strathspey@strathspey.org:11698

B. G. Charlton

Lenox Love to Blantyre

April 21, 1998, 12:32 p.m. (Message 11698, in reply to message 11681)

Sylvis Miskoe's posting giving a description of Lenox Love to Blantyre is
very interesting.
I respond to this based on my reading from such works as Thurston
"Scotland's Dances" and  Emerson  "Scottish Country Dancing, An
Evolutionary Triumph"
The RSCDS quote the Holmain Manuscript as the source and Emerson notes that
this dance appears in both the Holmain (ca. 1730-1750) and the Drummond
Castle (1734) Manuscripts. He notes that "the RSCDS has reconstructed the
three named (Argyle's Bowling Green, Lenox Love and This is not my own
house) from the Holmain manuscript and the versions in the Drummond
correspond very closely to these."
In fact, reading the description given by Sylvia, the dance is obviously
the same, particularly if we recognise that the :: (double colon) means the
end of a four bar phrase.
The last 16 bars are obviously the standard "set to and turn corners, reels
of three with corners and cross over", though the reel (hey) is done in 4
bars and the dancers set (foot it) before crossing over.
The first 8 bars can be interpreted from Sylvia's text as "1 & 2 Couples
Right hands across in three bars, 1st couple cast off and 2nd Couple dance
up one place. 1 & 3 Couples repeat." The Society shows Hands across half
way with the 3rd couple for bars 5-8, and with a different bars 1-4 - Cross
and Cast Off. First couple finish in 3rd place on bar 8.
Bars 9-12 in the RSCDS is "set twice", while Sylvia's text says "Foot it
(set) and cast to the top"
Bars 13-16 from Sylvia's text can be interpreted as "1 & 2 Couples Rights
and Lefts in 4 bars, finish facing first corners", while the RSCDS version
has the 1 & 3 couples carrying out the same move.
This last figure was quite common for strathspeys at about this time (e.g.
"Within a Mile of Edinburgh Town").
It was quite common for dances with the same name from different sources to
have quite different descriptions in various sources.
It would be nice to be able to compare the Holmain and Drummond
descriptions with that given by Sylvia.
I hope that this has not been too boring, I think that we should visit the
"roots" of our art and compare with what we currently do.
Brian Charlton.