Scottish Country Dancing Dictionary

Davy's Locker

Scottish Country Dance Instruction

DAVY'S LOCKER (R8x24) 2C (4C set) Book of Graded SCDs

1- 8 1s+2s dance RH across and LH back
9-16 1s lead down for 3 steps, back to top and cast to 2nd places
17-24 2s+1s Promenade

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


Keith Rose's Crib Diagrams


Dance Instruction Videos

Davy's Locker - Scottish Country Dancing Instruction Video

Dance Information

Davy Jones' Locker (also, "Davy's locker") is an idiom for the bottom of the sea: the state of death among drowned sailors and shipwrecks.

It's used as a euphemism for drowning or shipwrecks in which the sailors' and ships' remains are consigned to the bottom of the sea - to be sent to Davy Jones' Locker.

The origins of the name of Davy Jones, the sailors' devil, are unclear, with a 19th-century dictionary tracing Davy Jones to a "ghost of Jonah". One theory is that Davy was the corruption of a West Indian word for devil and Jones referred to the biblical Jonah who was swallowed by a whale.

The earliest known reference of the negative connotation of Davy Jones occurs in the Four Years Voyages of Capt. George Roberts, by the author Daniel Defoe, published in 1726 in London.

"Some of Loe's Company said, They would look out some things, and give me along with me when I was going away; but Ruffel told them, they should not, for he would toss them all into Davy Jones's Locker if they did."

Daniel Defoe.

Davy's Locker
Illustration Of Davy Jones Sitting On His Locker, Wearing A Pirate Captains Uniform


Dance information licensed under this Creative Commons Licence 3.0.
Text from this original Davy Jones' Locker article on Wikipedia.
Image copyright John Tenniel, public domain.

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