The Charmer

The Charmer is a Scottish Country Dance. It was published by Walsh in 1717 in Twenty Four New Country Dances for the Year 1717, London. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1979 and published in RSCDS Book 29. It is J8×32 3C/4C, a proper Triple Minor dance. J32.

First published by Walsh in 1717, John Young (Playford) in 1718, Walsh again in 1719.

Walsh writes:

Note: Each Strain is to be play'd twice over.

The 1st Cu. take Hands, go thro' the 2d, and set to the 3d Cu. then turn about to the 2d Cu. and all four take Hands abreast, lead up and the 1st Cu. cast off The 2d Cu. do the same with the 3d and the 1st Cu. The 1st Cu. figure thro' the 2d Cu. all four take Hands and turn quite round The 1st Cu. cross quite round the 2d Cu. clap Hands and cast off into the 2d Cu. Place

The music consists of two 8 bar strains in cut time (not a jig).

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), set, circle, cast (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=TheCharmer-RSCDS

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1979 by RSCDS. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2024 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.