Scottish Country Dancing Dictionary

Frae Many A Blunder Free Us

Scottish Country Dance Instruction

Frae Many a Blunder Free Us
Maggie and Duncan Keppie Haliburton School Of Arts SCD Book 2: Let's dance
4x32 bar reel
4-couple dance in square set

  1-8   TURN PARTNER AND MEN WHEEL: All turn partner with right hands (4 bars), then men dance left hands across in the middle ending back-to-back in the middle facing partner;

  9-20 ROTATING INTERLOCKING REEL OF 4 (12 BARS): All dance partial reels of 4 through the center (Bar 9: pass partner by the right shoulder; Bars 10-11: women dance ¾ left hands across AS men dance ¼ round the periphery of the set; Bar 12: pass partner by the right shoulder; Bars 13-14: men dance ¾ left hands across AS women dance ¼ around the periphery of the set; REPEAT Bars 9-14 (all end as at the end of Bar 8, men back-to-back in center);

21-24 TURN INTO ALLEMANDE: All turn partner once round with right hands ending in allemande hold facing anticlockwise;

25-31 ¾ ALLEMANDE: All dance in allemande hold ¾ anticlockwise around the set ending one place clockwise of original places turning women under at end;

31-32 SET TO PARTNER.

Repeat 3 times.

(Dance crib compiled by the devisers, Maggie and Duncan Keppie)


Dance Information

The title of this dance, Frae Many A Blunder Free Us, comes from the last verse of To A Louse - Poem written by Robert Burns in 1786.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

To A Louse Poem - Information Video

Gie Us The Gift
Inscription Of The Temple Of Delphi
"Know Yourself, Youth Between Vice And Vertu" Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678), Oil On Canvas, c. 1613-1678


Image copyright Attributed to Jacob Jordaens, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

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