Annotation:Foot's Vagaries

Back to Foot's Vagaries

FOOT'S VAGARIES. AKA - "Foote's Vagaries." AKA and see "Green Grow the Rushes O," "Lucky Black's Daughter." English, Country Dance Tune (whole time). E Minor Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The tune is well-known nowadays as the melody of the song "Green Grow the Rushes O," which was attached as the alternate title in Rutherford's 1756 collection. However, the tune is an old one and predates the mid-18th century country dance publications of Johnson and Rutherford. As with "Foot's Minuet," and presuming that the title refers to a person, Chris Partington suggests a possible association with the fascinating wikipedia:Samuel_Foote (1720-1777), wit, playwright, and actor.

Musician Walter Rainstorp, who had purchased his music copybook in Cheapside, London, in 1747, entered into it the melody "Foote's Vagaries" along with directions for a country dance. Welsh fiddler John Thomas also entered it in his copybook dated 1752. The dance is mentioned as a concluding dance in productions around 1747-48, as The Mouse Trap, or Foot's Vagaries. It was also performed in theatrical booths and the larger London fairs, as noted by Thomas Frost in his book The Old Showmen and the London Fairs (1875):

Hussey’s booth^[1], at which the prices ranged from sixpence to two shillings, stood opposite the gate of the hospital. The entertainments consisted of the comedy of The Constant Quaker, singing and dancing, including “a new dance called Punch’s Maggot, or Foote’s Vagaries,” and a pantomime called Harlequin’s Frolics.

Additional notes

Printed sources : - John Johnson (A Choice Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances vol. 5), 1750; p. 42. David Rutherford (Rutherford's Compleat Collection of 200 of the Most Celebrated Country Dances), 1756; p. 22.

Back to Foot's Vagaries

0.00

(0 votes)

↑ Master Harrison performed with Mme Dominique in the dance Foote’s Vagaries at Hussey’s Great Booth from 24 to 27 August, 1748, at Bartholomew Fair.

[1] Master Harrison performed with Mme Dominique in the dance Foote’s Vagaries at Hussey’s Great Booth from 24 to 27 August, 1748, at Bartholomew Fair.

[1]