[SCA-Dance] How do we know Playford is largely proper?

tmcd at panix.com tmcd at panix.com
Wed Feb 1 01:42:41 EST 2012


So I'm working on the docco for Argeers and I thought I'd mention the
start, so I looked at the crescent / dotted circle notation under
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/playford_1651/

Hm.  For Argeers, *if I interpret the crescent as the direction the
man is facing*, which I have hitherto done,
- you start proper but men facing your partner, which doesn't make
  sense with the second instruction being "take each others Wo. by
  both hands"
- you start facing your opposite, but improper.

I was ready to chalk it up as a typo, but then I looked at a few other
dances.

Heart's Ease: matches Argeers.

Rufty Tufty: opposite of Argeers (crescents and dotted circles have
swapped).

Faine I would: There's none of that possible ambiguity.  The couples
are numbered with lines joining the members of the couple, and they're
shown improper.

In contrast, Dull Sir John is likewise notated, but proper.

The Fryar and the Nun / The Bath / Halfe Hanikin versus
Boate Man / The Beggar Boye / Bobbing Joe: longways.
They have crescents facing opposite directions, so it looks like some
have to be improper.

Lulling beyond thee: different from all the other longways I've looked
at:

O O ) )
) ) O O

But I interpret the starting "Meete a D. and back" as two lines
lengthwise down the set, so men start facing their partners.

How do we know that, in English country, proper is proper, and that
there was some number of errors in the placement of crescents and
circles in the diagrams?  You can argue away most of the cases above
as "no, it's only that the direction of the crescents doesn't matter",
but that falls down at Faine I Would, where couples are shown
improper.

Danet de Lincoln
-- 
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tmcd at panix.com


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