Dannsaichean Airson Bhainnse – Dances for a Wedding
by Pat Beaven
reprinted from Celtic Heritage Magazine (now Celtic Life)
Weddings in 19th-century Scotland: then, as now, a time for solemnity … then celebrating! As at weddings today, dancing usually provided a large part of the merriment. And when people emigrated to make a brave beginning in the free land of New Scotland, they brought their traditions and culture with them. Of course there were variations arising from the formality of the occasion or the area of the country where the nuptials took place, but traditionally there were four dances performed at a wedding celebration. Several of these dances will be familiar to those who’ve been involved in folk or Scottish Country Dance – The Lancers, Strip the Willow, and The Dashing White Sergeant. The fourth was the Babbity Bowster; often this dance was enjoyed at the start of the evening, and then certainly again at the end to round out the festivities.
The Lancers – sometimes called Lancers Quadrille (as the quadrille is its parent dance) – is a brisk square dance for eight couples or more. Various stories of its origin exist. There is some evidence that it first appeared in Ireland in 1817, where Dublin dance master John Duval is alleged to have invented it. Two years later The Lancers surfaced in Wales, where Joseph Hart claims it as his original choreography. Then there is a certain M. Laborde, who often gets credit for the dance in Paris of 1820. The dance consists of five figures – major sections depicting different shapes such as star, basket, threading the needle, etc. Names for the figures differ slightly from version to version, though the figures themselves differ more so: La Rosa/La Chaine, La Ladoiska/Zodorska, La Dorset/D’Orset, L’Etoile/L’Etoile, and Les Lanciers/Finales les Lanciers. Mr. Hart’s version seems to have been the one introduced into fashionable society in 1850.
The next two have long been staples of the Scottish Country Dance and ceildh repertoire. Strip the Willow is a longways figure dance, performed to a spirited jig tune. It involves the top couple in the figure turning each other, then turning each man and woman down the figure until everyone in the set has been turned. They finish at the bottom of the set, with the new top couple beginning the repetition anew, and so it continues.
A popular circle dance, The Dashing White Sergeant is performed to reel-time music. Groups of six dancers are arranged around the room; in each group, a man between two ladies faces a lady between two men. After each group slip-steps in a circle to the left and back again, setting and turning is followed by a reel of three (or figure eights); dancers advance, retire, then dance through to meet a new group of three coming towards them. This is repeated – sometimes with much hooting and hollering – until everyone is exhausted!
The first and last dance of the evening, the Babbity Bowster, is a country ballad dance which was really little more than an expanded kissing game! Before becoming a staple at weddings, it was performed regularly as part of the Kirn Baby Harvest Festival. Predecessors may have included the Ruidhle nam Pog (reel of kisses), Dannsa nam Pog (dance of kisses), and An Ruidhle Mor (the great reel). In early times, apparently, the dance began with a prelude section in which the leader, or man who’s selecting a partner, first danced some sword dance steps – but over a handkerchief or perhaps a bonnet instead of a sword. The accompanying tune was Gillie Callum, the music to which Highland dancers perform the solo sword dance. A fascinating observation in “The Companion to Gaelic Scotland”, edited by Derick S. Thomson, is that the Gillie Callum lyrics seem to fit a dance of courtship more than a dance of battle: “Gheibhinn leannan … rogha is toghadh … gheibhinn bean” – “I’d get a sweetheart … the pick and choice … I’d get a wife”.
“Babbity Bowster” means “Bab at the bowster” (or bolster, another word for cushion), and is part of the greater tradition of European cushion or pillow dances, which includes England’s Joan Sanderson, the older French version Danse de San Jeanne d’Arc, the Austrian Polstertanz, and the Siciliana from Sicily. According to some sources, the Babbity Bowster begins with the men lined up along one wall, a line of women facing them, and the man chosen to start the dance standing in the middle of the two rows. In another version, men and women alternate in a circle, holding hands, with the person who is “it” in the centre. Everybody sings and the person in the middle replies when he is asked where he learned to dance:
“Wha learned you to dance
Babbity Bowster, Babbity Bowster?
Wha learned you to dance
Babbity Bowster, brawly?”
“My minny learned me to dance
Babbity Bowster, Babbity Bowster.
My minny learned me to dance
Babbity Bowster, brawly.”
The man in the centre, “Bab”, has a cushion which he dances about with, then places on the ground in front of his chosen partner. Both kneel on the cushion and … kiss! The girl then throws the cushion to another man who becomes “it” and the game continues until everyone is paired up. In some versions, after the girl tosses the cushion to the next man, he has to chase her and try to catch her before she gets back to her partner. If he does, she pays with – you guessed it – a kiss! It’s easy to see why this would have been a favourite at mating/marrying kind of events!