The Cashcrom
Scottish Country Dance Instruction
THE CASHCROM (S8x32) 2C (4C set) Milton Levy Tin Woodman1- 8 1s dance reel of 3 with 2L (1s pass RSh)
9-16 1s+2s ½ turn and dance out to partner's place, 1s+2s dance 4H round to left
17-24 1s dance reel of 3 with 2M (1s pass RSh)
25-32 1s+2s set and link twice. 2134
(MINICRIB. Dance crib compiled by Charles Upton, Deeside Caledonian Society, and his successors)
Dance Notes
1-8 The reel is danced on the diagonal, 1s passing right shoulder to begin.11-12 "Cast" into partner's place, pulling back right shoulder to dance out (as in Culla Bay).
17-24 As for bars 1-8.
25-28 A modified form of set and link in which the dancers cross from the sides into the centre of the set: at bar 28, 2s finish (1st place) facing down in centre with 2L on partner's right; 1s finish (2nd place) facing up in centre with 1L on partner's left.
29-32 Completes the progression, ending on the sides. 2134.
Dance Information
The cashcrom, (cas chrom or caschrom) was an old farming implement, a footplough.In Gaelic cas chrom means crooked (or bent) foot, and this plough was just one of many kinds of unmechanised plough in use throughout Scotland and beyond. The cashcrom could be used, for example, in digging lazy-beds which were strips of land on slopes too steep for a plough team (i.e. horse and/or oxen plough) to negotiate. In some areas it was used well into the 20th century but it had its origin in antiquity.
A 19th century Gazeteer of Scotland (The Topographical, Statistical, and Historical Gazetteer of Scotland. 1842) tells us more about this tool:
The caschrom, probably the oldest tool known in the region, and still used in the Long Island group, and in parts of Skye, consists of an oak or ash shaft nearly 6 feet long,-a flattened head nearly at right angles with the shaft, nearly 3 feet long, about 4 inches broad, and about 1½ inch thick,- an iron coulter, of a quadrangular form, attached to a flattened head for penetrating the ground,- and a strong wooden pin at the junction of the shaft and the head, for receiving the pressure of the workman's foot. The labourer works this primitive succedaneum for a plough, by driving, with two jerks of his whole body, the coultered head into the soil, and by turning the clod from right to left, walking backward in the progress of the operation; and he is able to pulverize an acre in 12 days, nearly as well as if it had been subjected to two ordinary Hebridean ploughings. The tool, though rude, and costing only 3 or 4 shillings for purchase, and for the service of 10 or 12 years, has advantages over both the plough and the spade, and is particularly useful in bogs and stony grounds.
The Gazeteer also quotes The Rev Alexander Macgregor's paper from "the 9th volume of The Journal of Agriculture". Rev Macgregor furnishes more information on the use of this plough, and its shortcomings, and in doing so describes the laborious and lengthy tilling of several acres. This was a task that could take from Christmas to the end of May in all weathers, to the severe detriment of the health of those wielding the cascrom.
(Dance information from https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.27566212 The Topographical, Statistical, and Historical Gazetteer of Scotland. 1842, Volume 1, A. Fullarton and Co. JSTOR)
Old Lazy-Beds On Mingulay Before It Was Abandoned - Near To Caolas Bhearnaraigh, 2002
Dance information licensed under this Creative Commons Licence 3.0.
Text from this original Creel article on Wikipedia.
Image copyright Russel Wills under this Creative Commons Licence 2.0.
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