Contents

Row Well Ye Mariners

This dance did not exactly evolve. Playford simply left out half of the description, and two people have come up with completely different interpretations of the missing bits.

Background Source

Playford writes:

Lead up a D. forwards and back · That again : First man two slips cross the Room one way, the woman the other · Back again to your places : Fall back both · Meet again : Clap both your own hands, then clap each other's right-hands against one another's; clap both your own hands again, then clap left-hands, then clap both hands again, then clap your breasts, then meet both your hands against one-another · The same again, only clap left-hands first :

First man sides with the next wo. and his wo. with the next man, doing the like till you come to your own places, the rest following and doing the same.

Interpretations

Cecil Sharp's version

Part 1

I.A	1-4	Up a Double, and back
	5-8	Up a Double, and back (again)
I.B	1-1	M1 slips left
	2-2	W1 slips right
	3-3	M1 slips back
	4-4	W1 slips back
I.C	1-4	1s face, fall back a double, come forward
I.D	1-4	Clap: own hands, partner's right, own, left, own, chest, both partner's hands
	5-8	Clap: own hands, partner's left, own, right, own, chest, both partner's hands

Part 2 repeats 7 times

II.A	1-4	Neighbor Sharp siding
	5-6	Step right and honour
	7-8	Neighbor change by left
II.B	1-1	Face up, men slip left
	2-2	Women slip right
	3-3	Men slip back
	4-4	Women slip back
I.C	1-4	Partners face, fall back a double, come forward
I.D	1-4	Clap: own hands, partner's right, own, left, own, chest, both partner's hands
	5-8	Clap: own hands, partner's left, own, right, own, chest, both partner's hands

Charles Bolton's

A1	1-4	Right shoulder siding
A2	1-4	Left shoulder siding
B1,B2	1-4	In long lines slip left, then right
C1,C2	1-4	Partner back to back
D1	1-4	Clap: own hands, partner's right, own, left, cross on own shoulders, both partner's hands
D2	1-2	Set
	3-4	Move one position right until across from next person of opposite sex (skip one person, go to the next)

The dances of Charles Bolton (including 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 interpretation may be found here.

A split screen video, showing both animations. The left and right audio channels have different sets of calls on them; shift the sound balance to toggle between interpretations.

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.