George Macdonald Frazer (author of the Flashman stories) writes a very amusing short story in his book "The General danced at Dawn" about an army unit in a barracks in North Africa during the Second World War. A visiting general persuades the members of the unit to perform an eightsome reel, and this eventually goes through the progression , ending with, I think, a one hundred and twenty eightsome reel, which includes non-military staff, German prisoners of war, etc., and culminates just as daybreak rises over the African desert. This, and in fact, the whole book are well worth the read.