Wou'd You have a Young Virgin

Poor Robin's Maggot

Wou'd You have a Young Virgin or Poor Robin's Maggot is an English Country Dance. It was published by Walsh in 1710 in The New Country Dancing Master, The 2nd Book, London. It was interpreted by Andrew Shaw in 2000 and published in Mr. Kynaston's Famous Dance. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Playford writes:

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

The 1st Man and 2d Wo meet and give a Jump, the 2d Man and 1st Wo. do the same, then all four take Hands and go round All four lead forward and back again, the 1st Cu. cross over and turn Hands The 1st Cu. slide up behind the 2d Cu. and stop, then slide into their own Places, meet and Kiss, then cast off The 2c Cu. slide down and stop, then slide and Kiss, as the 1st Cu. did, and cast up

Or thus: The 1st Cu. cast off dehind the 2d Cu. and lead thro' the 3d Cu. and cast up and turn The 2d Cu. do the same The 1st Man change with the 2d Wo. and the 2d Man with the 1st Wo Then go half round and cast off, and Right and Left quite round

(Not having access to the original Walsh text, I have copied a version from Playford).

Although the original calls for kissing your partner, Shaw has turned that into a set (Sharp would have said "honour").

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: hand turn (allemande), set, circle, cast, lead, kiss, cross go below (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=WoudYouHaveAYoungVirgin

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2000 by Andrew 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.