Bannockburn
Scottish Country Dance Instruction
BANNOCKBURN (R4x32) Sq.Set Ruary Laidlaw Clapyerhands1- 8 All clap 2 bars (1-2-3-4) All advance and retire (raise hands and "hooch" in centre) All clap (2 bars)
9-16 1s pass each other LSh, dance round outside of set and back to place (1M anticlockwise, 1L clockwise)
17-24 2s repeat bars 9-16 passing partner RSh
25-32 All circle 8H round and back
(MINICRIB. Dance crib compiled by Charles Upton, Deeside Caledonian Society, and his successors)
Bannockburn
A 4 x 32 bar Reel, for 4 couples in a square set.
NB It is possible to do this dance with only three couples, or even five couples standing in a small circle.
1 - 8 All four couples clap hands for the first two bars: 1, 2, 3 and 4
All four couples skip four steps to the centre of the set for two bars, raise their right hands up in the centre on four and hooch ("hooch" is Scots for "yell"), or say "Hi!"
All skip four steps backwards to place for two bars and then clap hands for two bars: 1, 2, 3 and 4 and finish facing partners.
9-16 All the 1s pass their partner by the left shoulder and do sixteen skips all the way round the outside of the set and back to place to face their partner.
17-24 All the 2s pass their partners by the right shoulders and do sixteen skips all the way round the outside of the set and back to place. All four couples finish facing in to the centre.
25- 32 All four couples join hands with the person beside them and circle round to the left for eight slip steps (or just walk, or face round and march by themselves) and back to place for eight steps.
Repeat the dance another three times through.
(Dance crib compiled by the deviser, Ruary Laidlaw)
Dance Information
Co-ordinating movement for bars 1 to 8Bars 1 to 8 show the men of a "Hedgehog" boosting their morale.
Bars 9 to 24 show them making sure that their "Hedgehog" has no weak points
Bars 25 to 32 show them confident that their strategy will be successful.
The four dances in the Clapyerhands 'n Stampyerfeet collection are designed for school children with no prior dance experience. The steps involve simple walking or plain skipping, and the formations are intuitive. Each dance is accompanied by music on a CD, arranged and performed by "Peter Elmes and His Band."
(Dance information by the deviser Ruary Laidlaw, copyright, All rights reserved)
The Scottish battle formation was the schiltron (shield-troop), a mass of spearmen forming a "hedgehog" with the spears pointing in every direction.
The Battle of Bannockburn (Scottish Gaelic: "Blàr Allt nam Bànag" or "Blàr Allt a' Bhonnaich") 24 June 1314 was a significant Scottish victory in the First War of Scottish Independence, and a landmark in Scottish history.
Stirling Castle, a Scots royal fortress occupied by the English, was under siege by the Scottish army. The English king, Edward II, assembled a formidable force to relieve it. This attempt failed, and his army was defeated in a pitched battle by a smaller army commanded by the King of Scots, Robert the Bruce.
The defeat of the English opened up the north of England to Scottish raids and allowed the Scottish invasion of Ireland. These finally led, after the failure of the Declaration of Arbroath, to reach this end by diplomatic means, to the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton. Under the treaty the English Crown recognised the full independence of the Kingdom of Scotland, and acknowledged Robert the Bruce, and his heirs and successors, as the rightful rulers.
Battle Of Bannockburn - Information Video
The Earliest Known Depiction Of The Battle Of Bannockburn From A 1440s Manuscript Of Walter Bower's Scotichronicon
Published in Bannockburn, reproduced here with the kind permission of the deviser, Ruary Laidlaw.
Dance information licensed under this Creative Commons Licence 3.0.
Text from this original Battle Of Bannockburn article on Wikipedia.
Image copyright Unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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