III
The Scotch folk-dances, which surpass the English by their more rigorous movement and spirited steps, picture graphically the simple, industrious traits of a thrifty race. The most characteristic of the Scotch folk-dances are the Highland Fling, the Scotch Reel, and the Shean Treuse. All the Scotch dances are more or less variants of the previously described English ones. They have the same strong, sporty rhythm and jaunty bearing as the others. Their choreographic figures are so closely related to the English, and the English to theirs, that it were superfluous to give a detailed description of them on this occasion. Perhaps the Scotch Reel shows most typical traits of the Scottish race. This dance requires four ladies and four gentlemen, who all join hands, forming a circle. Then the gentlemen and ladies cross their hands and move eight steps forward and eight steps back in the style of a promenade. The gentleman balances his partner, swinging his right and left arms alternately and proceeds through the chain, the ladies separating left, the gentlemen right, until all arrive at their previous positions. The first lady goes into the centre of the ring while others hop around her until they reach their original position, after which the lady in the centre balances to her partner and back to the opposite gentleman in a half-swing, forming occasionally a chain of three. Thus it goes on until all the four ladies have done, after which the gentlemen follow the same figures and steps. All their steps are of a sharp, skipping nature and the lines of their poses remind one of the designs on their checked decorations and on the patterns of their bright and plain dresses. Noteworthy among the Scotch folk-dances is the Hornpipe, which has been a favored dance of the sailors and peasants. Its lively, rapid measure, so far as the feet are concerned, the folded arms, the firm and stiff body are typical characteristics of a Scotchman’s manners. The dance owes its name to the fact that it is performed to the music of a pipe with a horn rim at the open end. There are an infinite variety of Hornpipes and of music to which they can be danced, either in common or triple time, the final note having a special stress laid on it.
Of somewhat different character than the English and Scotch folk-dances are those of Ireland. The Irish Jig enjoys a popularity throughout the world. Already the name suggests a light, frolicking and airy movement. Since the days of Charles II and Queen Anne, this dance has been associated with humorous verses. The Jigs were already in vogue at the time of Shakespeare, who speaks of them as leading pieces in the theatrical repertoires. A dancing or singing Jig was the real climax of a piece, often being given as an entertainment during the intermissions. Audiences were accustomed to call for a Jig as a happy ending to a show. The Irish people, possessing a natural love for music and dancing, have put their soul into the Jig. It mirrors best the semi-sentimental, the semi-adventurous racial traits of an Irishman.
There are single and double Jigs; the distinction rests on the number of beats in the bar and they have often enough been danced to the strains of the bagpipe. As a rule, the foot should strike six times to a bar, and it needs a certain amount of enthusiasm to get into the spirit of the thing, the music thereof being most exhilarating. It adds to the charm if the dancers appear as Paddy in a brown coat, green breeches, and the soft hat with the pipe in it, and his partner in emerald green stockings and skirt, with a red kerchief about her head. The music of a Jig is usually an old Irish ditty, and anything more spirited or more in tune to the step could not be found. The first sixteen bars of the dance are occupied with the pitch in which the leg is thrown out. Sixteen bars are given to the toe and heel step. Thirty-two bars are occupied with the diagonal cock-step, supposed to represent the strutting of a cock. Sixteen bars are danced to a rocking-step, in which the legs are crossed. Eight bars are given to pointing; sixteen to stamping firmly with both feet, then the dancers advance and pivot. Finally, sixteen bars are given to a round and round movement. It requires a great deal of hand movement and body vivacity. It has been said by certain Irishmen that a Jig is in its apparent fun and fury a short symbolic drama of Irish life. The first figures mean love making, wooing, wedding and marriage. Then come the troubles of married life, the repentance and sinking into the grave.
To old Irish, Scotch and English folk-dances belong the ‘All in a Garden Green,’ ‘Buckingham House,’ ‘Dargason,’ ‘Heartsease,’ and ‘Oranges and Lemons.’ They are all graceful and dignified, but depict more the English middle class or nobility than the people. Thus in the ‘All in a Garden Green’ the man begins by shaking the hand of his lady partner and kissing her twice, which was rather the custom of the fashionable ballroom than of a puritan people. They all give the impression of a refinement of manners that belongs more to the early French social dances than to the folk-dances of a heavy and realistic race. We know how the English high society and court imitated the French in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, so it is only natural that it accepted with certain modifications the French social dances.