The Rubber Duck's Jig
Scottish Country Dance Instruction
THE RUBBER DUCK'S JIG (J5x32) 5C set Jenny Bradley Nottingham Lace1- 8 (Middle 3 couples start) 2s+4s (in a square) set and petronella turn 1 place on right while 3s petronella turn into middle and ¾ turn RH to opposite sides, 2s+4s set and pet turn to next place to right while 3s pet turn into middle and ¾ turn RH to own sides while 1s and 5s set and cross RH. (1)(4)3(2)(5)
9-16 1s+4s also 2s+5s (both end couples) dance RH across, 4M and 2L leading chase ½ way round set, while 3s set twice and turn LH 1¼ times
17-24 3s dance LSh reels of 3 across (Man with 2s and Lady with 4s) and end in own places. 52341
25-32 5s+3s ¾ turn RH into middle, dance ½ reel of 4 up/down, ¾ turn RH and end in 2nd/4th place. 23451
(MINICRIB. Dance crib compiled by Charles Upton, Deeside Caledonian Society, and his successors)
Keith Rose's Crib Diagrams
Dance Information
The following probably has nothing to do with the reason behind the dance title, but who can resist a compelling story?A consignment of 'The First Years', 'Friendly Floatee' toys, produced in China, set sail from Hong Kong aboard a container ship, bound for Tacoma, Washington.
On 10 January 1992, amid a North Pacific Ocean storm near the International Date Line, twelve 40-foot containers were swept overboard. One of these containers held 28,800 Floatees, child's bath toys featuring red beavers, green frogs, blue turtles, and yellow ducks. The container opened, potentially due to collisions with other containers or the ship, releasing the Floatees. Although the toys were initially enclosed in cardboard housing attached to backing cards, subsequent tests revealed that the cardboard rapidly degraded in seawater, enabling the Floatees to escape.
Notably, Friendly Floatees, unlike many bath toys, lack holes, preventing them from taking on water.
Approximately eight years after their initial release into the sea, Friendly Floatees started appearing in the North Atlantic. It was speculated that these Floatees had drifted northward through the Bering Strait, becoming trapped in Arctic pack ice. Subsequently, the ice likely moved eastward, eventually thawing upon reaching the warmer northern Atlantic, consequently releasing the Friendly Floatees that then journeyed into European waters.
A forecast suggested that fifteen years after their initial loss at sea, these Friendly Floatees would begin washing up on the shores of the UK and indeed there has been one Friendly Floatee, thought to be authentic, which has been discovered off the shores of Scotland.
About 1 year after writing the above, while on holiday in Brean Down, Somerset, and while litter picking along the beach, I found what I believed to be one of these Friendly Floatee toys which was swept overboard in the North Pacific Ocean.
I could find no authentic images of washed-up Friendly Floatee toys to compare, but the Wikipedia entry states, "Bleached by sun and seawater, the ducks and beavers had faded to white". As can be seen, this one has faded. Also, unlike many bath toys, the Friendly Floatee toys lack holes, and apart from obvious wear damage from the journey, no holes were to be found from manufacturing.
(Dance information by the Scottish Country Dancing Dictionary Webmaster, L Abbott, July 2024)
Rubber Duck, Briefly Thought To Be A Friendly Floatee, Found Washed Ashore, Somerset, UK, 2024
Subsequently, however, my wife discovered an image of genuine Friendly Floatee toys...
Clearly, the one I found had been on a different journey, and looks a lot more friendly!
This page uses content under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, along with original copyrighted content and excerpts from Wikipedia and other sources.
Text from this original Friendly Floatees article on Wikipedia.
Image copyright L Abbott, all rights reserved, reproduced here with kind permission, 2024.
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