Butter The Horse's Ear
Scottish Country Dance Instruction
Butter The Horse's Ear An eighty bar Strathspey, eighty bar Reel Medley for four couples in a square set. Strathspey Devised by John W Mitchell, Published in Whetherly Book 9.1- 2 All set to partners.
3- 6 All dance four bars of petronella.
7- 8 All turn partner half way with the right hand.
9-12 The four men dance left hands across in a wheel once round whilst the ladies dance half way round in a clockwise direction.
13-16 All turn opposites with the right hand one and a quarter times to finish with the men in their partners original places facing out and the ladies in the opposite man's place.
17-32 All dance Schiehallion reels, the ladies crossing diagonally to commence, whilst the men cast.
33-40 Eight hands round and back.
41-42 All set.
43-46 All dance four bars of petronella.
47-48 All turn half way with the right hand.
49-52 The four ladies dance left hands across in a wheel once round whilst the men dance half way round in a clockwise direction.
53-56 All turn partners one and a quarter times with the right hand.
57-64 All dance "Banana" reels of four round the set: pass partner by the right shoulder to commence, then pass corner by the left and opposite by the right before turning to retrace in the opposite direction.
65-68 First lady and second man, third lady and fourth man dance half rights and lefts to original places.
69-72 Second lady and third man, fourth lady and first man also dance half rights and lefts to original places.
73-80 Grand chain for four couples, giving right hand to partner to commence. Reel
1-80 Repeat whole dance as described above in Reel time. Recommended tunes: Strathspey: Bob Johnson, Blin' Jamie; Reel: After the Battle, The Hopeful Lover Note To put butter in a horse's ear is an old Scottish Custom.
Editor's note to the 2021 edition After searching for more information, apparently there was indeed a ritual custom in which horses' ears were anointed with butter on the first ploughing day of spring.
(Dance crib reproduced from The Whetherly Book Of Scottish Country Dances, revised and republished by Alison Mitchell)
Keith Rose's Crib Diagram
Published in The Whetherly Book Of Scottish Country Dances Number 9, by John W Mitchell, revised and republished by Alison Mitchell. Instructions reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-ND 4.0).
Back to the top of this Scottish Country Dancing Instructions 'Butter The Horse's Ear' page