Country Dance

Country dances, as performed in the SCA, are taken from the The English Dancing Master by John Playford, usually referred to as simply Playford. This style of dancing evolved in England, most likely from the Branle, and eventually spread to France and Germany and later to the New World, and even Australia. Bush dances such as Strip the Willow are included in later editions of The English Dancing Master.

The first edition of Playford was printed in 1651. There are references to dances with some of the same names as those in Playford before 1600, although from the description of a couple of those it is clear that the dance was significantly different from those later printed by Playford. Nevertheless the dances in first edition are generally treated as honourably in period.

An online version of Playford can be found here: http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~flip/contrib/dance/playford.html