Corrie An Dubh Lochain
Scottish Country Dance Instruction
Corrie An Dubh Lochain (Corrie Of the Black Tarn)Maggie and Duncan Keppie Gaelic College SCD Book 12: Corrie Dances
Jig 3 x 32 bars 3 Couple Repeat 3 Couple Set Triangular Set
1-8 PASS PARTNER RIGHT AND TURN NEXT (REPEAT): all pass partner by the right shoulder and turn next once round by the left hand, pass partner right shoulder and turn corner by the left hand once round;
9-16 SET AND TURN: set and turn partner clockwise with both hands and skip change of step, then set and ¾ turn corner clockwise with both hands and skip change of step (retain corner's left hand);
17-20 DOUBLE WHEEL ANTICLOCKWISE: men with left hands joined in the middle and right hands with corner, dance around a double wheel;
21-24 CLOCKWISE DOUBLE WHEEL BACK IN SKYE HOLD: retaining hands, all turn into Skye hold (men dance beyond corner and turn to the right AS women dance to their left into the middle pulling left shoulder back ending with left hand across in front to her right shoulder where it is joined with man's right hand (man's right arm passes behind his corner), women join right hands in the middle and dance double wheel back;
25-32 CORRIE: all unwind changing places with corner, women swivel anticlockwise (2 bars), chase clockwise one place around the triangle women leading (2 bars), change places with corner using right hands (2 bars), and set to each other (2 bars) (men end one place clockwise round set with corner who becomes new partner).
Repeat twice.
(Dance crib compiled by the devisers, Maggie and Duncan Keppie)
Dance Information
"Coire an Dubh-lochain" is Gaelic for "Corrie of the Black Tarn" though Dwelly, quoting Alex Forbes, also gives the meaning "Corrie of the Trout"; it is a sufficiently well-scoured corrie (a bowl-shaped, glacial valley) that it can contain a small loch, some 300m across (and perhaps even trout!). "Coire an Dubh-lochain" is located on the east side of "Beinn a' Bhuird" (meaning "Table Mountain") in the Grampian Mountains of Scotland, about 10km NW of Braemar ("Bráigh Mharr")."Coire an Dubh-lochain" should be pronounced as "Ko~r~ ~n Doo-lochin" in English, "Beinn a' Bhuird" as "Bay~n ~ Voo~rj" and "Bráigh Mharr" as "Brahee Vahr", with stress always on the first syllable, and where:
"o" is as in "not";
"~" represents the , vowel sound;
"oo" is as in "noon";
ch is as in "loch";
"ay" is as in "bay";
"ah" is as in "shah"; and
"ee" is as in "beet".
See Gaelic Dance Names for more information on Gaelic spelling and pronunciation.

Spring Cornices From Near The Edge Of The Dramatic Coire An Dubh-Lochain
Image copyright Adam Ward under this Creative Commons Licence 2.0.
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