Careless Sally

This dance seems to have originated in Thompson's Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year 1785. Thompson describes it:

Turn your Partner with your right hand and cast off · Turn left hands and cast off another Cu: ·· Lead up to the top and cast off · Right and Left ··

The music consists of two 4 bar strains, both repeated. It may be intended to be played with four counts per bar, or it may be that the turns are just fast.

Somehow it crossed the Atlantic, and Ralph Page found it in a manuscript called Otesgo, a collection of dances from 1808. Sadly I don't have access to that work, nor to the original wording.

Over time the dance mutated from a Triple Minor to a Duple Minor, and its name changed from "Careless Sally" to "Calais Sally".

The story behind it may be found in the CDSS book, Cracking Chestnuts.

Careless Sally, Thompson's original.

Careless Sally, a triple minor.

Calais Sally, a duple minor.

This website is copyright © 2021-2026 by George W. Williams V
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.