The Cuckoo's Nest

The Cuckoo's Nest is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Rutherford in about 1775 in Rutherford's compleat Collection of 200 of the most celebrated Country Dances both Old and New, Vol. 3. It was interpreted by Bernard Bentley in 1977 and published in The Fallibroome Collection, Vol. 5. 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.

Rutherford writes:
1st. Cu. xast off & Hands round 4 with the 3d. Cu. cast up & Hands 4 round 1st. Man Hey with 1st. & 2d. Wo. his Part: does the same with the Men then lead down the middle thro' the 3d. Cu. & cast up & Right & Left with the 2d. Cu.

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 dance contains the following figures: set, circle, cast, lead, hey, mirror hey, rights and lefts (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=TheCuckoosNest

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1977 by Bernard Bentley. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 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.