Issue 1729: Lady C Bruce's Reel
- Object
- Lady C Bruce's Reel (Dance)
- Submitter
- Liz Donaldson
- Assigned to
- Anselm Lingnau
- Priority
- Normal
- Disposition
- Ignored
- Description
-
I’m aware that Lacy C. Bruce’s Reel is not Lady Catherine Bruce’s Reel, but your sources say it is in Miss Milligan’s Miscellany - The dance in 99 more Miss Milligan’s Miscellany is Lady Catherine Bruce’s Reel (a jig), and is a different dance than Lady C. So those sources are incorrect, unless Lady C appears in later Miscellany collections.
Anyone know what the C stands for? Liz
Previous Actions
- Date June 4, 2019, 12:06 a.m.
- User Unknown
New issue submitted
- Date June 5, 2019, 12:48 a.m.
- User Anselm Lingnau (anselm)
Assigned changed to »anselm« (previously »None«)
Disposition changed to »Ignored« (previously »New«)
The sources given are correct – the dance shows up in both the two-volume and one-volume editions of the Miscellany. There is a certain amount of weirdness because this dance started out as a reel and was inadvertently changed to a jig, then changed back to a reel in the 2007 “revised combined” edition.
The dance is definitely not to be confused with the actual jig, Lady Catherine Bruce's Reel, which is in the Graded Book and is a completely different dance.
What the “C” stands for is anybody’s guess. The smart money is on ”Charlotte” because the lady has another dance (also in the Miscellany) so we know she existed, and there’s a whole bunch of tunes – including both a strathspey and a reel – in the old collections dedicated to “Lady Charlotte Bruce”. She must have been quite an inspiration to composers! Abridging the name of this dance might have been the Society’s (slightly ham-fisted) solution to the problem of having two dances with virtually identical names in the same book.
According to the Traditional Tune Archive, Lady Charlotte, who lived from 1771 to 1816, was the third daughter of Charles Bruce, the 5th Earl of Elgin and Kincardine. She married Admiral Sir Philip Durham in 1799 and was an accomplished dancer and, according to General William Dyott, an aide-de-camp to George III, “one of the most delightful women in the world”.