A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Hey
HEY, or HAY. The name of a figure of a dance frequently mentioned by Elizabethan writers. Its derivation is unknown; the word may come from the French haie, a hedge, the dancers standing in two rows being compared to hedges. Its first occurrence is Thoinot Arbeau's description of the passages at arms in the Bouffons, or Matassins [see vol. ii. p. 236b], one of which is the Passage de la haye. This was only danced by four men, in imitation of a combat. Mr. Chappell ('Popular Music,' p. 629) remarks that 'dancing a reel is but one of the ways of dancing the hay.… In the "Dancing Master" the hey is one of the figures of most frequent occurrence. In one country-dance "the women stand still, the men going the hey between them." This is evidently winding in and out. In another, two men and one woman dance the hey, like a reel. In a third, three men dance this hey, and three women at the same time, like a double reel.' There is no special tune for the hey, but in Playford's 'Musicks Hand-maid' (1678) the following air, entitled 'The Canaries or the Hay,' occurs:—
