The Probert Encyclopaedia of Music

JIG

A jig is a lively folk dance, a step dance in which one or two soloists perform rapid, intricate, hopping steps to music in 6 (over) 8 time or (a ' slip-jig') in 9(over)8 time. Surviving most strongly in Irish folk tradition, jigs were also popular in Scotland and England in the 1500s and 1600s. Related to modern English clog dances, they were often used as stage dances. The English Bacca Pipes Jig, danced over two crossed clay pipes, closely resembles the Gillie Callum sword dance of Scotland. The jig was adopted in France at the court of Louis XIV, where, as the gigue, it became a more subdued dance for couples. In the baroque suite by composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, the gigue is the final movement. Jig also refers to any country dance tune in jig time and to any set dance (a country dance for a group of couples) to a jig tune.
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