country in the sixteenth century. In the earlier English allusions it is
called _Morisco_, a Moor, and this indicates its origin from Spain. It was
popular in France before it was appreciated amongst our countrymen; some
antiquaries assert that it came to England from our Gallic neighbours, or
even from the Flemings, while others state that when John of Gaunt
returned from Spain he was the means of making it known here, but we think
there is little truth in the statement.
Our countrymen soon united the Morris-Dance with the favourite pageant
dance of Robin-hood. We discover many traces of the two dances in sacred
as well as profane places. In old churchwarden's accounts we sometimes
find items bearing on this theme. The following entries are drawn from the
"Churchwardens' and Chamberlains' Books of Kingston-upon-Thames:"--
"1508. For paynting of the _Mores_ garments for
sarten gret leveres 0 2 4
" For plyts and 1/4 of laun for the _Mores_
garments 0 2 11
" For Orseden for the same 0 0 10
" For bellys for the daunsars 0 0 12
1509-10. For silver paper for the _Mores_-dawnsars 0 0 7
1519-20. Shoes for the _Mores_-daunsars, the frere,
and Mayde Maryan, at 7d. a peyre 0 5 4
1521-22. Eight yerds of fustyan for the
_Mores_-daunsars' coats 0 16 0
" A dosyn of gold skynnes for the Morres 0 0 10
1536-37. Five hats and 4 porses for the daunsars 0 0 4-1/2."
It is stated that in 1536-37, amongst other clothes belonging to the play
of Robin Hood, left in the keeping of the churchwardens, were "a fryer's
coat of russet, with a kyrtle of worsted welted with red cloth, a mowren's
cote of buckram, and 4 Morres daunsars cote of white fustain spangelyed,
and two gryne saten cotes, and a dysardd's cote of cotton, and 6 payre of
garters with bells."
Some curious payments appear in the churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary's
parish, Reading, and are quoted by Coates, the historian of the town.
Under the year 1557, items as follow appear:--
"Item, payed to the Morrys-Daunsars and the
Mynstrelles, mete and drink at Whitsontide 0 3 4
Payed to them the Sonday after May Day 0 0 20
Pd. to the Painter for painting of their cotes 0 2 8
Pd. to the Painter for 2 doz. of Lyvereys 0 0 20."
The following is a curious note drawn from the original accounts of St.
Giles', Cripplegate, London:--
"1571. Item, paide in charges by the appointment of the parisshoners,
for the settinge forth of a gyaunt morris-dainsers, with vj calyvers
and iij boies on horseback, to go in the watche befoore the Lade
Maiore uppon Midsomer even, as may appeare by particulars for the
furnishinge of same, vj. li. ixs. ixd."
[Illustration: MORRIS DANCE, FROM A PAINTED WINDOW AT BETLEY.]
We learn from the churchwardens' accounts of Great Marlow that dresses for
the Morris-dance were lent out to the neighbouring parishes down to 1629.
Some interesting pictures illustrating the usages of bygone ages include
the Morris-dance, and gives us a good idea of the costumes of those taking
part in it. A painted window at Betley, Staffordshire, has frequently
formed the subject of an illustration, and we give one of it.
Here is shown in a spirited style a set of Morris-dancers. It is described
in Steven's "Shakespeare" (_Henry IV._, Part I.) There are eleven pictures
and a Maypole. The characters are as follow:--1, Robin Hood; 2, Maid
Marion; 3, Friar Tuck; 4, 6, 7, 10, and 11, Morris-dancers; 5, the
hobby-horse; 8, the Maypole; 9, the piper; and 12, the fool. Figures 10
and 11 have long streamers to the sleeves, and all the dancers have bells,
either at the ankles, wrists, or knees. Tollett, the owner of the window,
believed it dated back to the time of Henry VIII., _c._ 1535. Douce thinks
it belongs to the reign of Edward IV., and other authorities share his
opinion. It is thought that the figures of the English friar, Maypole, and
hobby-horse have been added at a later period.
Towards the close of the reign of James I., Vickenboom painted a picture,
Richmond Palace, and in it a company of Morris-dancers form an attractive
feature. The original painting includes seven figures, consisting of a
fool, hobby-horse, piper, Maid Marion, and three dancers. We give an
illustration of the first four characters and one of the dancers, from a
drawing by Douce, produced from a tracing made by Grose. The bells on the
dancer and the fool are clearly shown.
We also present a picture of a Whitsun Morris-dance. In the olden time, at
Whitsuntide, this diversion was extremely popular.
Many allusions to the Morris-dancers occur in the writings of Elizabethan
authors. Shakespeare, for example, in Henry V., refers to it thus:--
"And let us doit with no show of fear;
No! with no more than if we heard that England
Were busied with a Whitsun Morris-dance."
In _All's Well that Ends Well_, he speaks of the fitness of a
"Morris-dance for May-day." We might cull many quotations from the poets,
but we will only make one more and it is from Herrick's "Hesperides,"
describing the blessings of the country:--
"Thy _Wakes_, thy Quintals, here thou hast
Thy maypoles, too, with garlands grac'd
Thy _Morris-dance_, thy Whitsun-ale;
Thy shearing flat, which never fail."
In later times the Morris-dance was frequently introduced on the stage.
[Illustration: MORRIS DANCERS, TEMP. JAMES I. (_From a Painting by
Vickenboom._)]
As might be expected, the Puritans strongly condemned this form of
pleasure. Richard Baxter, in his "Divine Appointment of the Lord's Day,"
gives us a vivid picture of Sunday in a pleasure-loving time. "I have
lived in my youth," says Baxter, "in many places where sometimes shows of
uncouth spectacles have been their sports at certain seasons of the year,
and sometimes _morrice-dancings_, and sometimes stage plays and sometimes
wakes and revels.... And when the people by the book [of Sports] were
allowed to play and dance out of public service-time, they could hardly
break off their sports that many a time the reader was fain to stay till
the piper and players would give over; and sometimes the _morrice-dancers_
would come into the church in all their linen, and scarfs, and antic
dresses, with morrice-bells jingling at their legs. And as soon as common
prayer was read did haste out presently to their play again." Stubbes,
in his "Anatomie of Abuses" (1585), writes in a similar strain.
[Illustration: A WHITSUN MORRIS DANCE.]
The pleasure-loving Stuarts encouraged Sunday sports, and James I., in his
Declaration of May 24th 1618, directed that the people should not be
debarred from having May-games, Whitsun-ales, and Morris-dances, and the
setting up of May poles.
During the Commonwealth, dancing round the Maypole and many other popular
amusements were stopped, but no sooner had Charles II. come to the throne
of the country than the old sports were revived. For a fuller account of
this subject the reader would do well to consult Brand's "Popular
Antiquities," and the late Alfred Burton's book on "Rush-Bearing," from
both works we have derived information for this chapter.
The Folk-Lore of Midsummer Eve.
The old superstitions and customs of Midsummer Eve form a curious chapter
in English folk-lore. Formerly this was a period when the imagination ran
riot. On Midsummer Day the Church holds its festival in commemoration of
the birth of St. John the Baptist, and some of the old customs relate to
this saint.
On the eve of Midsummer Day it was a common practice to light bonfires.
This custom, which is a remnant of the old Pagan fire-worship, prevailed
in various parts of the country, but perhaps lingered the longest in
Cornwall. We gather from Borlase's "Antiquities of Cornwall," published in
1754, that at the Midsummer bonfires, the Cornish people attended with
lighted torches, tarred and pitched at the end, and made their
perambulations round the fires, afterwards going from village to village
carrying their torches before them. He regarded the usage as a survival of
Druidical superstitions. In the same county it was a practice on St.
Stephen's Down, near Launceston, to erect a tall pole with a bush fixed
at the top of it, and round the pole to heap fuel. After the fire was lit,
parties of wrestlers contested for prizes specially provided for the
festival. According to an old tradition, an evil spirit once appeared in
the form of a black dog, and since that time the wrestlers have never been
able to meet on Midsummer Eve without being seriously injured in the
sport.
About Penzance, not only did the fisher-folk and their friends dance about
the blazing fire, but sang songs composed for the joyous time. We give a
couple of verses from one of these songs:--
"As I walked out to yonder green
One evening so fair,
All where the fair maids may be seen,
Playing at the bonfire.
Where larks and linnets sing so sweet,
To cheer each lively swain,
Let each prove true unto her lover,
And so farewell the plain."
Mr. William Bottrell, one of the most painstaking writers on Cornish
folk-lore, in an article written in 1873, asserts that not a few old
people living in remote and primitive districts, "believe that dancing in
a ring over the embers, around a bonfire, or leaping (singly) through its
flames, is calculated to insure good luck to the performers, and serve as
a protection from witchcraft and other malign influences during the
ensuing year." Mr. Bottrell laments the decay of these pleasing old
Midsummer observances. He tells us that within "the memory of many who
would not like to be called old, or even aged, on a Midsummer's eve, long
before sunset, groups of girls--both gentle and simple--of from ten to
twenty years of age, neatly dressed and decked with garlands, wreaths, or
chaplets of flowers, would be seen dancing in the streets."
Some of the ancient Midsummer rites are still observed in Ireland. We have
from an eyewitness some interesting items on the subject. People assemble
and dance round fires, the children jump through the flames, and in former
times coals were carried into corn fields to prevent blight. The peasants
are not, of course, aware that the ceremony is a remnant of the worship of
Baal. It is the opinion of not a few that the famous round towers of
Ireland were intended for signal fires in connection with this worship.
In the pleasant pages of T. Crofton Croker's "Researches in the South of
Ireland," are particulars of a custom, observed on the eve of St. John's
Day, of dressing up a broomstick as a figure, and carrying it about in the
twilight from one cabin to the other, and suddenly pushing it in at the
door, a proceeding which causes both surprise and merriment. The figure is
known as Bredogue.
The superstitious inhabitants of the Isle of Man formerly, on Midsummer
Eve, lighted fires to the windward side of fields, so that the smoke might
pass over the corn. The cattle were folded, and around the animals was
carried blazing grass or furze, as a preventative against the influence of
witches. Many other strange practices and beliefs prevailed.
In Wales, in the earlier years of the present century, it was customary to
fix sprigs of the plant called St. John's wort over the doors of the
cottages, and sometimes over the windows, in order to purify the houses
and drive away all fiends and evil spirits. It was the common custom in
England in the olden time for people to repair to the woods, break
branches from the trees, and carry them to their homes with much delight,
and place them over their doors. The ceremony, it is said, was to make
good the Scripture prophecy respecting the Baptist, that many should
rejoice at his birth.
Midsummer Eve has ever been famous as a time suitable for love
divinations, and surely a few notes on love-lore cannot fail to find
favour with our fair readers. In a popular story issued at the
commencement of this century, from the polished pen of Hannah More, the
heroine of the tale says that she would never go to bed on this night
without first sticking up in her room the common plant called "Orpine,"
or, more generally, "Midsummer Men," as the bending of the leaves to the
right or the left indicate to her if her lover was true or false. The
following charming lines refer to the ceremony, and are translated from
the German poet, and given in Chambers's "Book of Days," so we may infer
that the same superstition prevails in that country:--
"The young maid stole through the cottage door,
And blushed as she sought the plant of power:
'Thou silver glow-worm, oh, lend me thy light,
I must gather the mystic St. John's wort to-night--
The wonderful herb, whose leaf will decide
If the coming year shall make me a bride.'
And the glow-worm came
With its silvery flame,
And sparkled and shone
Through the night of St. John.
"And soon as the young maid her love-knot tied,
With noiseless tread,
To her chamber she sped,
Where the sceptral moon her white beams shed:
'Bloom here, bloom here, thou plant of power,
To deck the young bride in her bridal hour!'
But it droop'd its head, that plant of power,
And died the mute death of the voiceless flower;
And a wither'd wreath on the ground it lay,
More meet for a burial than a bridal day.
And when a year was passed away,
All pale on her bier the young maid lay;
And the glow-worm came
With its silvery flame,
And sparkled and shone
Through the night of St. John,
And they closed the cold grave o'er the maid's cold clay."
We gather from Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," that in Sweden it was the
practice to place under the head of a youth or maiden nine kinds of
flowers, with a full belief that they would dream of their sweethearts.
In England, in past times, the moss-rose was plucked with considerable
ceremony on this eve for love divinations. Says the writer of a poem
entitled "The Cottage Girl":--
"The moss-rose that, at fall of dew,
Ere eve its duskier curtain drew,
Was freshly gathered from its stem,
She values as the ruby gem;
And, guarded from the piercing air,
With all an anxious lover's care,
She bids it, for her shepherd's sake,
Await the New Year's frolic wake:
When faded in its altered hue,
She reads--the rustic is untrue!
But if its leaves the crimson paint,
Her sick'ning hopes no longer faint;
The rose upon her bosom worn,
She meets him at the peep of morn,
And lo! her lips with kisses prest,
He plucks it from her panting breast."
"On the continent," says Dyer, in his "Folk-Lore of Plants," "the rose is
still thought to possess mystic virtues in love matters, as in Thuringia,
where the girls foretell their future by means of rose leaves." It appears
from a contributor to Chambers's "Book of Days," that there was brought
some time ago under the notice of the Society of Antiquarians a curious
little ring, which had been found in a ploughed field near Cawood,
Yorkshire. It was inferred from its style and inscription to belong to the
fifteenth century. The device consisted of two orpine plants joined by a
true-love knot, with this motto above: _Ma fiancee velt_, _i.e._, "My
sweetheart is willing or desirous." We are told that the stalks of the
plants were bent to each other, in token that the parties represented by
them were to come together in marriage. The motto under the ring was _Joye
l'amour feu_. It is supposed that it was originally made for some lover to
give to his mistress on Midsummer Eve, as the orpine plant is connected
with that time. The dumb cake is another item of Midsummer folk-lore:--
"Two make it,
Two bake it,
Two break it;"
a third put it under their pillows, and this was all done without a word
being spoken. If this was faithfully carried out it was believed that the
diviners would dream of the men they loved.
Sowing hempseed on this eve was once a general custom. We have noted
particulars of the ceremony as carried out at Ashbourne, Derbyshire. At
this village, when a young maiden wished to discover who would be her
future husband, she repaired to the churchyard, and as the clock struck
the witching hour of midnight, she commenced running round the church,
continually repeating the following lines:--
"I sow hempseed, hempseed I sow;
He that loves me best
Come after me and mow."
After going round the church a dozen times without stopping, her lover was
said to appear and follow her. The closing scene of this spell is well
described in a poem by W. T. Moncrieff:--
"Ah! a step. Some one follows. Oh, dare I look back?
Should the omen be adverse, how would my heart writhe.
Love, brace up my sinews! Who treads on my track?
'Tis he, 'tis the loved one; he comes with the scythe,
He mows what I've sown; bound, my heart, and be blithe.
On Midsummer Eve the glad omen is won,
Then hail to thy mystical virgil, St. John."
From the charms of love let us briefly turn to a superstition relating to
death. At one time it was believed, and in some country districts the
superstition may yet linger, that anyone fasting during the evening, and
then sitting at midnight in the church porch, would see the spirits of
those destined to die that year come and knock at the church door. The
ghosts were supposed to come in the same succession as the persons were
doomed to pass away.
A pleasing old custom long survived in Craven, Yorkshire, and other parts
of the North of England, of new settlers in the town or village, on the
first Midsummer Eve after their arrival, to set out before their doors a
plentiful repast of cold beef, bread, cheese, and ale. We are told that
neighbours who wished to cultivate their acquaintance sat down and partook
of their hospitality, and thus "eat and drunk themselves into intimacy."
Hone's "Every Day Book" has a note of this custom being observed at Ripon.
"It was a popular superstition," wrote Grose, "that if any unmarried woman
fasted on Midsummer Eve, and at midnight laid a clean cloth with bread,
cheese, and ale, and then sat down as if going to eat, the street door
being left open, the person whom she was afterwards to marry would come
into the room and drink to her, bowing; and after filling a glass would
leave the table, and, making another bow, retire."
Harvest Home.
Among the old-world customs connected with the times and seasons, that of
celebrating the ingathering of the harvest with a rustic festival has
survived many which have either passed away, and almost out of memory, or
have come to have only a partial and precarious hold upon the minds of the
present generation. The rush-cart maintains a feeble struggle for
existence in a few northern localities, but each year shows diminished
vigour; the May-day festival of the chimney-sweepers has become obsolete,
and the dance round the May-pole an open-air ballet; and many old
observances connected with the Christmas season which were formerly common
to all England are now kept up only in these northern counties, where the
flavour of antiquity seems to be much more highly appreciated than in the
south. But the harvest home festival holds its ground with equal
persistency in both portions of the kingdom, and has of late years been
invested with additional glories, sometimes with a superabundance of them
which threatens a reaction. There were some features of the older
celebrations of the ingathering of the fruits of the earth, however,
which, from various causes, have fallen into disuse, and which many of us
would gladly, if it were possible, see restored.
We could welcome, for instance, the songs into which the joyous feelings
of the harvesters broke forth in the old times as the last load of grain
was carried off the field, and when the lads and lasses, with the older
rustics, had partaken of a good supper in the farmer's kitchen, and
afterwards danced to the music of the fiddle or pipes in the barn. There
are many references to the feasting and singing and dancing customs of
this season in the poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Tusser tells us that:--
"In harvest time, harvest folk, servants and all,
Should make all together, good cheer in the hall,
And fill the black bowl, so blithe to their song,
And let them be merry, all harvest time long."
Peele, in his "Old Wives' Tales," makes his harvesters sing:--
"Lo, here we come a-reaping, a-reaping,
To reap our harvest fruit;
And thus we pass the year so long,
And never be we mute."
Stevenson, in his "Twelve Months," says, "In August the furmety pot
welcomes home the harvest cart, and the garland of flowers crowns the
captain of the reapers. The battle of the field is now stoutly fought. The
pipe and the tabor are now busily set a-work, and the lad and the lass
will have no lead in their heels. Oh, 'tis a merry time, wherein honest
neighbours make good cheer, and God is glorified in his blessings on the
earth." Tusser's verse reminds us of another feature of these old
celebrations of which little trace remains at the present day, that is,
the temporary suspension of all social inequality between employer and
employed. There would be less reason to regret this change, however, if,
in place of the temporary obliviousness of class distinctions, we could
see more genial intercourse all through the year.
The clergy seem to have been less in evidence at the harvest rejoicings of
those days than at present. There was a tithe question even two centuries
ago, for Dryden, in his _King Arthur_, makes his festive rustics sing:--
"We've cheated the parson, we'll cheat him again,
For why should the blockhead have one in ten?
One in ten! one in ten!
For staying while dinner is cold and hot,
And pudding and dumpling are burnt to the pot!
Burnt to pot! burnt to pot!
We'll drink off our liquor while we can stand.
And hey for the honour of England!
Old England! Old England!"
There is some comfort for the loss of the singing and dancing customs of
the old times in that the fact the heavy drinking of the period has also
become a thing of the past, and perhaps also in the reflections arising
from the misuse of music of which some curious illustrations have been
preserved by Mr. Surtees. The historian mentions, in his "History of
Durham," having read a report of the trial of one Spearman, for having
made a forcible entry into a field at Birtley, and mowed and carried away
the crop, a piper playing on the top of the loaded waggon for the purpose
of making the predatory harvesters work the faster, so as to get away
before their roguish industry could be interrupted. It may be noted in
passing that a similar use of music is shown in the following entry in the
parish accounts of Gateshead, under the date of 1633:--"To workmen for
making the streets even at the King's coming, 18s. 4d.: and paid to the
piper for playing to the menders of the highway, five several days, 3s.
4d."
Many local variations exist in the customs associated with the harvest
home festivities observed in different parts of the country, especially in
the north, where all old customs and observances, like the provincial
dialects, have lingered longest, and still linger when they have died out
and been forgotten in the south. In Cleveland, it is, or used to be, the
custom, on forking the last sheaf on the wagon, for the harvesters to
shout in chorus:--
"Weel bun and better shorn,
Is Master ----'s corn;
We hev her, we hev her,
As fast as a feather.
Hip, hip, hurrah!"
A similar custom exists in Northumberland, where it is called "shouting a
kirn." It consists in a simultaneous shout from the whole of the people
present. In some localities the shout is preceded by a rhyme suitable to
the occasion, recited by the clearest-voiced persons among those
assembled. Mr. James Hardy gives the following as a specimen:--
"Blessed be the day our Saviour was born,
For Master ----'s corn's all well shorn;
And we will have a good supper to-night,
And a drinking of ale, and a kirn! a kirn!"
All unite in a simultaneous shout at the close, and he who does not
participate in the ringing cheer is liable to have his ears pulled. In
Glendale, an abbreviated version of the rhyme is used, with a variation,
as follows:--
"The master's corn is ripe and shorn,
We bless the day that he was born,
Shouting a kirn! a kirn!"