'Twas o'er the Hills and Far Away ~ Bolton #1

'Twas o'er the Hills and Far Away ~ Bolton #1 'Twas o'er the Hills and Far Away ~ Bolton #2 'Twas o'er the Hills and Far Away ~ Hume

'Twas o'er the Hills and Far Away ~ Bolton #1 is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1710 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second, London. It was interpreted by Charles Bolton (website) in 1986 and published in Retreads Vol.2. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 312. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Bolton has two interpretations of this dance.

Playford writes:

Note: Each Strain is to be play'd twice over
The first Man and his Partner cross over the second Couple and turn. This to the first Strain play'd once. Then cross over the third Couple and turn. This to the first Strain play'd twice Then lead up to the Top and cast off, and then RIght hands and left quite round. This to the second Strain play'd once. Then lead through the third Couple, and cast up and turn your Partner. This to the second Strain play'd twice.

The tune is an old one with many sets of lyrics. Here's one which seems appropriate to a dance:

Now Tom with his pipe made such a noise
That he pleased both the girls and boys,
And they did dance when he did play
"Over the hills and far away"

The tune was published by Playford with the dance, though it had been published earilier in other places, and the music was synthesized by Colin Hume.

The animation plays at 70 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 dances of Charles Bolton (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license by the CDSS Online Library.
An online description of the dance may be found here.

A11-41s cross, go below as 2s lead up
5-81s two hand turn
A21-41s cross by the left, go below as 3s lead up
5-81s two hand turn, other couples circle left half and two hand turn half
B11-41s lead up to top and cast down to middle (middle couple move down)
5-8M3&W1 move down or up the middle, passing left and loop right around neighbor as W3&M1 left gypsy and 2s right gypsy
B21-41s lead down below 2s and cast back
5-8All partner two hand turn

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=TwasOreTheHillsAndFarAway-Bolton1

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1986 by Charles Bolton. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA 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.