ramble and writes:
First Cu. cast off two Cu. Lead up to the Top and cast off Hands 4 round with the 3d. Cu. Right hands and Left with the 2d. Cu. foot it at both Corners & turn Lead out on both sides and turn
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, hey, hey for three, rights and lefts, cross go below, set and turn corners (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=ScottishRamble
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1929 by RSCDS. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2020 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.