"Hey" vs. "Reel"
Michael R. Bissell
We just had our English Ball here in Portland and it was everything an
English Ball should be. The dress, the dances, the music, the hall,
everything was fantastic. Next year promises to be even better...
Anyhow, one thing that stuck out in my mind was that the callers kept
referring to the reels as heys. Now, I know the old story about the
weaving shrubbery or whatever which gives us the word "hey", but I
thought that it only applied in Contra. Is it really okay to refer to a
three person reel as a hey for three? In English Country Dance?
Scottish? Irish?
--+
| M |
+--
Michael R. Bissell
Portland, OR
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Dan Pearl
"circular hey").
In Scottish, I have seen only mention of "reel".
--
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Dan Pearl ** Stratus Computer, Inc. ** pe...@sw.stratus.com
"If you're not part of the solution, then you're the precipitate." - D.Pearl
Deborah Shaw
contra dancing here in the Research Triangle of North Carolina, it's
always "hey" and in Scottish country dancing the figure is always called
a "reel."
Scottish country dancing has reels for three, four, and, rarely, for
five or six. In a reel of three, you have to know who passes which
shoulder to begin - before you begin, as there's no calling.
Actually, a reel of four is different from a hey for four. I was an
experienced Scottish country dancer before I tried contra for the first
time, and I found heys confusing at first because they were opposite my
training. In contra, a hey generally begins passing right shoulder in the
center and left shoulders on the end, with the very beginning - if you
could freeze the motion - being four in a line, the center dancers facing
each other. In Scottish country dancing, a reel of four begins with each
center person facing the nearest end, and you pass left shoulders in the
center and right on the ends.
I have a "guide" for the Scottish country dancer who wants to try contra,
which I wrote to persuade an SCD friend along one evening not long ago.
I'd be happy to share it if you email me directly.
Happy dancing,
Deborah Shaw
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
ds...@nando.net
Barbara Ruth
R. Bissell) wrote:
> Anyhow, one thing that stuck out in my mind was that the callers kept
> referring to the reels as heys. Now, I know the old story about the
> weaving shrubbery or whatever which gives us the word "hey", but I
> thought that it only applied in Contra. Is it really okay to refer to a
> three person reel as a hey for three? In English Country Dance?
Michael, what is the story about the weaving shrubbery? I've never heard
it. At all the English dances and balls I've been to out here, the usual
term used is "hey" with "reel" as an occaisional alternate. That doesn't
mean it's historically "right" but it is the usage. Also in Morris
dancing, which is where I first learned to do a 3 person hey, it is never
called anything but a "hey." ("Reel" in Morris circles would refer to an
entirely different sort of motion and have to do with the amount of beer
consumed at pub stops).
Lee Thompson-Herbert
Michael R. Bissell <lamp...@teleport.com> wrote:
>[...]
>Anyhow, one thing that stuck out in my mind was that the callers kept
>referring to the reels as heys. Now, I know the old story about the
>weaving shrubbery or whatever which gives us the word "hey", but I
>thought that it only applied in Contra. Is it really okay to refer to a
>three person reel as a hey for three? In English Country Dance?
Irish use "hey" or "heye" in the older books. Morris dancers use "reel"
because a "hey" is a slightly different figure for them. English country
dance uses "hey" when I've heard it. A reel is a tune with a particular
time signature and rhythm in irish and scots music, so the figure you're
talking about is usually called a "hey", but not always. And Reeling The
Set is another figure entirely...
And of course, in irish dance there are many different sorts of heys...
Dance terminology is such fun. ;}
--
Lee M.Thompson-Herbert l...@crl.com
Chaos Monger Real religions don't have trade secrets:
and read alt.religion.scientology
Jill-of-all-Trades Member, Knights of Xenu (1995) KD6WUR
Lee Thompson-Herbert
Bill Richard <bi...@thelema.queernet.org> wrote:
>[...]
>couples alternately got between and around the other couples. But I remember
>once being taught a "sheepskin hey" in which one side walked arounnd and
>weaved through the other line, and then repeated for the other side. There is
>also a hey for four in line.
A sheepskin hey has a "twist" in it when done as two lines. Everyone weaves
the line, the last person turns around the middle person in the line to
become the new first person weaving the set...it's hard to explain and
we have a bear of a time teaching it unless the middle of the line knows
how to do it and can guide people through the sheepskin twist at the
right time.
There's also a circular sheepskin hey, but I'm not going to even attempt
to explain it. We're still busy screwing it up in class. ;}
Lee Thompson-Herbert
Barbara Ruth <barbar...@yale.edu> wrote:
>[...]
>mean it's historically "right" but it is the usage. Also in Morris
>dancing, which is where I first learned to do a 3 person hey, it is never
>called anything but a "hey." ("Reel" in Morris circles would refer to an
>entirely different sort of motion and have to do with the amount of beer
>consumed at pub stops).
You follow a completely different path for a morris hey, though. The
figure-8 weave that's usually called a "hey" or "reel" in other dance
is a "reel" if you ever do it. I've mostly seen it in border morris,
not cotswald.
Bill Richard
l...@crl.com (Lee Thompson-Herbert) wrote:
|You follow a completely different path for a morris hey, though. The
|figure-8 weave that's usually called a "hey" or "reel" in other dance
|is a "reel" if you ever do it. I've mostly seen it in border morris,
|not cotswald.
Er, beg to differ. The Morris hey I learned (Adderbury, Cotswold) is your
basic figure-8 path hey for three, done in parallel by the two lines. The
other cotswold style teams I've seen seem to do the same. Except, of course,
for the Litchfield hey-for-eight.
-Bill
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Richard
2215-R Market St. #546 bi...@thelema.Queernet.Org (prefered)
San Francisco, CA 94114 bi...@slip.net (also works)
dshaw
On Tue, 21 Nov 1995, Bob Archer wrote:
> ... The RSCDS Scottish teachers always use the
> term reel which is distressingly similar to wheel - their term for what we
> would call a star.
They're not supposed to! The official RSCDS term for a star is "right
hands across (and left hands back)." "Wheel" is RSCDS slang, more or
less, and is common in Scotland - perhaps from ceilidh dancing? - but not
in North America.
I heard a story once about a Scot who, while giving an SCD workshop here,
kept shouting "wheel, wheel!" in frustration to a large room of reeling
Scottish country dancers. The common - but RSCDS verboten - term for hands
across with three people is "teapots."
Hands across, by the way, in SCD is *always* done with a handshake hold
with the opposite person, and unlike my experience in contra, all four hands
are kept together in the center (not on two different levels).
Happy dancing,
Deborah Shaw
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
ds...@nando.net
Bob Archer
> Anyhow, one thing that stuck out in my mind was that the callers kept
> referring to the reels as heys. Now, I know the old story about the
> weaving shrubbery or whatever which gives us the word "hey", but I
> thought that it only applied in Contra. Is it really okay to refer to a
> three person reel as a hey for three? In English Country Dance?
> Scottish? Irish?
I've now had a chance to look up some references. The description of 'Merry
Merry Milk Maids' in my reprint of Playford includes a single hey (in this
case a reel of 4). There are also references to double and circular heys.
Sharp provides descriptions for various hey figures in 'The Country Dance
Book'.
Bob
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Bob Archer EMail b...@hottub.demon.co.uk |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael R. Bissell
>> Anyhow, one thing that stuck out in my mind was that the callers kept
>> referring to the reels as heys. Now, I know the old story about the
>> weaving shrubbery or whatever which gives us the word "hey", but I
>> thought that it only applied in Contra. Is it really okay to refer to a
>> three person reel as a hey for three? In English Country Dance?
>
>Michael, what is the story about the weaving shrubbery? I've never heard
>it. At all the English dances and balls I've been to out here, the usual
>term used is "hey" with "reel" as an occaisional alternate.
Gosh, um, well... I forget the particulars. Could the scholar who
provided me with this ihistory of the term "hey" post it again?
Thanks,
Lee Thompson-Herbert
Bill Richard <bi...@thelema.queernet.org> wrote:
>In article <48u6bm$5...@crl12.crl.com>,
> l...@crl.com (Lee Thompson-Herbert) wrote:
>
>|You follow a completely different path for a morris hey, though. The
>|figure-8 weave that's usually called a "hey" or "reel" in other dance
>|is a "reel" if you ever do it. I've mostly seen it in border morris,
>|not cotswald.
>
>Er, beg to differ. The Morris hey I learned (Adderbury, Cotswold) is your
>basic figure-8 path hey for three, done in parallel by the two lines. The
>other cotswold style teams I've seen seem to do the same. Except, of course,
>for the Litchfield hey-for-eight.
Mmm. Not quite.
Fieldtown follows a path as such:
[I haven't overlapped the paths because in ascii it's near impossible
to read otherwise.]
____
/ \
| 1 | _ /1
| | / /
| ^ and | |
\ | ^ |
3---' | | 3
| v
| |
\ \
5 \ 5
Other half of the hey, the middles go down the set rather than up.
The ends only go up and down the set. They do not loop. I think
I've seen the same type of hey in Bleddington, and I can't remember
for Bampton (I hate Bampton and was probably _trying_ not to remember).
[I asked my teacher. Yes, the path is the same for Bampton, even though
the style is different.] Which direction each dancer turns during
the hey is dependant on which tradition you're dancing, but the path
is pretty much the same.
Hey for three follows this sort of path:
----
/ \
/ \
| |
\ /
\ /
/ ------------<----middle may come in from here
/ \
| / \
V | | ^
\ / |
\ /
-----
---->
Middles sometimes cast into the set (toward each other).
We did this sort of hey when we did White Ladies Ashton, but then it's
a hey for four. ;}
Summary of the discussion with my teacher (who's done english, scots, irish,
and various types of morris and clogging):
English use "hey" for just about any figure that involves everyone
weaving though the set.
Irish have lots of heys as well, but some of the figures may have
specific names rather than just "hey for 3", "hey for 4", "couples
hey". Grand chain without hands is not generally called a hey.
Scots use "reel" to mean _only_ heys for three and four.
Morris heys are most commonly anti-symmetric, though the
figure-8 hey shows up in some traditions.
S Miskoe
across the dance, reels up and down the dance, parallel reels, right
shoulder reels, left shoulder reels, mirror reels, cross over reels, 6 bar
reels, 8 bar reels, half reels or 3 and of 4.
In the early 70's the English dance community that also did contra dances
introduced the hay for 4 to the contra world. There are other sorts of
English hays.
And, reels are tunes in 2/4 meter. The majority of tunes we dance to are
reels.
Sylvia Miskoe, Concord, NH
Bob Archer
Deborah Shaw <ds...@nando.net> writes:
> Actually, a reel of four is different from a hey for four. I was an
> experienced Scottish country dancer before I tried contra for the first
> time, and I found heys confusing at first because they were opposite my
> training. In contra, a hey generally begins passing right shoulder in the
> center and left shoulders on the end, with the very beginning - if you
> could freeze the motion - being four in a line, the center dancers facing
> each other. In Scottish country dancing, a reel of four begins with each
> center person facing the nearest end, and you pass left shoulders in the
> center and right on the ends.
>
I would class these as variations on a theme rather than 'different'. I have
seen contras (I'm at work at the moment so I'm not in a position to quote
names I'm afraid) where the reel is started with two people in the centre
facing their partners on the outside and the first change is by the right
shoulder on the ends. Given the wide variety of reels and half reels in
Scottish dancing I would be very suprised if there wasn't a dance which had
a reel of 4 with people passing left shoulder on the ends.
Sharp defines a hey as "the rhythmical interlacing in serpentine fashion of
two groups of dancers moving in single file and in opposite directions."
Does anyone know whether the use of the word 'reel' in dance names such as
Dorset 4 Hand Reel and Wiltshire 6 hand reel refers to the hey or the time
signature of the music?
To confuse matters further, I seem to remember hearing that the word 'reel'
was sometimes just used to mean a dance so that a dance with the word reel
in the title would not necessarily be danced to a reel. Again, does anyone
know anything more about this?
> I have a "guide" for the Scottish country dancer who wants to try contra,
> which I wrote to persuade an SCD friend along one evening not long ago.
> I'd be happy to share it if you email me directly.
I'd be very interested to see a copy.
BILLM...@delphi.com
Quoting bill from a message in rec.folk-dancing
> I can't speak for Scottish or Irish, but I have never heard a hey
>called a reel in English Country Dance. There are in fact several
>kinds of hey. A circular hey is, as someone said in another article,
>like "grand right and left" without hands, though "three changes of a
>circular hey" (3/4 hey) leaving you progressed and proper seems to be
>a more common figure than a full or half hey. I'm actually not sure
>what a three person reel is but there are several variations on a hey
>for three. In a four person minor set it's usually the first couple
>and second lady, then repeat with second man. In three couple sets
>it's usually done along the line by both sides at the same time, often
>as a "mirror hey" i.e. the two sides turning in opposite directions so
>that couples alternately got between and around the other couples. But
>walked arounnd and weaved through the other line, and then repeated
>for the other side. There is also a hey for four in line.
> Bill Richard
> 2215-R Market St. #546 bi...@thelema.Queernet.Org (prefered)
> San Francisco, CA 94114 bi...@slip.net (also works)
the same figure. The English "circular hey" and the American
square dance "weave the ring" are also essentially the same.
The sheepskin hey, also known as a sheeps' head hey, is found
in the English three-couple contra Picking Up Sticks.
Bill McCray
Lexington, KY
Rainbow V 1.02 for Delphi
Bill Richard
d...@ecs.soton.ac.uk (David Pritchard) wrote:
|
|In article <490k8o$1...@linda.teleport.com>, lamp...@teleport.com
|(Michael R. Bissell) writes:
|:I wrote:
|:>> Now, I know the old story about
|:>> weaving shrubbery or whatever which gives us the word "hey",
|:To which Barbara Ruth <barbar...@yale.edu> responded:
|:>Michael, what is the story about the weaving shrubbery? I've never
|:>heard
|:>it.
|
|anyway. It is (alleged) to be derived from the French word spelt
|something
|like haie, but with more vowels. This is a kind of fencing made
|by weaving horizontal strips of wood between vertical straight bits.
|The rest of the analogy is obvious. However it may be apochryphal,
The explanation I heard (I think it was from Tony Barrand) is similar except
that the root is said to be an Anglo-Saxon word meaning hedge and refering to
the way that they maintained hedged by periodicly going along and weaving the
new growth back into the main body of branches to keep the hedge compact.
-Bill
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Pritchard
In article <490k8o$1...@linda.teleport.com>, lamp...@teleport.com
(Michael R. Bissell) writes:
:I wrote:
kept
:>> referring to the reels as heys. Now, I know the old story about
the
:>> weaving shrubbery or whatever which gives us the word "hey", but I
:>> thought that it only applied in Contra. Is it really okay to
refer to a
:>> three person reel as a hey for three? In English Country Dance?
:To which Barbara Ruth <barbar...@yale.edu> responded:
:>Michael, what is the story about the weaving shrubbery? I've never
heard
usual
:>term used is "hey" with "reel" as an occaisional alternate.
:Gosh, um, well... I forget the particulars. Could the scholar who
:provided me with this ihistory of the term "hey" post it again?
:>
It may or may not have been me who started this rumour. So I'll reply
anyway. It is (alleged) to be derived from the French word spelt
something
like haie, but with more vowels. This is a kind of fencing made
by weaving horizontal strips of wood between vertical straight bits.
The rest of the analogy is obvious. However it may be apochryphal,
in
the manner of the panel game "Call My Bluff" which UK TV viewers may
recall from the 60's and 70's (3 celebrities each define an obsure
word, only one is right; the other team tries to guess which).
--
Dr David J. Pritchard http://www.hpcc.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~djp/
Electronics and Computer Science tel +44 1703 592722
University of Southampton fax +44 1703 593045
Southampton SO17 1BJ
Lee Thompson-Herbert
>mind that they can start an ol' way, rights on the outside, lefts on the
>outside, rights on the inside, lefts on the outside...
Depends on where you learned it. For irish, you always pass left shoulders
in the middle (which means you pass right shoulders on the outside). Then
again, we've also done heys where the two middles start standing back-to-
back instead of facing. In that case, _everyone_ passes right shoulders
to start (and you'll still be passing left in the center).
A hey starts however the majority of dancers in your location do it. ;}
Echo 01
and a HAY is a HAY is done without the use of hands and a REEL uses hands.
Lysle 'Dad' Shields Ech...@aol.com
Huntsville, Al.
Michael R. Bissell
>Actually, a reel of four is different from a hey for four. I was an
>experienced Scottish country dancer before I tried contra for the first
>time, and I found heys confusing at first because they were opposite my
>training. In contra, a hey generally begins passing right shoulder in the
>center and left shoulders on the end, with the very beginning - if you
>could freeze the motion - being four in a line, the center dancers facing
>each other. In Scottish country dancing, a reel of four begins with each
>center person facing the nearest end, and you pass left shoulders in the
>center and right on the ends.
Although heys USUALLY start with a right shoulder in the middle, keep in
mind that they can start an ol' way, rights on the outside, lefts on the
outside, rights on the inside, lefts on the outside...
--+
Michael R. Bissell
>Whether it's right or not the way I visulize the differance between a REEL
>and a HAY is a HAY is done without the use of hands and a REEL uses hands.
How the heck do you use your hands in a Hey, er, reel? (Aside from the
interminable groping thread...)
Chris Brady
by stepping followed by another figure followed by stepping, etc.
The figure could be a 'hey' for three as in English Cotswold
morris, or it could be a 'hey' for four as in some English
reels and modern American contras. It could be a double 'hey'
that is as a promenade for three couples as in traditional
Shetland 3 cu. set social dances. The figure could also be a
simple circle to the left and right, it could be a circular
chain, it could be a basket, it could be a weaving figure of
interconnecting 'heys' such as in modern Scottish country dances.
The stepping part of a real reel is usually done on the spot
either facing a partner, a contrary, or just into the set. The
reels beloved of the Scots for hundreds of years were
mainly 'heys' for four (2 couples) interspersed with flamboyant
stepping. During the modern revival of Scottish Country Dancing
these were incorporated into the country dance figures. If you
want to know more read "Traditional Dancing in Scotland" by Tom &
Joan Flett. It is also still in print. There is also a very
interesting paper published by the Fletts via the School of
Scottish Studies in Edinburgh about reels. Chris Brady.
Ashley
> >> Anyhow, one thing that stuck out in my mind was that the callers kept
> >> referring to the reels as heys. Now, I know the old story about the
> >> weaving shrubbery or whatever which gives us the word "hey", but I
> >> thought that it only applied in Contra. Is it really okay to refer to a
> >> three person reel as a hey for three? In English Country Dance?
> >
> To which Barbara Ruth <barbar...@yale.edu> responded:
> >Michael, what is the story about the weaving shrubbery? I've never heard
> >it. At all the English dances and balls I've been to out here, the usual
> >term used is "hey" with "reel" as an occaisional alternate.
> Michael then responded:
> Gosh, um, well... I forget the particulars. Could the scholar who
> provided me with this ihistory of the term "hey" post it again?
Hey or hay is an old english (16th century) term for a hedge. The reason
a dance figure is called a "hedge" is related to the way hedges were made
in those days. A traditional "layed" hedge was woven. To "lay" a hedge
the bushes are left to grow vertically for a few years occasionally
thinning the branches so that there are strong vertical risers at 2 to 3
foot intervals and about 6 to 9 feet or more high. Then the bushy part
of the hedge is trimmed to leave the stems clear to slash them partially
through with a billhook. Before slashing stakes are driven into the
ground at about 3 foot intervals between the bushes. The slashed stems
are then bent over and interwoven between the stakes. When branchlets
grow out, it makes a very effective hedge. It is said that a even a
chicken cannot get through a well layed hedge. The hedges were often ash
or hawthorn. Hawthorn is particularly good for this as it branches out
well and is very thorny! Interestingly "haw" is another old word for hedge!
The connection with the dancing figure is of course the weaving process.
And yes, the term originated in English country dance. It was used by
Playford. It was then passed to contra at a later date. My
understanding is that the term "reel" originated in Scottish dancing.
Michael, please could you keep a copy of this to save me having to retype
it next time the question pops up. I am going to lose this account shortly
and don't have the facility to save it. :-)
Happy dancing
Ashley
~~~~~~
Chris Brady
of fact without reference!! Where on earth did you get that
romantic notion. What ARE your sources? Chris Brady.
W. Eric Limbach
so good. It also gives its derivation as the french word 'haie'. My
French dictionary defines 'haie' to mean 'hedge or hurdle'. I don't think
it takes much imagination, especially to those with gardening experience,
to see the creation of a hedge from shrubbery by weaving those unruley
branches amongst themselves to form a compact mat. Hence the weaving,
intertwining of branches = the weaving, intertwining of the country dance
figure.
--
W. Eric Limbach, Ph.D.
Department of Biological Sciences
Idaho State University
Pocatello, ID 83209 tel:208-236-2480
finger it out
wrote:
> In article <48qott$4...@kelly.teleport.com>,
> lamp...@teleport.com (Michael R. Bissell) wrote:
> |Anyhow, one thing that stuck out in my mind was that the callers kept
> |referring to the reels as heys. Now, I know the old story about the
> |weaving shrubbery or whatever which gives us the word "hey", but I
> |thought that it only applied in Contra. Is it really okay to refer to a
> |three person reel as a hey for three? In English Country Dance?
Scottish Country Dance refers to reels only. You can reel with second man or
lady, mirror reels down each side, crossover reels (1st man with ladies, 1st
lady with men, etc, etc.) I've never heard the term "hey" before. I'm not sure
about Irish.
GKennedy
Rob Baden
the figure before it.
Rob Baden
Paul Tyler
>
>My Oxford dictionary defines 'hey' as a figure in country dance. So far
>so good. It also gives its derivation as the french word 'haie'. My
>French dictionary defines 'haie' to mean 'hedge or hurdle'. I don't
think
I'm not sure of the etymology, but the hey has been with us in the
Anglo-Celtic world for at least 400 years (this year, to be exact). In a
poem called Orchestra (written in 1595), Sir John Davies tells us that it
is Love who has taught us to dance.
Then first of all he doth demonstrate paine
The motions seven that are in nature found,
Upward and downward, forth and back again.
To this side and to that, and turning round.
(Stanza LXII)
. . .
He taught them rounds and winding heys to tread
And about trees to cast themselves in rings.
(from Stanza LXIV)
Playford dancers, art those motions seven the common figures (Up a
double, siding, arming)?
FWIW
Paul Tyler
Michael R. Bissell
Boy, one little question about the hey, and forty messages later...
Thank you all, I feel much more comfortable with the history and meaning
of the words. I just am AMAZED at the volume on this thread.
Jim Saxe
(Michael R. Bissell) writes:
>Boy, one little question about the hey, and forty messages later...
>
>Thank you all, I feel much more comfortable with the history and meaning
>of the words. I just am AMAZED at the volume on this thread.
Here's yet another posting about the history and etymology of the
hey, citing some references that nobody else has mentioned so far,
at least in postings that have made it to my site.
Let's turn first to Thoinot Arbeau's (pseudonym for Jehan
Tabourot, born c. 1520) _Orchesography_. This treatise, written
in the form of a dialog between a dancing master, Arbeau, and his
student, Capriol, was first published in 1589. My citation is to
the 1967 edition by Dover Publications, New York. The Dover
edition is based on an annotated translation from the French by
Lady Mary Stewart Evans (Kamin Dance Publishers, New York, 1948),
but edited and supplemented with a second set of annotations by
Julia Sutton. In what follows, bracketed numerals refer to
Evans's endnotes (which in the Dover edition are referenced by
superscripted numerals, counting serially from the beginning to
the end of the book), bracketed letters refer to Sutton's endnotes
(originally superscripted letters, starting over with "a" on each
page), and bracketed text is mine.
On page 167, Arbeau describes The Montarde Branle:
In bygone days we used to dance a mimed branle called the
Montarde. It was danced [description of footwork omitted] always
moving to the left without any deviation to the right. An equal
number of men and women take part, one of the men leading and
one of the women bringing up the rear, and they all dance four
_doubles a` gauche_ together. This done, the leader, detaching
himself from the others, makes a turn alone, then the second
makes a turn and joins the first. The third does likewise,
joining the second, and so on ... . And when the last dancer
has finished her turn, the first one makes a hay,[100] passing
in front of the women and behind the men, and places himself at
the tail end, taking the last woman by the hand. And while he
is making this hay all those before and behind whom he has
passed join hands and repeat the branle as at the beginning.
Thus the woman who was at the end [sic, but see below] finds
herself leading and must follow the example of the original
leader. In this way each dancer becomes leader and last in turn.
After the last one has made her hay she is back once again at the
end where she started. ...
Evans's annotation is:
[100] This is a weaving back and forth between a line of other
dancers.
In case it's not clear without more context than I care to quote,
the formation is a line of alternating men and women, all facing
the same direction, with hands joined:
/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\
M1--W1--M2--W2--.....--Mn--Wn
Each dancer in turn detaches from the leading (left) end of line
and weaves hey-style to the rear (right) end, the other dancers
meanwhile moving to the left, and dropping hands only as necessary
to let the heying dancer through. The line may well be curved into
a broken circle, if only to limit the amount of space used.
After Arbeau gives a tabulation of the music and steps for the
Montarde, Capriol remarks:
To be sure, this Montarde branle must be the one that damsels
call the hay.
Arbeau replies,
The dance of the hay[101] to which you refer is another.
... [Initial figures omitted] and at the end they interweave
and make the hay.[a] ...
Then he goes on to describe what we would now recognize as a
progressive straight hey, each dancer in turn beginning to weave
back through the line as soon as the preceding dancer has gone
far enough to be out of the way, rather than waiting for the
preceding dancer to get all the way to the end:
ARBEAU
... Suppose the dancers to be seven in number, A, B, C, D,
E, F and G. When A who is first has changed with B who is
second and when the said A has also changed with C, who is
third, and is about to change with D who is fourth, then B
who is now first must begin the hay and change places with
C who is now second and so on.
CAPRIOL
From what you say, I gather that C is now the first and so
he must begin his hay by changing with D who is now second
at the same moment that B changes and makes the hay with E
who is now fourth and so on accordingly.
ARBEAU
You have grasped it very well.
Evans's note says:
[101] Spelled variously, hay, haye, and hey, this is a very old
country dance, usually a round one, and Dr. Johnson, in his
dictionary, suggests that it may have been so called because
it was originally danced round a haycock. In Love's Labour's
Lost, Dull, the constable says, "I will play on the tabor to
the Worthies and let them dance the Hay."
The haycock theory is interesting, but I put more credence in the
etymology suggested in Sutton's note:
a. Arbeau describes the hay exactly as it is still done in English
country dancing today, as well as elsewhere in Europe. ...
The term may be pictorially derived from "la haye," a French
for an artificial hedge, "formed of upright wooden stakes
interlaced with transverse strands consisting of thin supple
stems" (Dolmetsch, op cit,. p. 64).
The reference is to _Dances of England and France from 1450 to
1600_, by Mabel Dolmetsch (first published by Routledge and Kegan
Paul, Ltd., London, 1949, republished in paperback by Da Capo
Press, Inc., New York, 1976). Dolmetsch offers her explanation of
the term "haye" in connection with Arbeau's description of the
Montarde, of which she gives a translation that differs in some
details from the Dover [Evans/Sutton] version. In particular,
where the Dover edition has the questionable
Thus the woman who was at the end finds herself leading ...
^^ ^^^ ^^^
Dolmetsch has
Thus doing, she who was second finds herself the first, ...
^^^^^^
Also Dolmetsch uses the spelling "haye" where the Dover edition
has "hay." This suggests that Arbeau's original spelling was
indeed "haye," and this suggestion is strengthened by the fact
that the tabulation for "The Hay" in the Dover edition is captioned
"TABULATION OF THE HAY DANCE" and, on the next line, "Tabulature
de la dance de la haye" in a different and, to my eye, slightly
coarser font. The music for all the tabulations in the book is
claimed to be photocopied from Arbeau, and I don't know any reason
that the French caption (using the word "haye") would have been
included unless it had been photocopied along with the music the
follows it. I haven't had access to any French edition (modern,
facsimile, or original) of the book.
In modern French (according to several different French/English
dictionaries), the word for hedge is "haie" and word for "hay" (cut
grass) is "foins." "Le Haye" is the (modern, at least) French name
for The Hague, of which _The New Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (15th ed.,
1986) says:
The city's name recalls the hunting lodge and principal
residency of the counts of Holland, located in a woodland area
area called Haghe or "hedge" ...
In Joseph Wright's, _The English Dialect Dictionary_ (published by
Henry Frowde, Oxford, 1905), one of the definitions of "Hay" is: "A
hedge, fence; a boundary." Wright says this definition is, "In
gen. dial. use in Irel. and Eng." and mentions the variant spellings
"hey" and "hye" and the plural forms "haies," "hayes," and "haze."
I've dug up a few more tidbits, but I think this is about enough
for one posting.
--Jim Saxe