The Corporation
Country Dances, Ancient and Modern

Schiehallion Reel

An online definition may be found here.

Bars: 16.

Schiehallion Reel A Schiehallion Reel starts in a square formation with the women facing out. All couples do the same thing. In the first two bars the men move in toward the center and then out to the place where the woman to their right started, giving left shoulder to the man on their right. The women loop outside of the set and come in where their partner used to be.

In this figure the men follow the woman who starts to their right, while the women follow their partners. After every two bars each dancer should be where the person they are following was at the start of those two bars.

In bars 2-4 the men now loop outside the set, while the women move toward the center and then out to where their partner was.

After 4 bars all dancers in the set will have rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise.

This process continues, after 8 bars they are diametrically opposite where they started, and after 16 bars they are back home.

History

The Scottish Country Dance Database has a long note about the dance Schiehallion, saying that a version of the dance was originally devised in the 1950s, containing the epynomous reel, but the dance itself was much changed in the final version published in 1971.

They also note that although Thurston thought the figure original, it is very similar to an Axum reel.

While they may be topologically equivalent they look quite different to me.

Some dances which (probably) use this figure

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