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Country Dances, Ancient and Modern

The Scottish Reel

The Scottish Reel (earlier, The Scotch Reel) is a style of dance that reached its quintessence in Scotland in the 18th and 19th centuries. In its simplest form the figure is simply eight bars of reeling followed by eight bars of setting, repeated endlessly with no progression. There were reels for 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 9 individuals. The glory of the dance lies in the steps. The Fletts collected 19 different quick time setting steps used in this type of reel, and 4 types for strathspey reels, and two schottische steps. While D. Anderson published 8 quick time steps.

Pre-History

The earliest dance I know of which consisted of setting and reeling comes from Thoinot Arbeau's (Jehan Tabourot) Orchésographie, 1589, a book about French dancing. In it he presents a dance called "Branle de la Haye", which consists of setting followed by a hey (reel). His dances is for any number of people, but he presents it for three. His hey is also slightly different from a modern reel in that the last dancer doesn't start moving until the first dancer reaches him/her (but that difference is slight in a three person hey).

BRANLE DE LA HAYE

La dance de la haye que vous dictes est aultre; Elle se dance par mesure binaire, comme la Courante Les danceurs seul, & l'un aprez l'autre, premierement dancent l'ait en façon de Courante, & sur la fin s'entrelacent, & font la haye les uns parmy les aultres: Je vous donneray en premier lieu l'air de ladicte Couráte, lequel (comme sçauez) va par deux simples double, puis je donneray l'air que les joueurs d'instruments sonnent sur la fin pendant lequel, les danceurs s'enterlacent.

The Dance of the Hey

The dance of the hey, which you mention, is another. It is danced to a duple tune, like the Courante. The dancers, alone, and one after the other first dance the tune in the manner of the Courante, and when finished, interlace themselves making a hey with one another. I will give you, in the first place, the tune to the aforementioned Courante which (as you know) goes with two singles and a double. Then I will give the tune which the players of instrements sound at the end during which the dancers interlace themselves.

History

The figure is so simple that no one bothered to write it down until the 19th century. The Fletts say that the first reference to a "threesom reel" occurred in a work printed in 1710 (with no description of what the figure was). Hugh Thurston provides a quote from 1765:

"It is to the highlanders in North Britain that we are indebted, I am told, for a dance in the comic vein, called the Scotch reel, executed generally, and I believe alwasys in trio, or by three."
Sir John Gallini, A treatis on the art of dancing, 1765

Probably the earliest printed example of a reel is the very elaborate The Country Bumpkin published by William Campbell in London in ~1799. In this dance there are three trios arranged in a square of 9 people, with the men in the center. The dance finds 4 possible sets three reels of three, and it progresses. It seems far too complex to be the earliest reel. It also introduces a new figure, it uses "set and turn" instead of just setting.

The RSCDS has shortened the name of the dance to The Bumpkin and changed most of the set-advancing into a simple lead up, but it is clearly the same dance.

Francis Peacock, (Aberdeen, 1805) says that reels were either done as Quartett, or Trio, (for it is either one or the other).

The reel of three may have been the first form of the dance, but by 1808 reels of three, four and five had spread to London. Thomas Wilson seems to be the first to have written a description of these figures of the dance. In 1808 his An Analysis of Country Dancing contains a section called "New Reels" in which he gives versions of the dance which he, himself, invented (to add some novelty to the style, he says). It is not until his publication of 1820, The Complete System of English Country Dancing, that he gets around to describing the original forms. Or what he says are the original forms, but all his dances are progressive, while the later Scottish descriptions are non-progressive, so either the dances mutated as they travelled south, or Wilson change even the style which he called "original".

It is not until ~1830 that a description of the dance was published in Scotland. Both W. Smyth and the Messrs. Lowe published books in Edinburgh containing descriptions of the same dances: Reels of four, five, six and eight (but no reel of three).

They also published "Waterloo Reel", which collects a roomfull of reels into an integrated dance: Reel and set; promenade round the room and set.. Note that this dance involves something other than reeling and setting. Their "reel of eight" is even worse as it does not contain a reel and very little setting.

In their section of "Scotch Reels", the Lowes published two more reels that are not in Smyth. The first is "Princess of Wales' Fancy" (More likely William IV's wife than Victoria). It is a variant of the reel of four with 24 bars rather than the usual 16 Reel and set; after which, pousette one couple round the other.. The second is "The Everlasting Reel" which is a three couple longways dance with no reel (in the strict sense), or setting, but probably with progression.

The threesome reel seems to have mostly died out early in the 19th century. Wilson mentions it, but neither Smyth nor the Lowes do so. Nor does anyone else that I can find until we get to Atkinson's Scottish National Dances in 1900. The Threesome Reel of the RSCDS seems to have little in common with that of Wilson, Atkinson or the Fletts.

In Hugh Thurston's Scotland's Dances contains a quote (possibly from an English Major written from Edinburgh in 1775):

In most countries the men have a partiality for dancing with a woman; but here I have frequently seen four gentlemen perform one of these reels seemingly with the same pleasure and perseverance as they would have done, had they the most sprightly girl for a partner.

The Fletts say that the first instance of a four person reel called "The Reel of Tulloch" was danced by four men in 1819. The Reel of Tulloch is basically a foursome reel with the reeling replaced by turning. As the 19th century progressed it became common to dance the a regular foursome reel to strathspey music, and then switch to The Reel of Tulloch (also a tune) to finish the dance in reel time.

In ~1900 D. Anderson's Ball-Room and Solo Dance Guide says that the changes of the reel should be done by the right hand or by the left hand which sounds to me as if he expects people to do the reel giving hands.

The Community Dances Manual, Book 5 collected two reels danced in the English countryside in the 1950s: "Wiltshire Six-Hand Reel" and "Dorset Four-Hand Reel". Colin Hume's website contains a "Dorset Twelve-Hand Reel", but this is a modern invention.

The stick dance of Bromsberrow Heath of the Welsh Border Morris consists of a straight hey for 6 dancers, followed by setting while clashing sticks. I have no idea when this dance originated. There were Morrismen on the Welsh border as early as 1584, but what they were dancing then is obscure.

In Pride and Prejudice, while Miss Bingley is playing a lively Scotch air, Mr Darcy asks Elizabeth to dance a reel with him.
(Just how a reel could be danced with only two people is unclear to me. Perhaps Mr. Bingley would have joined in.)

These reels were not restricted to the UK. In 1820, Thomas Wilson said:

THESE Reels have for a number of years been a very favorite, and most generally approved species of Dancing, not only with the English, but also with the Irish and Scotch, and particularly the latter, from whom they derive their origin. They have, likewise been introduced into most of the foreign Courts of Europe, and are universally practised in our extensive Colonies.

They were favorites in the United States as well. George Appleton in his A Hand-Book for the Ball-Room and Evening Parties, Philadelphia, 1849 says:

SCOTCH REEL
This lively dance is so simple, and so well known in the ball-room, that it does not require particular description here.

Which, I guess, explains why no one else bothered to write down a description either.

I think Elias Howe is the first person to describe a reel in the US in his American Dancing Master, Boston, 1862:

THE SCOTCH REEL.

(This is called a straight Right and Left, or a 4-handed Reel in this Country)
The Scotch Reel is a true national dance, and is generally performed by the nobility before Her Majesty at her state balls. This is certainly the most lively and characteristic dance known. The music is generally played by a piper, as at Her Majesty's balls, and is played very fast. When a band is provided instead of the piper, one-half play while the other wait their turn, as the Scotch are indefatigable when dancing the Reel; they seem almost intoxicated with it — they snap their fingers — throw their arms and feet in the air — screech out — and make such quick, and difficult steps that the eyes have trouble to follow them. The figure is danced by two ladies and two gentlemen forming a line of four, the ladies in the centre. They begin with a chain in passing in and out of each other, until the two gentlemen return to their places, the ladies finish facing the gentlemen; then the set (or balancé) before each other, the gentlemen exhibit all their skill, the ladies dancing as quietly as possible; after eight bars of this set they begin again the chain and set, and this they do as long as they can — in fact they never seem tired, and seem to acquire fresh strength each time they come to the balancé.

I found later that this is quoted word for word from Eugene Coulon's Hand-Book; Containing all the last New and Fashionable Dances, London, 1860. Coulon seems to have published in the US as well as in the UK, so I'm not sure if this is plagerism, or after an arrangement to use his work.

Smyth (and the Lowes) place the ladies on the outside, while Howe has them on the inside of the line.

Howe has another reel of four:

Charley Over The Water

(Fore and After.) Two couples stand in a direct line, partners facing each other. All balance, straight right and left or Highland chain (this is repeated 2 or 3 times), a lady and a gent. stop in the centre and balance, straight right and left, other couple the same. Repeat at pleasure.

Modern

The RSCDS published a Sixteensome Reel in 1930. It has more of the complexity of a quadrille than the simplicity of one of these reels. An English Display Team devised a Twelve-Hand Reel which begins like a traditional reel, but gets more complicated. Colin Andrews' Polka Dot Polka is very similar to an old Reel of Five, but adds progression so that everyone can be in the middle.

Links to Reels

Bibliography

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