The Merry Milkmaids in Green ~ Pat Shaw/3 Couple

The Merry Milkmaids in Green ~ Pat Shaw The Merry Milkmaids in Green ~ Pat Shaw/3 Couple The Merry Milkmaids in Green ~ Anon

The Merry Milkmaids in Green ~ Pat Shaw/3 Couple is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1721 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the first, 17th ed., London. It was interpreted by Pat Shaw (website) in 1972 and published in Another Look at Playford. 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 40 bars.

Playford writes:
Note: The first Strain must be play'd twice and the last but once.
The 1st. and 2d. Man fall back to the Wall, and the Wo. fall back at the same time, and changes sides Fall back and change into their own Places again The first Man change Place with the 2. Wo. and the first Wo. with the 2. Man, go all four round and cast off, lead through the 3. cu. and through the 2. and back to back with your Partner and turn.

Originally a triple minor, although Playford says "Longways for Eight.".

When he published the dance, John Young used the tune for The Merry, Merry Milkmaids published in The English Dancing Master of 1651. It was performed by Bare Necessities (Earl Gaddis, Mary Lea, Peter Barnes, and Jacqueline Schwab) on the album At Home. The music is used with permission from the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre, Inc.

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 (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 dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), circle, cast, lead, lead and cast, back to back (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=TheMerryMilkmaidsInGreen-PShaw3Couple

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1972 by Pat Shaw. 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.