The Braes Of Busby

Scottish Country Dance Instruction

1- 8 1s set Highland Schottische and turn 2H 1¾ times ending with 1L between 2s facing down and 1M between 3s facing up
9-16 2s+1s+3s set Highland Schottische and turn opposite person 2H 1½ times to change places
17-24 All set Highland Schottische and turn 2H 1½ times, end 1L facing 2L and 1M facing 3M
25-32 1s dance RSh reels of 3 across (1L with 2s and 1M with 3s) ending in 2nd places on own sides

(MINICRIB. Dance crib compiled by Charles Upton, Deeside Caledonian Society, and his successors)

Keith Rose's Crib Diagram

The Braes Of Busby - Full Size And Key To Symbols

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Dance Information

The accompanying tune, also called "The Braes of Busby" or "The Braes of Busbie", appears in eighteenth-century Scottish music collections, including John Bowie's collection of 1789 and Joseph MacFadyen's collection of around 1795. The tune was also published in James Aird's "A Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs" in 1803 and Nathaniel Gow's sixth collection in 1822. Gow's publication describes it as an old tune favoured by his father, Niel Gow (1727–1807).

The title refers to the braes, (sloping banks of a river-valley, slope or hillside), around Busby, a village on the White Cart Water in East Renfrewshire, approximately six miles south of Glasgow. Historically called Bushby, the settlement appears under that spelling on John Ainslie's map of 1792.

Busby developed as a textile-manufacturing village during the late eighteenth century, with its first cotton mill established by William Ferguson in 1778. A second mill and a calico printworks followed during the 1790s.

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