The Vital Spark (Legge)
Scottish Country Dance Instruction
THE VITAL SPARK (R8x32) 2C (4C set) Rosemary Legge1- 8 1L+2M advance and retire and dance DoSiDo
9-16 1M+2L advance and retire and dance DoSiDo
17-24 1s followed by 2s lead down the middle, 2s followed by 1s lead back
25-32 2s+1s circle 4H round and back
(MINICRIB. Dance crib compiled by Charles Upton, Deeside Caledonian Society, and his successors)
Dance Information
Also see the dance Vital Spark (Holdsworth) by L Holdsworth.Also see the dance Vital Spark (Duncan) by J Duncan.
"The Vital Spark" is a fictional boat known as a Clyde puffer, and it was created by the Scottish writer Neil Munro.
The Clyde puffer, a kind of steamboat, was widely used for carrying goods in the west of Scotland from the early to mid-1900s. Neil Munro created stories and books about a Clyde puffer called "The Vital Spark." These stories show the made-up adventures and misadventures of its fictional crew.
People liked puffers even before Munro wrote his stories in the Glasgow Evening News in 1905. It makes sense because these small steamboats were crucial for supplying goods along the west coast of Scotland and the Hebrides. The stories Munro told were more playful and mischievous than the actual business of shipping, but they became very famous.
They were in the newspaper for over 20 years, turned into a book in 1931, inspired a 1953 film called The Maggie, and became three popular TV series from 1959 to 1995.

Vital Spark At Crinan, Argyll And Bute, Scotland, 2006
This page contains both original content, which is copyrighted, and excerpts from Wikipedia and other sources using the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Text from this original Vital Spark article on Wikipedia.
Image copyright (cropped) HisSpaceResearch, public domain, via Wikipedia.
Back to the top of this Scottish Country Dancing Instructions 'The Vital Spark (Legge)' page