by George B. Gardiner.
FOLK-SONG SOCIETY, JOURNALS OF. 18 parts have
been issued. (Hon. Sec., 19 Berners Street.)
CAROLS
GILBERT, DAVIES. Some Ancient Christmas Carols
with the tunes to which they were formerly sung.
1822. Second edition, 1823.
(The tunes are eight in number.)
SANDYS, WILLIAM. Christmas Carols, Ancient and
Modern, including the most popular in the West
of England. 1833.
—— Christmastide: its history, festivities and
carols. _c._ 1852.
RIMBAULT, E. F. Christmas Carols. Edited and
arranged by ——. Chappell.
HUSK, W. H. Songs of the Nativity, being
Christmas Carols old and new. _c._ 1865.
HELMORE, THOMAS. Christmas Carols. Novello.
1853.
BRAMLEY, Rev. H. R., and STAINER,
JOHN. Christmas Carols old and new. _c._ 1868.
Reprinted in two small editions with a third series
added. Novello.
FULLER MAITLAND, J. A. English Carols of the
Fifteenth Century, from a MS. roll in the library
of Trinity College, Cambridge, with added parts by
W. S. Rockstro.
DUNCOMBE, W. D. V. A Collection of Old English
Carols as sung at Hereford Cathedral. Weekes.
HILL, Rev. GEOFFRY. Wiltshire
Folk-Songs and Carols. 1904.
BROADWOOD, LUCY E. English Traditional Songs
and Carols. Boosey. 1908.
SHARP, CECIL J. English Folk-Carols. Novello.
1911.
GILLINGTON, ALICE. Old Christmas Carols of the
Southern Counties. Curwen.
SHAW, MARTIN, and PERCY DEARMER. The
English Carol Book. 1913.
SINGING-GAMES
GOMME, ALICE B. Traditional Games of England,
Scotland, and Ireland. 2 vols. 1894-1898.
—— Children’s Singing-Games, with the tunes to
which they are sung. Oblong. 2 series. 1894.
—— Old English Singing-Games.
KIDSON, FRANK, and ALFRED MOFFAT.
Eighty Singing-Games, old, new, and adapted.
Bayley & Ferguson.
GILLINGTON, ALICE E. Old Hampshire Singing-Games.
—— Old Isle of Wight Singing-Games.
—— Old Surrey Singing-Games. Curwen.
LITERATURE
ECKENSTEIN, LINA. Comparative Studies in
Nursery Rhymes. 1906.
ENGEL, CARL. The Study of National Music. 1866.
—— The Literature of National Music. 1879.
GLYN, MARGARET H. Analysis of the Evolution
of Musical Form. 1909.
HALLIWELL, JAMES ORCHARD. The Nursery Rhymes
of England, obtained principally from Oral
Tradition. 1843.
(A reprint from the volume contributed to the Percy
Society’s publications by Halliwell in 1841. A most
valuable work, several times, with the addition of
“Nursery Tales,” re-issued.)
MUSICAL ASSOCIATION, PROCEEDINGS OF.
For 1904-1905-1907-1908.
(These years contain different papers on folk-music.)
SHARP, CECIL J. English Folk-Songs: Some Conclusions. 1907.
ENGLISH FOLK-DANCE
BY MARY NEAL
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Acknowledgment is given with many thanks to—
Miss LUCY BROADWOOD, who directed attention to
several works of reference.
Miss A. G. GILCHRIST, for permission to use
the music of the Moston rush-bearing Morris dance
and for pointing out its connection with “To-morrow
shall be my dancing day.”
Miss NELLIE CHAPLIN, for allowing me to use
her copy of _Playford’s Dancing Master_.
Mr CLIVE CAREY, for reading proofs and other
help.
Mr WALTER DODGSON, for translating passages
from _Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda_ by Leopold
von Schroeder.
Mr BRASSINGTON, of the Stratford-on-Avon
Memorial Library, for help in looking up works of
reference.
Mr JOHN GRAHAM, for suggesting works of
reference.
Mr JOHN BECK, for lending _Kemp’s Morris
Dance Wonder_.
Sir J. G. FRAZER, whose work, _The Golden
Bough_, is indispensable to the study of folk-dance.
_The Daily Chronicle_, for permission to reproduce the
pictures of the Bampton dancers.
Messrs CURWEN & SONS, for permission to
reproduce two pictures from the _Espérance Morris
Books_.
[Illustration: Morris Dancers at Bampton-in-the-Bush, Oxon.]
INTRODUCTION
Before the year 1905 few people knew that England possessed a
traditional folk-dance of her own, and fewer still realised that the
national dances were still practised on certain festival occasions in
several villages and country towns, for the most part in the Midland
and Northern counties. The word “folk” when used to describe a dance
may be interpreted in two ways. It may be used to signify a dance
(either traditional or not) at one time popular amongst the people,
or its meaning may be limited to those dances whose origin is lost in
antiquity and which have been passed on from generation to generation
by unlettered folk without the aid of written music or written
instruction as to steps or evolutions. That this book may be of more
use to those who wish either to study the available English dances or
to pass them on to the present generation, the wider meaning of the
word “folk” will be understood.
But a very marked distinction must be drawn between the two classes
of folk-dance, between those recorded in books and still danced by
peasant folk as a merely social dance, with no special significance
beyond being an occasion for the display of gallantry, coquetry, and
the courtesies of social intercourse; and those dances, until lately
unrecorded, which are religious in origin and are the expression in
rhythm of primitive beliefs and magical ceremonial.
In the former are included the country dances and certain popular court
dances. The latter include the Sword dances, Morris dances, the Furry
dance, and Horn dance. As the origin of all dancing may be directly or
indirectly traced to the ceremonial of primitive religions, it will
be well first of all to give some account of those traditional dances
still lingering in English villages which give unmistakable signs of
their origin.
The primitive forms of the traditional dance can only be guessed at
by the student of to-day, for probably every epoch, every generation,
and every individual dancer has added to, modified, or taken from
the original dance, but enough is still with us to make the study an
intensely interesting one both from the archæological and from the
social point of view.
The most important surviving traditional dance in England to-day
is undoubtedly the Morris dance, both because of the far greater
number of Morris dances still in existence and because of the greater
differences between the individual dances. But very closely allied to,
if not identical with, the Morris is the Sword dance, and again allied
to both is the Mummers’ play.
My own experience in talking to country dancers coincides with that of
Mr Cecil Sharp, who says that if you ask a sword dancer of Grenoside
or Earsdon, he will insist that he is a Morris dancer, and that one
is often sent after a Morris dance, only to find traces of a Mummers’
play. He adds, “In due course it will dawn upon him (the collector)
that the sword dancer of Northern England, the Morris dancer of the
Midlands and the South, and the Mummer of all England and Scotland are
in the popular view as one and pass under the same name.” And it is
the word “Morris” which gives the clue to the origin and nature of the
dance, whatever the precise form which it takes.
With one exception the dictionaries and glossaries I have consulted
derive the word “Morris” from “Moorish.” Mr Cecil Sharp says that the
weight of testimony must be held to show Morocco as the fount and
origin of the dance,[1] but Mr John Graham and Mr Kidson throw doubt
on its Moorish origin. The fact that the Morisco, supposed to be the
counterpart of the English Morris, was a solo dance performed with
castanets, and the fact that amongst Orientals only women danced,
whilst the Morris is essentially a man’s dance, seems to me to put the
Morris definitely into an entirely different category from the Morisco,
although both words are used for the same dance.
[1] Later, I believe, Mr Sharp changed his opinion.
Eventually I found what I believe to be the true derivation of the
word in the Glossary of C. Mackay, LL.D., published in 1887. He says
that the word “Morris” is probably of Keltic origin, and comes from
“Mor,” great, and “uasal,” noble and dignified. The final syllable was
dropped in the course of ages, when Mor-uasal and Mor-uiseil became
Moruis, great, noble, stately, dignified, solemn. Dr Mackay connects
the dance with the Druidical Festival of Beltane (from Bal or Bael, the
Sun-god), and he says that all traditions of the Druids show the solemn
importance which they attached to May Day, or Beltane. Multitudes of
devotees preceded by three orders of the priesthood—priests, bards,
and prophets—marched in solemn procession to the top of a high hill to
watch the kindling of a fire on May the first by the direct agency of
the sun. The solemn and mysterious dance around the fire thus kindled
appears to have been the origin of the Morris or Mor-uiseil dance.
Many writers have pointed out the curious resemblance between the
dances of the Salii and the English Morris and sword dances, and this
resemblance adds to the evidence in favour of our traditional dance
having originated in sun worship and nature worship generally.
The following description of the Salii from _The Golden Bough_ will
illustrate this point:—“As priests of Mars, the god of Agriculture,
the Salii probably had also certain agricultural functions. They were
named from the remarkable leaps which they made. Now we have seen that
dancing and leaping high are common sympathetic charms to make the
crops grow high. Was it one of the functions of the Salii to dance and
leap on the fields at the spring or autumn sowing, or at both?
“The dancing procession of the Salii took place in October as well as
in March, and the Romans sowed both in spring and autumn. The weapons
borne by the Salii, while effective against demons in general, may have
been especially directed against the demons who steal the seed corn
in the ripe grain. In Western Africa the field labours of tilling and
sowing are sometimes accompanied by dances of armed men in the fields.”
In a footnote the author also throws out a suggestion that, as the
Salii were said to have been founded by Morrius, King of Veii, and
this seems to be etymologically the same as Mamurius and Mars, the
word “Morris” may be the same. In answer to a query, however, he does
not appear to take this as a really serious suggestion.[2]
[2] L. von Schrœder in _Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda_ (p. 113)
suggests, following A. Kuhn, that the root of the word “Morris” is the
same as that of Maruts, the band of dancing warriors attendant upon
Indra.
The following are some of the reasons for connecting the Morris dance
with primitive religious customs:—
(1) The characteristic of the processional form of the
dance as performed by the living dancers to-day is
a slow, dignified rhythmic movement, which is very
marked in the Bampton (Oxon.) dancers, who have an
unbroken tradition going back some hundreds of years.
The set dances display a much more lively character
and are characterised by wild leaps, twirlings
round, hand-clapping, stick clashing, and the
waving of handkerchiefs, so that we can easily
imagine the present Morris as a descendant of the
solemn processional up the mountain-side to greet
the morning sun, and the scenes of wild joy on the
summit at the appearance of the source of light and
life to his waiting worshippers.
(2) Many of the Morris and Sword dancers have
evolutions which are characteristic of ceremonial
used by savage people in the worship of the sun.
The Abingdon (Berks) dances, a very old tradition,
end with a complete circle. Bean-setting, one
of the Headington (Oxon.) dances, begins with
two half-circles danced in opposite directions.
The Bampton dances have circles, half-circles,
and gypsies, another form of circle. The
Gloucestershire dances have the same. In some
dances the dancers advance and retire into the
centre, forming a widening and narrowing circle
alternately, all of which illustrate by mimetic
action the supposed movements of the sun and the
sun’s rays. All were probably actuated by mimetic
magic, primitive man believing that by imitating
the rising and setting of the sun and by lighting
fires he actually caused the return of the sun to
the earth.
(3) The appearance in different forms of the King
and Queen, the Lord and Lady, the Mayor and
Squire in the ceremonial of the dance. These
figures indubitably link up the dances with those
ceremonies attending the crowning of the King of the
Wood, who, representing the life of the earth’s
vegetation, was yearly slain lest his vigour might wane
and all the green life of earth perish with it. The
slaying of this King and the revels which preceded it
and the crowning of the fresh and younger Monarch were
all still dimly to be traced in many revels and dances
in English villages within quite recent years.
At Abingdon, the story runs, two hundred years ago a great fight took
place between the dwellers in Ock Street and the rest of the burghers
of the town. The Ock Street people outnumbering the rest of the whole
town thought they had the right to appoint a Mayor. A beast was slain
in the market-place and roasted whole, a fight took place for the
horns, and the winning side then carried the horns in the Morris
dancing round the town. The horns are in existence to-day and are
carried by the Mayor of the Morris accompanied by the Squire carrying
a Sword. There are traces left still of the gold used to tip the
horns which are mounted on a bull’s head, with flaming red nostrils,
thus making it evident that the beast was regarded as sacred. These
ceremonies took place on St John the Baptist’s Eve, celebrating the
summer solstice.
[Illustration: Abingdon Dancers, whose tradition goes back to 1700
(_“The Squire” holding the sword, wooden cup, and collection box, also
the pole on which is mounted the bull’s head and horns formerly carried
by the “Mayor of the Morris”_)]
At Kirtlington it was customary for the dancers to conduct ceremonially
a young maiden from her father’s house early in the morning. She
must be of spotless reputation, and dressed in white with floating
blue ribbons. She stayed with the dancers until night fell, when she
was taken back to her father’s house. During the time she was with
the dancers she was regarded as sacred, and anyone who so much as
jostled her in the crowd must pay a fine of half a crown. Later a lamb
substituted for the maiden was decorated with flowers and ribbons,
carried round by the dancers, and at intervals put down while they
danced round about it in a circle.
At Kidlington (Oxon.) Blount describes a similar ceremony. “The Monday
after Whitsun week a fat lamb was provided, and the maidens of the town
having their thumbs tied together were permitted to run after it, and
she who with her mouth took hold of the lamb was declared the Lady of
the Lamb, which was killed, cleaned, and with the skin hanging on it
was carried on a pole before the lady and her companions to the green
attended with music and a Morisco dance of men and another of women.
The rest of the day was spent in mirth and merry glee. Next day the
lamb, partly baked, partly boiled and partly roasted, was served up
for the lady’s feast, when she sat majestically at the upper end of
the table and her companions, with the music playing during the repast,
which having finished the solemnity ended.”
In most places where there are still lingering traces of the Morris
there also linger these traces of the ancient sacrifice of the King of
the Wood, and of the Worship of the Sun.
Another link with the festivals of ancient religions seems to be the
constant use of a mask in the traditional dance, or the disguising of
the face with black, white, or red paint. In _The Golden Bough_ Sir
James Frazer gives an account of a pagan festival which may possibly
account for this survival.
“In Mexico a Woman who represented the Mother of the Gods, the Earth
Goddess, after being feasted and entertained by sham fights for some
days was beheaded on the shoulders of a man. The body was flayed, and
one of the men clothing himself in the skin became the representative
of the goddess Toci. The skin of the thigh was removed separately, and
the young man who represented the Maize god, the son of the goddess
Toci, wrapt it round his face as a mask. Various ceremonies then
followed in which the two men clad in the woman’s skin played the parts
respectively of god and goddess.”
To-day in England curious hints still survive which show that the
simple country folk never altogether lost the feeling that these
dances were not quite ordinary, but represented some sort of magic
charm with which it would be unsafe to interfere. Mr Sidney O. Addy,
in his _Household Tales_, says:—“At Curbar, in Derbyshire, it is said
that Morris dancing is really fairy dancing, and that ‘Morris dancing’
means ‘fairy dancing.’ Morris dancers of the present day (1895), it is
said, go through the same form of dancing that the fairies go through,
except that of course they cannot perform such intricate figures as the
fairies can. The figures which the Morris dancers of the present day go
through are very elaborate and very difficult to learn. A man said to
me ‘that Morris dancing had been taken away from the fairies.’ There
is something beautiful and strange in the music to which the Morris
dancers dance. If ever music was not of this world it is this. To hear
it is to believe that Morris dancing was a religious rite.“
The following extract seems to link up our English Morris dance with
the Moorish dance, so that whether we choose to derive the word
“Morris” from the Keltic Mor-uiseil, or from the Moorish, or whether
we think that the similarity of the two words made a confusion in the
popular mind, and so the two kinds of dances came to be known by one
name, we can still hold the belief that the English traditional dance
which has come to us down the ages was originally a religious dance
celebrating the return of the Sun-god and the sowing and the gathering
of the crops on which man’s life depended.
Mr Addy asks:—“Has it (the Morris dance) descended to us from a dusky
Iberian people, once a distinct caste in England, in whose magical
powers and religion the dominant races believed? In his dictionary,
Professor Skeat has concluded that a Morris dancer was a Moorish
dancer. Assuming that such is the case, we may ask ourselves why these
dances were so called. Are we to suppose that English peasants borrowed
the dance from the Moors in historical times? Or are we to believe that
it was handed down in England from an early period by the remnants of
a dark-coloured Iberian people who, according to Tacitus, crossed over
from Spain and were, in fact, Moors? In Yorkshire, a rude Christmas
play known as the Peace Egg is performed. In that play the chief act
is the slaughter by St George of England of a Black Prince of Paladine
whom St George stigmatises as a ‘Black Morocco Dog.’ The play seems
to represent an old feud between a light-haired and a dark-haired
people once inhabiting England: and it may be that in popular speech
the dark-haired people were once known as Moors. If this dramatised
contest between St George of England and the ‘Black Morocco Dog’ does
not point back to a time when conflicts existed in this country between
a dusky race of Iberian or Moorish origin and a light-haired people
which conquered and enslaved them, to what can we ascribe its origin?
We can only say that this play is of historical or literary and not
of traditional origin. But the form of the play renders an historical
or literary origin impossible, and the whole performance seems to be
nothing else but a rude and popular reminiscence of an ancient national
feud.
“It seems relevant to mention here an old earthwork, extending for
some miles in length near Sheffield, known in one part of its course
as Barber Balk. The direction of the earthwork is from south-west to
north-east, and the ditch is uniformly on the southern side, as if it
had been intended as a defence against attack from that side. Some
modern scholars identify the Barbars or Berbers, a people inhabiting
the Saracen countries along the north coast of Africa, with the
Iberians. Can it be that an invading Celtic people threw up this
earthwork as a defence against a dusky Iberian foe coming from the
south, and that the ancient name of the earthwork has been handed down
from a remote time, thereby preserving its true history? And is it not
possible that the Iberians, the Morris or Moor, the ‘Black Morocco Dog’
of the traditional play and the Barber are identical?
“A great authority on early Britain ‘has accepted and employed the
theory advanced by ethnologists that the early inhabitants of this
country were of Iberian origin.’”
The fact that the Morris dancers sometimes blackened their faces need
not necessarily mean that they wish to represent the Moors, but that
they were thought to represent Moors because their faces were blackened.
The Morris dance was called in some places the Northern lights and the
Aurora Borealis because of its desultory movements, and it may have
been this which inspired Milton to write—
“The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the Moon in wavering Morrice move.”
If, as I have tried to show, the traditional dance is part of an
ancient religious ceremonial dating from pre-Christian days, we shall
not be surprised to find that in Early Christian times the dance still
found some place in the ceremonial of worship.
Sir Hubert Parry, in a chapter on dance rhythm in Grove’s _Dictionary
of Music_, says:—“Dance rhythm and dance gestures have exerted the
most powerful influence on music from prehistoric times until to-day.
The analogy of a similar state of things among uncultivated races
still existing confirms the inherent probability of the view that
definiteness of any kind of music, whether of figure or phrase, was
first arrived at through connection with dancing. The beating of
some kind of noisy instrument as an accompaniment to gestures in the
excitement of actual war or victory or other such exciting cause was
the first type of rhythmic music, and the telling of tribal or national
stories, of deeds of heroes in the indefinite chant consisting of a
monotone slightly varying with occasional cadences which is met with
among so many barbarous peoples, was the first type of vocal music.
“This vague approach to musical recitation must have received its
first rhythmic arrangement when it came to be accompanied by rhythmic
gestures and the two processes were thereby combined, while song and
dance went on together as in mediæval times in Europe.
“In Oratorio the importance of dance rhythm is shown by negative as
well as positive evidence. In the parts in which composers arrived
at pure declamatory music, the result, though often expressive, is
hopelessly and inextricably indefinite in form. But in most cases they
submitted either openly or covertly to dance rhythm in some part or
other of their works.
“In Oratorio the dance influence maintained its place, but not so
openly as in Opera.”
In actual Church worship we find that rhythmic ball was played by
bishop and priests round the altar, and at the present day on Corpus
Christi Day and other festivals in the Cathedral at Seville the choir
boys perform a dance.
The fact that to-day the Christian Festival of Whitsuntide is the most
usual time for Morris dancing in those places where it still survives
is also an indication that the pagan ceremonial dance was transferred
to the Christian Church ceremonial in early Christian times.
Several Churchwarden accounts giving items paid for Morris dancers’
clothes, decorations, and regalia also point the same way. One at
Kingston-on-Thames reads thus—
1508. For payneing of the Mores garments and
for sarten gret leveres £0 2 4
” For plyts and ¼ of laun for the Mores
garments 0 2 11
” For Orsden for the same 0 0 10
” For bellys for the daunsars 0 0 12
1509-10. For silver paper for the Mores daunsars
the frere, and Mayde Maryan at 1d.
a peyne £0 5 4
1521-22. Eight yards of fustyan for the Mores
daunsars’ coats 0 16 0
” A dozyn of gold skynnes for the Mores 0 0 10
1536-37. Five hats and 4 porses for the daunsars 0 0 4½
But a carol collected in 1833 from a peasant in West Cornwall and
included in William Sandys’ collection is the most interesting proof
I have yet found of the association between dancing and the Christian
religion. Nothing more is known of the Carol in spite of many inquiries
which are still being pursued. This is the carol—
[Music: TO-MORROW SHALL BE MY DANCING DAY]
To-morrow shall be my dancing day,
I would my true love did so chance
To see the legend of my play,
To call my true love to my dance.
CHORUS
Sing, oh! my love,
Oh, my love, my love, my love,
This have I done for my true love.
2. “Then was I born of a Virgin pure,
Of her I took fleshly substance:
Then was I knit to man’s nature,
To call my true love to my dance.
Sing oh! etc.
3. “In a manger laid and wrapp’d I was,
So very poor this was my chance,
Betwixt an ox and a silly poor ass,
To call my true love to my dance.
Sing oh! etc.
4. “Then afterwards baptised I was,
The Holy Ghost on me did glance,
My Father’s voice heard from above,
To call my true love to my dance.
Sing oh! etc.
5. “Into the desert I was led,
Where I fasted without substance:
The Devil bade me make stones my bread,
To have me break my true love’s dance.
Sing oh! etc.
6. “The Jews on me they made great suit,
And with me made great variance,
Because they loved darkness rather than light,
To call my true love to the dance.
Sing oh! etc.
7. “For thirty pence Judas me sold,
His covetousness for to advance;
Mark, where I kiss, the same do hold,
The same is he shall lead the dance,
Sing oh! etc.
8. “Before Pilate the Jews me brought,
When Barabbas had deliverance;
They scourg’d me and set me at nought,
Judged me to die to lead the dance.
Sing oh! etc.
9. “When on the cross hanged I was;
When a spear to my heart did glance,
There issued forth both water and blood,
To call my true love to the dance.
Sing oh! etc.
10. “Then down to Hell I took my way,
For my true love’s deliverance,
And rose again on the third day,
Up to my true love and the dance.
Sing oh! etc.
11. “Then up to Heaven I did ascend,
Where now I dwell in sure substance,
On the right hand of God, that man
May come into the general dance.
Sing oh! etc.”
Mr G. R. S. Mead thinks that this carol was originally sung by the
mediæval minstrels, jongleurs, and troubadours, who are said to have
invented the word carol, meaning a dance in which the performers
moved slowly in a circle, singing as they went. The Troubadours are
responsible for the preservation of many fragments of old mystery
plays, and this carol is probably one such fragment, and as such is a
link between the definitely pagan folk-dance and through the Christian
Church to those alive in England to-day.
The following tune is taken from Miss A. G. Gilchrist’s Manuscript
Collection, and was noted and sent to her by Mr Smith Williamson,
bandmaster of Moston, W. Manchester, in 1907. Miss Gilchrist thinks it
interesting in connection with the tune of this Carol, as it is called
“My love, my love,” and was played as a Morris dance at the Rush-Cart
ceremony at Moston up to forty-five or fifty years ago.
[Music: MOSTON RUSH-CART MORRIS TUNE, “MY LOVE, MY LOVE”]
The following account of the sacred all-night dance written by Philo
(about A.D. 26) is quoted by Mr Mead in _Quest_, October 1910, and is
interesting because the dance described is curiously like the surviving
processional dances which have intervals in the processional when a set
dance is performed.
“After the banquet they kept the sacred all-night festival. And this is
how they keep it. They all stand up in a body, and in the middle of the
banqueting-place they first form the Choroi, one of men and the other
of women, and a leader and conductor is chosen for each, the one whose
reputation is greatest for a knowledge of music: they then chant hymns
composed in God’s honour in many metres and melodies, sometimes singing
together, sometimes one chorus beating the measure with their hands
for the antiphonal chanting of the other, now dancing to the measure
and now inspiring it, at times dancing in procession, at times set
dances, and then circle-dances right and left.” The latter part of this
description might almost have been taken down from some of the Morris
dances danced to-day.
In Anglo-Saxon times the sword dance was in great repute, and Saxon
nobles kept dancers to amuse their guests. There is mention of Morris
dancing in Edward III.’s reign, when John of Gaunt returned from
Spain, but few, if any, vestiges of it can be traced in writers beyond
the reign of Henry VII.: about which time, and particularly in that
of Henry VIII., the Churchwarden’s accounts in several parishes show
that the Morris dance made a very considerable figure in the parochial
festivals. Some of the accounts of the May Games of Robin Hood include
a Morris dance, but it is doubtful if the Morris was an intrinsic part
of the Robin Hood pageant, as it was very often danced on separate
occasions altogether. I am inclined to think that both are fragments
of much older dances and dramas, and that it is almost impossible to
say what was their exact relation to one another. By the time of Henry
VIII. and Elizabeth, when references to the Morris dance are very
frequent, all idea of its religious significance had disappeared, and
it represented the characteristics of the English peasant in a holiday
mood in the days when life was a big adventure, and revelry and sport
were rude and boisterous. It is a little difficult to realise, as one
watches the few remaining traditional dancers to-day, either that their
dancing has represented all that mankind knew of primitive religious
aspiration and ceremonial, or later that it embodied all the frolic and
revel of the rollicking days of Queen Elizabeth.
Although there is only one written record of steps and figures, there
are so many general descriptions of the dances in the writers of that
time that it is a little difficult, in the short space at my disposal,
to choose which will give the best idea of the dance as then performed.
I have chosen a few descriptions which seem best to fulfil this purpose.
But first there are four pictures of Morris dancing which may be here
described.
The first is a painted glass window at Betley, in Staffordshire. It
exhibits in all probability the most curious as well as the oldest
representation of an English May game and Morris dance that is anywhere
to be found. The dresses look as if they belong to the reign of Edward
IV., but the owner, Tollet, thought they were in the time of Henry VIII.
Another early representation of a Morris dance is a copy of a very
scarce engraving on copper by Israhel Van Meckenem (died 1503), so
named from the place of his nativity, a German village in the confines
of Flanders, in which latter country this artist appears chiefly to
have resided, and therefore in most of his prints we may observe the
Flemish costume of his time. From the pointed shoes that we see in one
of the figures it must have been executed between the years 1460 and
1470, about which latter period the broad-toed shoes came into fashion
in France and Flanders. It seems to have been intended as a pattern for
goldsmith’s work, probably a cup or tankard.
And thirdly, there is in the old Town Hall at Munich a series of ten
figures of Morris dancers, carved in wood by Erasmus Schnitznar in
1480. All these figures have bells, and one has long streamers to his
sleeves.
There is a fourth described by Walpole in his _Catalogue of English
Engravers_, under the name of Peter Stent. It is a painting at Lord
Fitzwilliam’s on Richmond Green, which came out of the old neighbouring
palace. It was executed by Vinckenkroom about the end of the reign of
James I., and exhibits a view of the above palace. A Morris dance is
introduced, consisting of seven figures, viz.:—A fool, hobby-horse,
piper, Maid Marian, and three dancers, the rest of the figures being
spectators.
In a tract entitled _Plaine Percevall the Peace Maker of England_,
1590, mention is made of a “stranger, which, seeing a quintessence
(besides the Foole and Maid Marian) of all the picked youth strained
out of a whole endship, footing the Morris about a May-pole, and he,
not hearing the ministrelsie for the noise of the tabors, bluntly
demanded if they were not all beside themselves that they so lip’d and
skip’d without an occasion.”
Stubbes, in his _Anatomie of Abuses_, thus describes a Morris dance
under the title of the “Devil’s Daunce.”
[Illustration: Morris Dancers in the time of James I.]
_Description of the Lord of Misrule, and attendant Morris_
“First, all the wilde heads of the parish, flocking together, chuse
them a graund Captaine (of Mischiefe) whome they innoble with the title
of _my Lord of Misrule_, and him they crowne with great solemnitie,
and adopt for their King. This king annoynted, chooseth forth twentie,
fourtie, three score or a hundred lustie guttes like to himselfe to
wait upon his Lordly Majesty, and to guard his noble person. Then
everyone of these his men he investeth with his liveries of greene,
yellow, or some other light wanton colour. And as though that were
not (bawdy) gawdy ynough, I should say, they bedecke themselves with
scarffes, ribbons and laces hanged all over with golde ringes, precious
stones and other jewels: this done, they tie about either legge
twentie or fourtie belles with rich handkerchiefe in their handes and
sometimes laide a cross over their shoulders and neckes, borrowed for
the most part of their pretie _Mopsies_ and loving _Bessies_, for
bussing them in the darke. Thus all things set in order, then have they
their hobby-horses, their dragons and other antiques together with
their baudie pipers and thundering drummers, to strike up the _Devil’s
Daunce_, withall: then martch this heathen company towards the Church
and Church-yarde, their pypers pyping, their drummers thundering,
their stumpes dauncing, their belles iyngling, their handkercheefes
fluttering about their heades like madde men, their hobbie horses and
other monsters skirmishing amongst the throng: and in this sorte they
goe to the Church (though the Minister be at prayer or preaching),
dauncing and swinging their handkercheefes over their heads in the
Church like Devils incarnate, with such a confused noise, that no man
can heare his owne voyce.”
To come to later times; in a curious story of a Country Squire who
turned Methodist and went about the country preaching, called “The
Spiritual Quixote or the Summer’s Ramble” of Mr Geoffry Wildgoose, a
comic romance (1773), there is an amusing account of a Morris dance.
“In the afternoon when they were got within a few miles of Gloucester
at a genteel house near the end of the village they saw almost the
whole parish assembled in the Court to see a set of Morrice dancers
who (this holiday time), dressed up in bells and ribbands, were
performing for the entertainment of the family of some company that had
dined there.”
* * * * *
“Those who are acquainted with this sort of Morrice dance (which is
still practised in several parts of England) must know that they are
usually attended with one character called the Tom fool, who like the
clown in the pantomime seems to be a burlesque upon all the rest. His
fool’s cap has a fox’s tail depending like a ramillie whip: and instead
of the small bells which the others wear on their legs he has a great
sheep-bell hung on his back side. Whilst the company therefore were all
attention to the preacher this buffoon contrived to slip the fool’s cap
upon Tugwell’s head, and to fix the sheep’s bell to his rump. Which
Jerry no sooner perceived than his choler arose, and spitting into his
hands and clenching his fists he gave the Tom fool a swinging blow in
the face. Tugwell pursued with the sheep-bell at his tail. Ended the
preaching.”
At Abingdon-on-Thames the date on the regalia of the Morris dances
still in existence is 1700, and the Bampton Morris “side” claims an
unbroken tradition, so that in these places at any rate we are in touch
with the dance as it has come to us from the days when it was an
inherent part of country life, and it is from these and other isolated
“sides” and individuals that the steps, figures, and tunes have been
taken down at the present day. A complete reconstruction of the dance
is of course impossible, so is an exact lesson of the way in which it
should be danced, but with the general descriptions and the remaining
dancers enough can be ascertained to justify the contention that
England has a real folk-dance of her own which compares very favourably
with that of other nations.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Morris Dance and Music from the _Orchesographie_ of
Thoinot-Arbeau]
I. THE MORRIS DANCE TO-DAY
Before the revival of Morris dancing in 1905, there was only one
description of the steps and evolutions of the dance, and that was in
_Orchesographie et Traicte en Forme de Dialogue_, by Thoinot-Arbeau,
published in 1588.
This is so interesting that I have had a photograph of it taken from
the copy in the British Museum.
The Morris dance may be roughly divided into five kinds—processional,
corner, handkerchief, stick dances, and solo jigs.
The corner dances are danced with handkerchiefs and so are the
processional and jigs, but there are also others where handkerchiefs
take the place of sticks.
Since 1905 Mr Cecil Sharp has published instructions for the Morris
dance in a series called the Morris Book, with the tunes as played
at the present day. The first two volumes of the series were written
in collaboration with Mr H. C. MacIlwaine, and with the help of Miss
Florence Warren, of the Espérance Guild of Morris dancers, from whom
the steps of most of the dances were taken down as she had learned them
from William Kimber, of Headington.
I have also edited, with the help of Mr Clive Carey, Mr Geoffrey Toye,
and Miss Florence Warren, two volumes called _The Espérance Morris
Book_, and Mr John Graham has collected Midland, Lancashire, and
Cheshire dances in two volumes.[3]
It is probable that these books contain complete instructions in the
steps and figures of the dance and are a fairly complete collection
of the existing dances, and that others still in the Collector’s
books, but not yet published, may only be variants. There is a varied
and extensive terminology used by the old dancers, and it is often
difficult to arrive at the exact meaning of certain expressions, for
each set of dancers has its own phraseology, which varies considerably
from that of other sets even when they are not many miles apart in
locality. The following are some of the terms used:—“Shake up” and
“foot up” for the first figure of a dance; “hey up” or “hey sides up,”
“back to back,” “hands across,” and “capers.” “Gipsies” must be seen to
be understood, and “galley” is a turning round on your own axis with a
single or double shake of the leg, which seems to be better done the
older and more shaky the dancer is.
[3] Both the first volume of _The Espérance Morris Book_ and the first
volume of Mr Sharp’s _Morris Book_ have been revised.
Each village has its own steps and its own evolutions, and the
evolutions generally follow the same order in each dance, the
particular steps of that dance being done between the evolutions.
This is a very usual order in which the dance is done—
Foot up or Shake up. Special step.
Special step. Back to back.
Hey up. Special step.
Special step. Hey up and All in.
Hands across.
But it would take a whole volume to describe each step done by each
“side” of dancers, and by the time this book was in print other
variants would have arisen, if any of the “sides” had danced in the
meantime.
For practical purposes one has to decide on the most typical step one
has seen and adopt it for those to whom one is responsible for teaching
the dances.
But the characteristics of all the dances are vigour and virility, and
there is nothing in the least like the posturing with pointed toe which
characterises the ordinary ball-room and stage dances.
The following is a complete list as far as I know of all the Morris
dances collected and published since the revival in 1905:—
Bean-setting.
Laudnum Bunches.
Country Gardens.
Constant Billy.
Trunkles.
Rigs o’ Marlow.
Bluff King Hal.
How d’ye do, Sir?
Shepherds’ Hey.
Blue-eyed Stranger.
Hey diddle Dis.
Hunting the Squirrel.
Getting up Stairs.
Double set Back.
Haste to the Wedding.
Rodney.
Processional Morris.
Jockie to the Fair.
Old Mother Oxford.
Old Woman tossed up in a blanket.
Bacca Pipes jig.
Flowers of Edinburgh.
The Rose.
Field Town Morris.
The Maid of the Mill.
Bobbing Joe.
Glorisheers.
The Gallant Hussar.
Leap Frog.
Shooting.
Brighton Camp.
Green Garters.
Princess Royal.
Lumps of Plum Pudding.
The Fool’s Dance.
Derbyshire Morris.
Derbyshire Morris Reel.
The Cuckoo’s Nest.
The Monk’s March.
Longborough Morris.
Heel and Toe.
Bobby’s Joan.
Banks of the Dee.
Dearest Dicky.
London Pride.
Swaggering Boney.
Young Collins.
All’s for the Best and Richmond Hill.
Step Back.[4]
I’ll go and enlist for a Sailor.
Sherborne Jig.
None so Pretty.
Cross Caper, or Prince’s Royal.
We won’t go home till Morning.
Abraham Brown.
Morris Off.
Long Morris.
Cross Morris.
Three Cans Morris.
Nancy Dawson.
The Boatman’s Song.
The Tight Little Island.
The Girl I left behind Me.
The Rose Tree and The British Grenadiers.
Garryowen.
With a Hundred Pipers.
Ninety-five.
Draw Back.
Bumpus o’ Stretton.
Lively Jig.
Morris On.
Sally Luker.
A Nutting we will go.
[4] As far as I can gather, this is the dance called “Molly Oxford” by
the Field Town dancers; it seems that Mr Sharp has substituted this
name owing to the fact that it is not danced to the “Molly Oxford”
tune. One of the dancers repudiates the title on the ground that the
characteristic figure is a spring and not a step back.
In addition to these Mr F. Kidson has also published a set of Country
and Morris dance tunes, but without instructions as to the dances.
Although this list gives a very fair idea of the traditional Morris
dances still lingering in country places, two things must be borne
in mind—first, that many of these dances with different names are
practically the same dances; another tune and a very slight alteration
in the step is quite enough for a Morris dancer to say he has another
dance to show; and secondly, that the collectors have not yet finished
their work. I have in my possession quite a long list of people and
places as yet unvisited which may yield dances yet unrecorded, and Mr
Cecil Sharp has announced many dances and variants collected but not
published.
The Folk-dance has been found in the following counties:—
Gloucestershire. Monmouthshire.
Oxfordshire. Yorkshire.
Berkshire. Lancashire.
Northamptonshire. Cheshire.
Lincolnshire. Northumberland.
Derbyshire. Warwickshire.
Nottinghamshire. Worcestershire.
Sussex. Surrey.
Cornwall.
II. TUNES
A word must be said about the tunes played for the dances by country
musicians to-day.
These tunes are, of course, of much later date than the Morris and
Sword dances, and probably contemporary with the original country
dances. The musicians took any tune which was popular at the time and
adapted it to the dances, so that the tunes are not by any means all
traditional. As an instance of this, I remember that old Mr Trafford,
of Headington, told me that one day when he heard a military band
playing, he went and listened at the door of the barracks, and that he
was so attracted by the tune that he at once hummed it to the Morris
dance fiddler and adapted it to a Morris dance. To this day he likes
the tune, which he calls “Buffalo Gals,”[5] so much that he wanted Mr
Carey to take it down and use it. There is no doubt that at any given
time the musicians used to adapt to the dances any popular tune that
took their fancy, and I think that probably the name of the dance was
altered to fit the tune. Anyway the tune which Mr Trafford liked,
called “The Buffalo Girls,” had certainly been taken for the name of
a dance. The only dance tune that I have been able to discover which
has its dance steps attached to it is the one before mentioned in
Arbeau’s book. There is no doubt either that the nature of the tunes
changed considerably as the whittle and dub went out of fashion and
were superseded by the fiddle and later by the concertina, from which
latter instrument the first revived tunes were taken by Mr Sharp from
William Kimber. The tunes taken from the violin were more likely to
be played in a modal scale; for instance, Kimber played “The Rigs of
Marlow” in the modern scale, but Mark Cox, who gave it to us from the
fiddle, played it in a modal form.
[5] A Christy minstrel tune, popular some years back.
In the summer of 1912 the fiddler who played for the Morris dancers
at “Shakspeare’s England” in a few days played in a modal form a tune
which had been given him in the modern scale and was quite unconscious
that he had altered it.
Two Morris dance tunes, “Bean-setting” and “Laudnum Bunches,” do not
seem to be allied to any other forms of the airs.
In insisting on the traditional nature of the dances it is necessary to
admit that the same cannot be said of all, or even most, of the tunes
played to-day.
III. MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
In the earliest records of Morris dancing, the pipe and tabor, or
whittle and dub, were the musical instruments in use, and the oldest
dancers to-day are never tired of lamenting that the pipe and tabor to
which they danced in their youth have gone out of fashion.
A Morris dancer in Fleet Street, London, is described in a seventeenth
century manuscript in the British Museum (Harleian MS. 3910):
“In Fleet Strete then I heard a shoote:
I putt of my hatt, and I made no staye,
And when I came unto the roote,
Good Lord! I heard a taber play,
For so, God save me, a morrys-daunce.”
In the old play of _Jacke Drums Entertainment_ (1601)—
_The taber and pipe strike up a morrice._
_A shoute within._
_Ed._ Oh, a morrice is come, observe our country sports,
’Tis Whitsun-tyde and we must frolick it.
_Enter the Morrice._
THE SONG
“Skip it and trip it, nimbly, nimbly,
Tickle it, tickle it lustily,
Strike up the taber, for the wenches favour,
Tickle it, tickle it lustily.
Let us be seen in Hygate Greene,
To dance for the honour of Holloway.
Since we are come hither, let’s spare no leather,
To dance for the honour of Holloway.”
Later the fiddle took the place of pipe and tabor, and still more
recently the concertina.
The present-day fiddler at Bampton, Mr Wells, and Mr Mark Cox of
Headington are well worth a visit from musicians interested in the
actual form in which the tunes are played to-day by the musically
unlettered.
Mr William Kimber, jun., of Headington, is also in possession of the
old tunes, which he plays skilfully on the concertina. Patience will
be needed should the tunes be noted, for very few musicians can repeat
a phrase, even if it is the very last bar, without going right back to
the beginning of the tune. When the phrase is intricate, and has to be
often repeated, this means that a considerable amount of time is taken
up. The same applies to the dance; the traditional dancer is quite
unselfconscious, and if he is pulled up and asked for a repetition of a
step, he cannot give it, as a rule, without going back to the beginning
of the dance; so that in writing down the steps and evolutions of the
dance much patience is needed and understanding of the way in which the
minds of simple folk work.
Within the memory of some of the oldest dancers the dancing was always
accompanied by singing, and old Master Druce, of Ducklington, told us
that the Morris could not be properly danced without singing. He could,
however, only remember a few of the words of one dance—“The Lollypop
Man.”
The Bampton men gave us a few odd verses of one or two songs, but I am
afraid the real song will never be recovered, for, as one old man put
it to a friend of mine, “the words are too clumsy for girls.”
Miss Gilchrist gave me the words of a Lancashire Morris which we have
often used with very good effect—
“Morris dance is a very pretty tune,
Lads and lassies plenty,
Every lad shall have his lass,
And I’ll have four and twenty.
My new shoone they are so good,
I could dance Morris if I would,
And if hat and coat be dressed,
I will dance Morris with the best.
This is it and that is it,
And this is Morris dancing,
My poor father broke his leg,
And so it was a’chancing.
Bread and cheese and the old cow’s head
Roasted in a lantern,
A bit for me and a bit for you,
And a bit for the Morris dancer.”
Even in this doggerel there are traces of the old sacrificial rite of
animal sacrifice in which the head was considered as the most sacred
part of the animal and much coveted. It was generally awarded to the
victor or victorious side in a fight for its possession.
IV. THE DRESS
The Morris dance dress had two characteristics; it was the holiday
attire of the dancers and it had added to that certain special
ceremonial features. These were bells, ribbons, sticks or swords, and
handkerchiefs.
In the Kingston-on-Thames Churchwardens’ Accounts (1536-37) the dresses
of the Morris dancers are thus described:—They consisted of four coats
of white fustian spangled, and two green satin coats with garters
on which small bells were fastened. In an old tract called “Old Meg
of Herefordshire for a Mayde Marian, and Hereford Town for a Morris
Daunce” (1609), the musicians and the twelve dancers have “long coats
of the old fashion, high sleeves gathered at the elbows, and hanging
sleeves behind: the stuff red buffin striped with white, girdles with
white stockings, white and red roses to their shoes: the one Six,
a white jew’s cap with a jewel and a long red feather: the other a
scarlet jew’s cap with a jewel and a white feather.” Scarves, ribbands,
and laces hung all over with gold rings, and even precious stones
are also mentioned in the time of Elizabeth. Miles, the Miller of
Ruddington, in Sampson’s play, “The Vow Breaker, or the Fayre Maid of
Clifton” (1636), says he is come to borrow “a few ribbands, bracelets,
eare-rings, wyasyters and silke girdle and hand-kerchers for a morris.”
Joe Miller, writing in 1874, gives the following description of the
preparations of a Morris dance:—“One Molly o’ Cheetham’s sent specially
to London for bows and flowerets to dress her Robin’s hat with, and
Jenny of the Warden House Cottage kept her thumb nail strapped up
for a month to crimp her Billy’s ruffled shirt. She was so feared of
spoiling the edge of the nail: and Phœbe of the Dean Farm, took Billy’s
breeches to St Ann’s Square (Manchester) to have them laced with blue
ribbons and bows down the side. All the lasses of the village were as
busy as bees, making bows, getting up fine shirts, and tying white
handkerchiefs with ribbons to dance with.”
The late Mr Alfred Burton, writing in 1891, says:—“The costume worn now
and for many years past (colour being left to individual taste, except
in the case of the breeches, which are generally of the same colour
and material in each band of dancers) consists of shoes with buckles,
white stockings, knee breeches tied with ribbons, a brightly coloured
scarf or sash round the waist, white shirt trimmed with ribbons and
fastened with brooches, and white straw hats decorated with ribbons
and rosettes. White handkerchiefs or streamers are tied to the wrist.”
Strutt, in his _Sports and Pastimes of the People of England_ (1810),
observes that the garments of the Morris dancers were adorned with
bells, which were not placed there merely for the sake of ornament,
but were to be sounded as they danced. These bells were of unequal
sizes and differently denominated, as the fore-bell, the second-bell,
the treble, and the tenor or great bell, and mention is also made of
double bells. Sometimes they used trebles only, but these refinements
were of later times. At first, these bells were small and numerous and
affixed to all parts of the body—the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists,
waist, knee, and ankle: the wrist, knee, and ankle being, however, the
principal places. The number of bells round each leg sometimes amounted
to from twenty to forty. They were occasionally jingled by the hands.
The following description of a Morris dancer taken from _Recreations
for Ingenious Head Pieces_ (1667) gives a very good idea of his
appearance at that date:—
“With a noyse and a din,
Comes the Maurice dancer in,
With a fine linnen shirt, but a buckram skin.
Oh! he treads out such a peale,
From his paire of legs of veale.
The quarters are idols to him.
Nor do those knaves inviron
Their toes with so much iron,
’Twill ruin a smith to shoe him.”
The Morris dancers’ dress has fallen on somewhat evil days of late
years. The best they can do is a white suit of duck or flannel with
trousers, short knee breeches, or even ordinary dark cloth trousers
with a white shirt. The shirt is decorated with ribbons and rosettes,
and sometimes a double baldric is worn crossed on the chest and hanging
down at the sides. The bells are sewn on to a pad, and a pair which I
have is made of long bits of coloured cloth such as a sailor uses to
make a hearthrug with, the bells sewn in between. This was got from a
pawnshop in Oxford with a pipe and tabor, a pathetic sign of the decay
of national gaiety!
The hat is sometimes a box hat, sometimes a bowler, sometimes a cap,
but it must be gaily decorated with ribbons and artificial flowers,
bits of feather, or anything that comes in handy. Mr Brookes, of Godley
Hill, who came to London to teach the Lancashire dances, wore a bowler
hat covered tightly with white calico, and over that a mass of flowers,
and ribbons hanging down behind.
I confess that this curious mixture of a traditional ceremonial dress
and the modern bowler hat does not attract me nor appeal to my sense of
the fitness of things, but I think that for present-day performance one
must either adopt the least objectionable form of present-day holiday
dress, which is usually white flannel, add as much colour as possible
in ribbons and sash, and leave it at that, or if any fancy dress is
adopted I think it is best to adopt the Elizabethan peasants’ holiday
dress and add the bells, ribbons, etc., as it was during her reign that
the Morris dance was very usually danced at fairs and festivals.
The only woman’s dress described in old writers is that of Maid Marian,
but as the character was taken by a man dressed as a woman, who was
very grotesquely dressed, it is better to-day to adopt a very simple
dress, such as a cotton frock and a sun bonnet, with a bunch of ribbons
at the waist. Every girl should have a different colour, though the
general style may be the same.
The shoes of the dancers should be ordinary walking shoes with low
heels and no pointed toes, because these dances were danced in the open
air and on the open road. A good dancer can make the “bells speak” even
on a boarded floor, and that is all that is necessary. I think that any
sort of thin ballet shoe is quite out of place and spoils the character
of an open-air dance.
V. EXTRA CHARACTERS
In the days when the Morris dance was an integral part of the people’s
life it was no one’s business to make exact records in writing either
of the dance itself, of the ceremonies connected with it, or of the
characters associated with it. It is therefore very difficult to
differentiate with any exactitude just where the Morris dance merged
into the sword dance, and just where the dances were merged into the
Mummers’ plays and other early pageants and ceremonies.
All primitive forms of dance and drama are attempts to express man’s
worship of the natural forces and facts of life, so that we shall
expect to find other characters than those of the actual dancers.
The most common of these are the Lord and Lady, the King and Queen,
evidently representing early ideas of the masculine and feminine
principles in nature and worshipped as the forces which brought the
return of the green life of spring to the earth. Both these characters
also occur separately in some places, the King being called Mayor,
a Lord of Misrule, a very curious survival of the Mock King of
Saturnalian revels, who after a short reign of feasting and festivity
is sacrificed that a new king may reign in his stead. One very old man
whom I met, and who shall remain unnamed and unlocated, boasted to me
that he had been this Mayor of the Morris nine times. The qualification
for this honour, I learned elsewhere in the town, was to have been
locked up three times in one year for being drunk and three times in
one year for beating your wife! In emphasising the religious origin of
these dances it is well to bear in mind that the religion they express
is not precisely that of the orderly Church and Chapel-going folk of
to-day, and that no sort of gloom or depression was allowed to mar the
joy of the ceremonial, even when the end of the principal actor was
known to be execution at the point of the sword. As Dr Frazer remarks,
“in these circumstances it was natural that the principal actor should
be recruited from the gaol more often than from the green-room.”
The Queen was also called the Moll, Maid Marian, the Lady of the
Lamb, Bessie, and The Lady of the May, and was a man, generally a
smooth-faced youth, who was dressed as and represented a woman.
A very important character was the Fool, Tom Fool, Dysard, Squire, or
Rodney, identical with the jongleur or joculator. He was often the
best dancer, did special feats to amuse the crowd, and with a cow’s
tail and bladder attached to the ends of a stick kept the crowd from
encroaching on the dancers. The Fool survived in Lancashire as “owd
Sooty face,” “Dirty Bet,” and “owd Molly Coddle” as late as 1891.
The Hobby-Horse was a great feature of the dance in early days.
Its wild capering and frolicking around added much to the general
amusement. Mr Cecil Sharp says that he has not met with a traditional
dancer who remembers a hobby-horse being part of the Morris side, but
there are numerous allusions to it in writing.
In “Cobbe’s Prophecies, his Signs and Tokens, his Madrigalls, Questions
and Answers” (1614), the following occurs:—
“And fine Maide Marian with her smoile,
Shew’d how a rascall plaide the roile:
But, when the Hobby-Horse did wihy,
Then all the wenches gave a tihy.”
Robin Hood and Friar Tuck also appear occasionally in historic
accounts, but I have never heard of either character as part of the
“sides” now existing.
The musician, once a player on pipe and tabor, later on the fiddle, and
to-day sometimes on the concertina, was of course indispensable, and I
was told at Headington of one old fiddler for that “side,” who played
until he was so old that he had to be carried from place to place and
deposited on the roadside when the dancers halted for the dance, and
I heard of another who rode a donkey when too old to accompany the
dancers on foot.
The Treasurer who carried the collecting box is also important. Most
“sides” of Morris men had a “sword-bearer,” who carried round a
gaily decorated sword on which was impaled a cake, specially made for
the occasion by some lady who undertook the duty year by year, though
of late (as at Bampton) the cake is just an ordinary shop-made one. A
small knife is stuck in the cake, and the sword-bearer hands it round
to the spectators, who each ceremonially take a piece. The “treasurer”
follows with a box into which one is expected to put a donation to
compensate the dancers “for their trouble.”
[Illustration: Whit-Monday at Bampton-in-the-Bush, Oxon.]
The effect of the ceremony is quite extraordinary. To go from the
London of to-day to a quiet village and take part in this old ritual
is to know the link which binds the ornate Catholic ritual of to-day
to the most primitive ritual evolved by the folk to express the
truths of incarnation, of sacrifice, of death, and of resurrection.
To go from Kirtlington, where in the traditional tales of the oldest
inhabitants there are still traces of the human sacrifice, and later
of a lamb sacrificed as a substitute, and to go on to Bampton, where
the cake alone typifies the ancient sacrificial rite, is to realise the
power inherent in the human race to lay aside in each generation some
cruelty, some horror, and to rise by slow degrees into a higher state
of evolution. The study of folk-dance and of the legend and ceremonial
which surround it opens up a great field of interest to all who would
learn the secrets of human development.
VI. THE SWORD DANCE
The Sword dance is still performed in the North of England,
generally at Christmas time and on Plough Monday, 6th of January.
It was originally part of a pageant or Mummers’ play in which the
ever-recurring drama of death and resurrection was acted in various
forms.
Mr Sharp says that traces of it have been found in two southern English
counties. Mr Carey found a dance called “Over the Sticks” in Sussex,
but it has more of the characteristics of the Scotch sword dance, in
which the swords are placed on the ground and the dancer shows his
skill by dancing elaborate steps over and between the swords. Sometimes
in the Midlands a similar dance is found in which long Churchwarden
pipes take the place of the sticks. The sword dances of Northern
England are quite different, and are allied to those found in many
European countries. These show traces of ancient ceremonial worship and
the slaying of the sacrificial victim, and are more in the nature of
drama than dance.
In _Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda_, by Leopold von Schroeder (1908),
there are some very interesting suggestions as to the meaning of these
ceremonial sword dances, one of which, referring to the sword dance
of Yorkshire called the Giants’ dance, runs as follows (p. 118):—“The
leading feature of the dance, which was performed by masked peasants,
was that two swords were swung around and on to the neck of a boy
without hurting him. The circumstance is of great importance that the
leading giant was called Woden and his wife Frigg. This shows us the
mythological significance of the dance, clearly and without doubt.
Whilst we here see Woden stepping forth as a great dancer, as the
chief of a troop of giant dancers, we get a new and important feature
in the representation of the god which makes him still more like the
wild dancer Rudra-Shiva, a feature of which we hear nothing from other
accounts of Wodan-Odin, and yet which is undoubtedly old and real. We
must picture to ourselves here not the great heavenly god of the Edda,
but rather the still far more primitive though already powerful spirit
of the wind, of the soul, and of fruitfulness, from which the great god
Woden has developed. Perhaps, too, we may see in the boy round whose
neck the sword was swung harmlessly, the new-born, youthful spirit
of fruitfulness: whom the swords shall symbolically protect, whose
growth and thriving the sword dance, as a magical enchantment bearing
fruitfulness, was in all probability intended to promote. In the same
way the Curetes held the sword dance round the young Zeus, and the
Corybantes round the infant Dionysos, in order to protect him. In my
opinion it was also to promote his growth.”
One is not so dependent on present-day dancers for a description of
the sword dances as one is for that of the Morris dances, for certain
records have survived. Olaus Magnus, in his _History of the Northern
Nations_, thus describes the sword dance as practised by the Swedes
and Goths:—“First with their swords sheathed and erect in their hands
they dance in a triple round. Then with their drawn swords held erect
as before, afterwards extending them from hand to hand, they lay hold
of each other’s hilt and point while they are wheeling more moderately
round, and changing their order, throw themselves into the figure of a
hexagon which they call a rose. But presently, raising and drawing back
their swords they undo that figure to form (with them) a four-square
rose that may rebound over the head of each. At last they dance rapidly
backwards, and vehemently rattling the sides of their swords together
conclude the sport. Pipes or songs (sometimes both) direct the measure,
which at first is slow, but increasing afterwards becomes a very quick
one towards the conclusion.”
He calls this a kind of Gymnastic Rite in which the ignorant were
successively instructed by those who were skilled in it.
[Illustration: _Photo by J. H. Graham_
“The Lock”; Characteristic of Sword Dances]
The first sword dance I saw performed was the Earsdon, which was
accompanied by the small pipes. It looks very complicated, and is more
interesting from an antiquarian point of view than from that of a
dance. The performers keep huddled up together, and it is difficult for
a spectator to see much of what is going on. The second one I saw was
at Flamborough, and it was danced by eight fishermen who have learnt
it traditionally for longer than anyone living to-day can tell. This
is a much more attractive dance, with more variety in the figures,
and is almost identical with the description given by Olaus Magnus.
Eventually I had two of the fishermen up to London, and they taught
the dance to eight young men, who have in their turn passed it on to
a great many others. Mr Fuller Maitland has published the Sword Dance
Song of Kirkby Malzeard in _English County Songs_, with the music. He
considers that the tune of the Prologue has much of the Morris dance
character, and that it was probably used for the actual dancing. The
song describes each of the dancers, who comes out from among the rest
as he is described by the singer. Old Thomas Wood of Kirkby Malzeard
told Mr Bower, who took down the tune, that he would have nothing to do
with the present Christmas sword dancers, or Moowers, “who have never
had the full of it, and don’t dress properly nor do it in any form,
being a bad, idle company.” They were originally taught by him, to make
up his numbers at the Ripon Millenary Festival.
Mr Sharp has collected seven sword dances, including those of Earsdon,
Flamborough, and Kirkby Malzeard, but probably none are danced as they
were in the old days before more modern amusements took the place of
the old folk festivals.
The sword dance, like the Morris, was essentially a man’s dance, and
whereas many of the Morris dances are quite suitable for women, the
sword dance should be kept strictly as a man’s dance.
VII. THE FURRY DANCE
The Furry dance comes under the heading of a genuine folk-dance and is
part of an old ritual of May Day. Mrs Lily Grove gives the following
account of it:—
“The Fadé or Furry dance takes place in the parish of Helston, on Furry
Day, May 8th, which to dwellers in those parts is like Christmas Day to
most English people.”
Fadé is an old Cornish word meaning “to go,” and is often corrupted
into faddy, while furry is by some authorities derived from the Cornish
fuer, signifying fair or merry-making. Mr Quin, in the _Royal Cornwall
Gazette_ of May 13th, 1864, gives the following description of the
dance:—
“There were forty-one couples. They just trip it on in couples hand
in hand, during the first part of the Furry dance tune forming a long
string, the gentleman leading his partner with his right hand: second
part of the tune, the first gentleman turns with both hands, the lady
behind him and her partner turns the same way with the first lady, then
each gentleman in the same manner with his own partner; then trip as
before, each part of the tune being repeated. The other couples pair
and turn the same way and at the same time. The movement is elegant.
The party proceed up one side of the street and down the other, passing
through all the houses they choose.”
This dance is very like the spring dance of other countries, where it
was customary to stop before every door to give a blessing and ask for
contributions. Any house omitted was considered unlucky. Men and women
both take part in this dance, and the alternate processional and figure
dancing shows that it is probably of the same nature as the Tideswell
processional dance. It is in this respect also like the “Lancashire
Morris processional,” “Long Morris,” and the tune of the Furry dance is
like the tune of “Long Morris.”
_Goosey Dancing._—There is also the Cornish “Goosey Dancing,” which is
danced by boys and girls, and which has much in common with Saturnalian
revels. It is danced at Christmas time for a week, ending on Plough
Monday.
The word “goosey” probably comes from “guised,” for it is customary
to dress up for the festivities and for the boys and girls to change
dresses. This is a very usual feature of Saturnalian revels, and
much shocked the Puritans, as it is contrary to the express law of
Deuteronomy.
_The Gienys Dance._—In the Isle of Man, on January 6th, the Gienys
Dance is held, and the mainstyr or master of the ceremony appoints
every man his tegad or valentine for the year.
_The Abbot’s Bromley Horn Dance._—Mr Sharp has included this in his
book of Sword Dances. The dancers have stags’ horns attached to their
heads, but there is no very distinctive step.
VIII. THE COUNTRY DANCE
A few country dances are still remembered by old people living in
villages, but, unlike the Morris dances, by far the greater number of
country dances are recorded both as to steps and figures, so that they
do not come under the same heading as the strictly traditional dance.
The supposition that “country-dance” is a corruption of “contre-danse,”
and that it came to England from France, is not correct. It was in
fact, as in name, a country dance, danced by country folk in barn and
ale-house and on village greens. It travelled to France, and was called
there the “Contre-danse.” Later these dances were adopted by the upper
classes and even penetrated into Court circles. At this time they were
at their best, and many were danced in the round form, but gradually
this form became obsolete, until in the middle of the eighteenth
century only the dances “longways for as many as will” were danced.
In Grove’s _Dictionary of Music_ Mr Kidson gives an account of a dance
called “Mall Peatly, the new way,” which he has seen danced in a
cottage on a Yorkshire moor. “You are to hit your right elbows together
and then your left, and turn with your left hands behind and your right
hands before, and turn twice round and then your left elbows together,
and turn as before and so to the next.” Mr Cecil Sharp has collected
a number of country dances still danced by country folk, and Mr Clive
Carey has also collected country dances, principally in Sussex. But
the great mine of wealth wherein are the greatest numbers of these
beautiful, old-fashioned dances is _Playford’s Dancing Master_.
The first edition of this collection is entitled “The English Dancing
Master: or Plain and Easie Rules for the Dancing of Country Dances,
with the tune to each dance (104 pages of music). Printed by Thomas
Harper, and are to be sold by John Playford at his shop in the Inner
Temple neere the Church doore.” The date is 1651, but it was entered at
Stationers’ Hall on the 7th of November, 1650.
The next is “The Dancing Master, ... second edition, enlarged and
corrected from many grosse errors which were in the former edition.”
This was printed by John Playford in 1652 (112 pages of Music). The
two next editions, those of 1657 and 1665, each contain 132 Country
Dances, and are counted by Playford as one edition. To both were added
the tunes of the most usual French Dances, and also other new and
pleasant English Tunes for the Treble Violin. (The tunes for the Violin
were afterwards printed separately as “Apollo’s Banquet,” and are not
included in any other edition of the _Dancing Master_.) The date of
the fourth edition is 1670 (155 pages of Music). The fifth edition,
1675 (160 pages of Music). The sixth edition, from advertisements in
Playford’s other publications, appears to have been printed in 1680.
The seventh edition bears the date 1686 (208 pages), but to this “an
additional sheet,” containing thirty-two tunes, was first added, then
“a new additional sheet of twelve pages,” and lastly “a new addition of
six more.” The eighth edition was printed by E. Jones for H. Playford,
and great changes made in the airs. It has 220 pages, date 1690. The
ninth edition, 196 pages, date 1695. The second part of the _Dancing
Master_, 24 pages, date 1696. The tenth edition, 215 pages, date
1698, also the second edition of the second part, ending on page 48
(irregularly paged), 1698. The eleventh edition, 312 pages, date 1701.
The twelfth edition, 354 pages, date 1703.
A sixteenth and a seventeenth edition, which, however, are identical,
are in the Bodleian Library.
The directions for the dance were written under each, but only the
figures are given, but no steps. The following directions for one of
the dances, “All in a Garden Green,” will give an idea of the curious
phraseology of the book:—
ALL IN A GARDEN GREEN. Longways for six.
Lead up all a D. forwards and back, set and turn S. [·_]; that again
[:_].
First man shake his own Wo. by the hand, then the 2, then the 3, by one
hand, then by the other, kisses her twice and turn her [·_], shake her
by the hand, then the 2, then your own by one hand, then by the other,
kiss her twice and turn her [:_].
Sides all, set and turn S. [·_]; that again [:_]. This as before, the
We. doing it [:_].
Arms all, set and turn S. [·_]; that again [:_]. This as before, the
men doing it [:_].
_A Table explaining the characters which are set down in the Rules for
Dancing_
D. Is for double. A double is four steps forward
and backward, closing both feet.
S. Is for a single. A single is two steps, closing
both feet.
Wo. Stands for Woman.
We. Stands for Women.
Cu. Stands for Couple.
Co. Stands for Contrary.
2. Stands for Second.
3. Stands for Third.
4. Stands for Fourth.
[·_] This is for a strain play’d once.
[:_] This is for a strain play’d twice.
These two characters expresse the figures
of the dance,
☉ This stands for the Man.
☽ This stands for the Woman.
In 1904 Miss Nellie Chaplin gave a performance of dances including
the “Pavane,” “Galliard,” “Allemande,” “Courante,” “Sarabande,” and
“Chacone,” and in 1906 led, through her study of old instruments
and old music, to an interest in other ancient dances, and with the
help of an expert in dancing she deciphered several of the dances
from _Playford’s Dancing Master_, harmonised the tunes, added the
appropriate steps from her collaborator’s knowledge of dancing, and
began to give public performances of the dances in London and different
parts of the country. No one who has ever seen these pupils of hers,
with their beautiful, old-fashioned dresses, dancing the old-world
dances accompanied by a string quartette and oboe, will ever forget
the charm of the performance. Miss Chaplin chose some of the most
complicated of the dances for revival, and has made the dancing of them
a real art. Some years later, Mr Cecil Sharp published a number of
Playford’s tunes and dances which were performed by the young ladies
of the South-Western Polytechnic, generally as illustrations of his
lectures on folk-dancing. They are now given by the Folk-Dance Society
at their performances. His method of giving the dances is different
from Miss Chaplin’s, because his pupils, unlike hers, do not use any
steps, but only give the figures with a walking or running step, which
is the same in all the dances. Which method is best is purely a matter
of taste.
Through Miss Chaplin, the Folk-Dance Society, and the Espérance Guild,
the country dances are now once more danced by numbers of people all
over the country, and it is to be hoped that they will never again
recede between the covers of a dancing-master’s book.
The country dance tunes are often ballad tunes.
The tunes played to-day by country fiddlers are often found in early
books of opera and printed collections of airs.
For instance, the tune of Tink-a-Tink, a country dance collected by Mr
Sharp and published in Set II. of _Country Dance Tunes, collected from
Traditional Sources_, is a song in the Opera “Bluebeard,” by Michael
Kelly, published in 1799.
“The Butterfly” in Set I. of the same series is apparently a
remembrance of the once popular “I’d be a Butterfly,” the words and
melody by Thomas Haynes Bayly. It is included in many books of airs.
The tunes did not always gain by passing through the hands of the
village musician.
IX. THE PRESENT-DAY REVIVAL OF THE FOLK-DANCE
Twenty years ago the folk-dance had almost entirely disappeared, and
the first definite effort made to reawaken it was that made by Mr
D’Arcy Ferrers, who in 1886 revived the Morris dance in Bidford-on-Avon
and round about that neighbourhood. This created great interest at the
time, an interest which has since never wholly died out, though but for
Mr D’Arcy Ferrers it is probable that the dances of that neighbourhood
would have completely disappeared. At that time the traditional “side”
had been disbanded, and Mr Ferrers reconstituted the dances from the
little that remained in the memories of one or two old men.
He also taught them the tune of Arbeau’s Morris dance which they used
as “Morris Off,” and to which they invented a dance which is quite in
keeping with other traditional dances.
Later, in 1906, Lady Isabel Margesson interested herself in the
dancers, and invited Mr Cecil Sharp and Mr H. C. MacIlwaine to
Foxlydiat House, Redditch, where they took down the tunes and dances
which were published in their first _Morris Book_. Later Miss Florence
Warren went there to teach both these dances and others which had been
collected in the meantime. The Bidford dances were also collected by
Mr John Graham and published in _The Morris Dances of Shakspeare’s
Country_. In a recent edition of his _Morris Book_, Mr Cecil Sharp has
omitted these Bidford dances, or retaken them from the Ilmington men,
from whom they are believed to have originally been learnt.
But a more important revival took place in 1899, when Mr Percy Manning
revived the Headington “Side,” for in this case most of the dancers
belonged to the traditional “Side.” An entertainment was given at
the Corn Exchange in Oxford, and the following interesting account
of it appeared in the local papers:—“When the men danced in unison
to the strains of a somewhat primitive fiddler quite a pretty effect
was produced, whilst to the onlooker the spectacle was at once a
convincing proof of its antiquity, so grotesque were the actions and
gestures of the performers. The dance partakes somewhat of the nature
of a hornpipe: there is a good deal of action in it, and it cannot be
accused of too much sedateness or gravity. The troupe in each dance
were accompanied by a fool, generally known as the Squire, who wore
a diversified dress, consisting of a silk hat, decked with coloured
ribbons, a white smock, and breeches, and one white and one brown
stocking. He carried a stick with a bladder and a cow’s tail at either
end and frequently applied the stick to the back of the dancers.”
The dances given at this revival were “The Blue-eyed Stranger,”
“Constant Billy,” “Country Gardens,” “Rigs o’ Marlow,” “How d’ye do,
Sir?” “Bean-setting,” “Haste to the Wedding,” “Rodney,” “Trunk Hose,”
and “Draw Back.”
It was during this revival at Headington that Mr Cecil Sharp first took
down the tunes of the Morris dances which he afterwards gave to me in
1905. But this revised “side” of Morris men did not survive very long,
and in 1905 or before had again given in and no longer danced down “The
High” at Whitsuntide as in the old days.
But it was in 1905 that the real and, as I believe, permanent revival
of the folk-dance first took place, and it happened in this way.
For many years the Working Girls’ Club, of which I am the honorary
secretary, had devoted much time to learning national dances, and had
already learnt the Scotch dances direct from two Scotchmen and the
Irish dances from an Irish lady, so that we were quite ready to learn
the English dances in the same way. Mr Cecil Sharp told me about the
Headington Morris dancers, and gave me Mr William Kimber’s address.
I went to Headington and arranged for him and his cousin to come to
London to teach the members of my Club. That first evening was a
revelation to me, for I had never seen these London girls, with their
natural aptitude for dancing in any form, quite so eager or so quick
to learn. In two evenings they had mastered about four Morris dances,
and were told by the instructors that they had got the dances quite
perfectly.
The following account of that evening is taken from the first book of
instructions by Mr Sharp and Mr MacIlwaine—
“The result of their coming far out-ran our fondest anticipations.
The Morris, like the magic beanstalk, seemed to outwit the laws of
nature: we saw it in the heart of London rise up from its long sleep
before our very eyes. In connection with this affair, the mention of
that well-beloved fable is appropriate and irresistible. The first
dance that was set before these Londoners—upon this occasion which we
enthusiasts make bold to call historic—was Bean-setting. It represents
the setting of the seed in spring-time. Of course the music, its lilt
and the steps that their forefathers had footed to it in the olden
time, were as little known to these, the London born, as the tongue
and ceremonial of old Peru. As little known, yet not strange at all;
it was a summons never heard until now, yet instantly obeyed: because,
though unfamiliar and unforeseen, it was of England, and came, even
though it was centuries upon the way, to kinsfolk. Let the precisian
explain it as he may, that is our way of accounting for an experience
both fruitful and astounding. Within half-an-hour of the coming of
these Morris men we saw the Bean-setting—its thumping and clashing
of staves, its intricate figures and steps hitherto unknown—in full
swing upon a London floor. And upon the delighted but somewhat dazed
confession of the instructor, we saw it perfect in execution to the
least particular. It was even so with the other dances; to see them
shown was to see them learned.”
That first evening’s Morris dancing was the beginning of many happy
hours of practice culminating in a demonstration of the dances and
songs at a Christmas party held in the rooms of the Passmore Edwards’
Settlement in 1905. The revival of the folk-dance, which was at
once realised as genuine by many who were there, resulted in a more
public performance in 1906, and from that date until the present day
a series of Concerts has been given in London and within a radius
of thirty miles around, and as far north as Yorkshire and south as
Sussex. Besides this, the dancers were almost at once invited to teach
the dances, and at the present time have taught in every county,
and in villages, towns, schools, clubs, factories, and educational
institutions from one end of England to the other. In 1909 the Board
of Education sanctioned the dances being used as part of the course of
physical exercises and organised play, but until after that sanction
the members of the Espérance Club were the only teachers who had
learnt their dances direct from the country dancers. The girls soon
taught their men friends, and to-day as well as the girls we have
several “Sides” of men who both teach and give displays of the dances.
Since the visit of the first two Headington men, I have had over twenty
dancers up to London, from Headington, Abingdon, Oddington, Yardley
Gobion, Northampton, Lancashire, Warwickshire, Yorkshire, and other
places, all of whom have contributed something to our direct knowledge
of the dances still to be found in the country; and with Mr Clive Carey
and others I have visited different centres of dancing with a view to
bringing the dancers to London to teach, collecting all I could about
old customs surviving around the dances and getting acquainted with
the dancers. I have also sent some of our club members to the country
with the same end in view. There is, therefore, at the present time a
very strong link between the traditional dancers in the country and
the young people in London who are busy practising and passing on the
dances, and there is no longer any fear now that the dances will die
out completely and be lost to the coming generations.
At first all we had to depend on when teaching the dance was the
memory of our working girls who had first learnt the dances, and
the manuscript of the music which Mr Sharp had taken down from the
men who taught us. Thus it became necessary to make the record more
permanent and to leave some guide to the dances with those whom we
taught. Mr Sharp and Mr MacIlwaine, with the help of Miss Florence
Warren, who danced again and again while the actual steps were being
recorded, then published a book of tunes and instructions for the
dances, and these have been followed by three more sets of the dances.
Mr John Graham published two volumes very shortly after, and Mr Clive
Carey, Mr Geoffrey Toye, and I followed with two volumes of tunes and
instructions. We are all still engaged both in searching for dances,
teaching them, and recording them for future use, and though probably
the best and most characteristic dances are now duly recorded, still
one is never sure where the work is really ended, and we shall always
be glad to hear from any readers of fresh dances, which we shall be
glad to investigate and, if genuine, record for future use.
In 1907 Mr Cecil Sharp and I disagreed over the constitution of a
committee, and from that date have worked on entirely separate lines. I
have kept very carefully to the traditional lines, making a great point
of having those whom I send out to teach taught by country dancers
without the intervention of professional dance instructors, so that
to-day, after eight years’ practice, I believe they are dancing as much
like the original dancers as is possible.
After the recognition of the traditional dances by the Board of
Education, Mr Sharp started a school of teachers at the London
South-Western Polytechnic, and the teachers sent out from there have
also taught in different parts of the country. As lately as 1911 these
young ladies from the Polytechnic have formed the nucleus of the
Folk-Dance Society, with Mr Sharp as Director, while the Espérance
Club, as the Espérance Guild of Morris Dancers, also continues its work.
In 1910 I organised a vacation School at Littlehampton in Sussex, when
sixty teachers from County Council Schools in different parts of the
country met to learn the folk-dances, and later that year I transferred
the School, with Miss Florence Warren and Mr Clive Carey as instructors
in dance and song, at the request of the Governors of the Memorial
Theatre at Stratford-on-Avon to that place, and about two hundred
availed themselves of the opportunity of learning the songs and dances.
At this point, owing to Mr Sharp’s criticism of our methods, it was
decided to hold a conference to discuss points of difference with
a view to making the work at Stratford-on-Avon both national and
permanent. In view of this conference, I resigned my position as
hon. secretary of the Folk-Dance School at Stratford-on-Avon. But no
conference was held, and Mr Sharp was appointed Director of the School.
The School organised by the Espérance Guild was taken back to
Littlehampton, and is held there every Easter.
A belated conference was held two years later, with no practical
results.
It is hoped that in future some National Centre will be formed which
will bring together all those interested in the collection and
perpetuation of our English folk-dances, so that nothing of this
National treasure be lost to future generations.
X. CONCLUSIONS
In the foregoing pages we have seen how in primitive times dancing
was inextricably interwoven with all religious ceremonial, even when
that religion took the earlier form of magic and the dancing was part
of a ceremonial to induce the growth of crops or the rising of the
morning sun. We have seen, too, how later the more advanced teaching of
the Greek and Christian religion was partly expressed and symbolised
in dance and rhythmic gesture. We have seen these same dances as
part of the popular festivities of the folk, gathered around May-day
festivals, rude drama, wakes, lamb ales and rush-bearing, and attached
still to the Church as part of the festivals of Christmas, Easter, and
Whitsuntide.
And finally we have recorded the existence of these dances in villages
and country towns in different parts of England at the present day,
their recent revival, and the success which has attended their
reintroduction to the present generation.
It is of the utmost importance that the nature of these dances should
be clearly kept in mind by those who are responsible for their
continuance. Until six years ago they were unrecorded in manuscript
or print, they were only in the memory of the remaining Morris men,
most of them old and quite unlettered, and there was no language in
which to express the steps and evolutions but that invented by these
peasant men. Neither could these cryptic sayings, such as “foot up,”
“half hands,” “hey sides up,” “gipsies,” “half rounds,” etc., etc.,
be interpreted except by a patient watching of the dancers on the few
occasions when they could be got together to give a demonstration.
The following account of an old dancer will give the atmosphere of the
folk-dance and an idea of the way in which the Espérance Guild teachers
have themselves learned the dances. I was speaking in a village at a
“sing song” one evening when a man asked me if I had ever heard of
certain dances and offered to give me the names of the then surviving
dancers. I said “No,” and he gave me the names.
I wrote to one of two brothers who still had the traditional dances and
received the following reply:—
“Honourable and respected Miss,—
“I am the party what has got those dances, I shall be proud to show
them to you, yours to command.”
Eventually I went to see him, spent an afternoon in the bar parlour of
a jolly little inn, and invited him and his brother up to London.
When they began to teach we found they had only one adjective between
them and it was “perpendicular,” and this word had to do duty many
times during the evening. We were told we must “dance perpendicular to
one another,” “perpendicular to the music,” and finally that we had got
the dance “quite perpendicular”!
But I think we got hold of the dance, and that our boys and girls
dance it much better than if they had been taught it by a professional
dancer with technical terms and a settled technique; anyway, they love
the dance, and it is always encored when we give it in public.
What, then, is the natural way for these ever-changing, ever-evolving
dances to be passed on? I unhesitatingly say that they should be learnt
in the first instance from the traditional dancer and passed on in
the same way. The written instructions are only useful as a reminder
of steps and evolutions, and should never be made an unalterable and
fixed standard. For if folk-dancing has been evolving through all these
countless generations, who shall fix the exact moment when evolution
ceased and the steps and evolutions became fixed and unalterable? So
far as I have seen traditional dancers, I have noticed that not only
does every side in every village dance a little differently, but each
man has his own way with the steps, and still further, the same man
may dance differently every time he does the dance. I am behind no one
in the desire that these dances shall be as accurately transcribed
and as carefully taught as possible, and that the general character
and atmosphere shall be preserved, but it is just because of this
desire that I would have the dances as far as possible left to the
interpretation of those who are unhampered by technical knowledge and
unconfined by technical terms and academic restrictions.
In September 1912, I had up to town from Bampton two traditional
dancers who imparted three dances, “The Rose Tree,” “Glorisheers,”
and “The Flowers of Edinburgh,” to a group of working boys and girls.
About two months later these same boys and girls were teaching others
the three dances. Looking on with great interest were six children,
whose average age was eleven, all from elementary schools. These
children had already learnt several of the Headington and Bidford
dances, but had not seen the Bampton dances, the steps of which vary
considerably from those of the two other places. In about an hour, as
I thought it was rather dull for the children, I said, “Let me see if
you can dance ‘The Rose Tree’ while the elder ones have a rest.” The
children were delighted with the suggestion, and to my surprise went
through the dance almost perfectly as to both step and evolution. A few
corrections and two more attempts, and the dance was quite correctly
danced. This being a fact of which this is only one of many proofs,
it is quite evident that a series of demonstrations by those who know
the dance is all that is needed to pass it on to those interested
enough to watch. There seems to be in these traditional dance movements
something natural and inevitable, so that it is more easy to dance them
correctly than to do them wrongly, and I think it is in this spirit
that they should be taught. There is nothing strained and difficult,
nothing artificial or exotic; all is simple, dignified, vigorous, and
joyful.
For this reason I have sometimes regretted that the folk-dance has
become officially recognised as part of the school curriculum, and I
regret too the necessity for books of instructions. I would rather
the dances had remained in the memories of dancers and that the right
atmosphere had been secured only by the verbal telling of folk-tale and
legend. But books seem to be a necessity to-day, and lest again we lose
our national heritage of dance, perhaps it is well that some records
have been made.
Another point that should be emphasised is that there should be as much
interest as possible aroused in the collecting of these dances, and
as much publicity as possible about the places where they are danced,
the time of year when they can be seen, and the dancers who still hold
the tradition. Probably the best dances are already in print; still,
surprises of treasure still undiscovered may await us, and even if
every known dance is already collected and published, nothing but good
will come of this being done again and again by different people at
different times. This will keep the traditional dances from becoming
set and rigid, and will give a delightful air of spontaneity if at
any folk festival, while all dance correctly, each dances a little
differently from the others. Nothing is less to be desired than that
any school or any individual should take possession of this national
treasure; let all who are interested give of their best, whether as
collectors, teachers, organisers, or writers, to the preservation of
our National Folk-Dance.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
In the space of the foregoing book it has been impossible to give more
than a limited account of English Folk-Dance. Students are, therefore,
referred to the following books—
“Dancing.” Badminton Library. By Mrs Lily Grove. 1895.
“Educational Value of Dancing and Pantomime.”
By Dr Stanley Hall, Clarke University, Worcester, Mass.
“Illustrations of Shakespeare and of Ancient Manners.”
2 vols. London, 1807. By Francis Douce. 1807.
“The Witch of Edmonton.” By divers well estimed Poets,
W. Rowley, T. Dekker, J. Ford, etc. 1658.
“History, Natural and Experimental, of Life and Death.”
Lord Bacon. 1638.
“Every Man out of His Humour.” Ben Jonson. Act II. Sc. i.
1600.
“The Gypsies Metamorphosed.” Gifford’s Edition,
reprinted by Lt.-Col. Cunningham. 1875. Vol. II.
“Women Pleased.” J. Fletcher.
“Survey of London.” By Strype. 1791.
“Orchesographie. Et Traicte en Forme de Dialogue.
Par lequel toutes personnes peuvent facilement
apprendre et pratiquer l’honneste exercice des
dances.” Par Thoinot-Arbeau (_i.e._ Jean Tabourot)
demeurant-a-Langres. (22nd Nov., 1588.)
“The Vow Breaker, or Fair Maid of Clifton.”
William Sampson. 1636.
“Old Meg of Herefordshire for a Mayd Marian, and
Hereford towne for a Morris-dance; or twelve Morris
dancers in Herefordshire of 1200 years old.” 1609.
“Survey of London,” 1598, p. 72. Stowe.
“Antiquites Vulgares.” Bourne. 1725.
“Natural History of Cornwall.” Borlase. 1758.
“The British Bibliographer.” Vol. IV.
“Popular Antiquities.” Brand. The early and the later editions.
“English County Songs.” Collected by Lucy E. Broadwood
and J. A. Fuller Maitland. 1893.
“Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda.”
By Leopold Von Schroeder. 1908.
“Old English Sports, Pastimes, and Customs.”
By Rev. P. H. Ditchfield. (Methuen, 1891.)
“Festivals, Games, and Amusements, Ancient and Modern.”
By Horatio Smith. (Colburn & Bentley, 1831.)
“A Picture of the Manners, Customs, Sports and
Pastimes of the Inhabitants of England, from the
arrival of the Saxons down to the Eighteenth
Century.” By J. Aspen. (J. Harris, St. Paul’s
Churchyard, 1825.)
“Book of Days.” In 2 vols. Chambers. (W. & R. Chambers,
London, 1863.)
“The Mediaeval Stage.” In 2 vols. Chambers. 1903.
“Glig-Gamena, Angel-Deod, or The Sports and Pastimes
of the People of England.” By J. Strutt. (London, 1801.)
“Old Country Life.” By S. Baring-Gould. (Methuen, 1890.)
“Shropshire Folk-Lore.” Edited by C. S. Burne,
from the collections of Georgina Jackson.
(Trübner, 57 Ludgate Hill, 1883.)
“Rush-Bearing.” An Account of Old Customs. By Alfred Burton.
(Brook & Chrystal, Manchester, 1891.)
“Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair.” By H. Morley.
(Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly, 1880.)
“Popular Music of the Olden Times.” 2 vols.
By William Chappell, F.S.A. (London, 1855-59.)
“Lancashire Legends, Sports, etc.” By J. Harland and T. Wilkinson.
(J. Heywood, London, 1882.)
“Household Tales and Traditional Remains.”
By S. O. Addy. (D. Nutt, Strand, 1895.)
“British Goblins—Folk-Lore.” By Wirt Sikes.
(Sampson Low, Marston, 1880.)
“Manners, Customs, and Observances.” By Leopold Wagner.
(W. Heinemann, London, 1894.)
“Hone’s Year Book.” See vols. I., II., and IV.
(T. Tegg, 73 Cheapside, 1832.)
“Brand’s Popular Antiquities of Great Britain.”
By W. Carew Hazlitt.
(J. Russel Smith, 36 Soho Square, 1870.)
“Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-Lore.”
By C. Hardwick. (Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1872.)
“The Gentleman’s Magazine Library.” Edited by G. L. Gomme.
(See vol. on Manners and Customs, also vol. on
Popular Superstitions.) (Elliot Stock, Paternoster Row, 1883.)
“The Study of Folk Song.” By Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco.
(G. Redway, York Street, 1886.)
“Folk-Lore.” Mr Percy Manning’s contributions to this Journal.
“Dictionary of Music and Musicians.” 4 vols.
Edited by Sir George Grove.
“The Pirate.” Sir Walter Scott.
“Nine Days’ Wonder performed on a Journey from London to Norwich.”
Kemp. 1600. (Arber, _English Garner_, II., 1903.)
“Shakespeare and his Times.” 2 vols. Dr Nathan Drake.
London, 1817.
“The Environs of London.” 4 vols. Daniel Lyson. 1792-96.
“Shakespeare and Music.” Edward W. Naylor, M.A., Mus. Bac.
London, 1896.
“Lancashire and Cheshire Morris Dances.” By John Graham.
“Shakespeare Morris Dances.” By John Graham.
“The Morris Book.” 3 vols. By Cecil Sharp and H. C. MacIlwaine.
“The Morris Book.” 1 vol. By Cecil Sharp.
“Sword Dances of Northern England.” By Cecil Sharp.
“Espérance Morris Book.” 2 vols. Edited by Mary Neal.
“Dances of the Olden Time.” A. Moffat and Frank Kidson.
INDEX
Addison’s allusions to folk-song, 3, 80
Aird, James, his _Selection_ (1788), 29
Ballad, the narrative, 53
Ballad sheets and song garlands, 79
Ballad printers, 80
Baring-Gould, Rev. S., 43
Barrett, Dr W. A., 43, 44
“Basket of Oysters,” 29, 30
Bewick, Thomas, 61, 84
Bibliography of folk-song and folk-music, 86
“Bonny Labouring Boy,” 23
Boughton, Mr Rutland, 47
Broadwood, Rev. John, 41
Broadwood, Miss Lucy E., 43, 44, 75
Bunting, Edward, _Ancient Music of Ireland_, 33
Bussell, Mr F. W., 44
Cante-fable, the, 15
Carols, 23, 74, 113
Chanty, the sea, 72
Chaplin’s, Miss Nellie, revival of ancient dances, 157
Chappell, William, 41
Churchwardens’ accounts, 112, 136
“Cock o’ the North,” 31, 32
Country dance, the, 152
Cox, Captain, his collection of ballads, 80
Dance rhythm, 111
Dibdin, Charles, 61
Dickens, Charles, his _Nurse’s Story_, 18
Dress, 136
Drinking songs, 62
Elizabethan Morris dancing, 119
Engel, Carl, _Study of National Music_, 22
Espérance Working Girls’ Club, revival of Morris dancing in, 161
Execution ballads, 66
Extra characters, 141
Ferrers’, Mr D’Arcy, revival of Morris dancing, 158
Folk-dance, definition of, 97
Folk-music and folk-song, changes in, 25
construction of, 19
conventional passages in, 34
Folk-song, definition of, 10
different classes of, 52
difficulty of localizing, 39
diffusion of, 37
Indian, 12
movement for collecting, 40
Society, its origin and members, 45
suggested origin of, 11
the noting of, 47
Fool, the, 142
Fraser, Mrs Kennedy, 74
French songs, their popularity in England, 6
Furry dance, 150
Gardiner, Mr H. Balfour, 47
Gilchrist, Miss A. G., 22, 46
Goosey dancing, 151
Grainger, Mr Percy, 46
“Greensleeves,” 5, 27, 28
Grove’s _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_, 22
Hebrides, songs of the, 74
Highwayman songs, 64
Hobby-horse, the, 143
Hone’s, William, _Ancient Mysteries_, 76
Humorous songs, 62
Hunting and sporting songs, 70
Jacobs’, Mr, _English Fairy Tales_, 15
“Joan’s Placket is torn,” 32
Labour, songs of, 71
Lancashire Morris dance, words of, 135
Laneham’s “Letter,” 80
Legge, Mr Robin H., 74
Love songs, 57
Manning’s, Mr Percy, revival of Morris dancing, 160
Mason, Miss A. H., 43
Mayor of the Morris, 142
Modern dancers’ dress, 139
Modes, the ecclesiastical, 19
Moore, Thomas, _Irish Melodies_, 29
Morris dances, list of, 128
Morris dances, where found, 130
Morris dancing, books on, 125
Morris dancing in later times, 122
“Morris,” derivation of word, 99
Mummers’ play, 99
Musical instruments, 132
_Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda_, 146
Mystic songs, 57
“One Moonlight Night,” 22
Orange, the story of, 17
“Paddy the Weaver,” 29
Pastoral songs, 60
Percy’s, Bishop, _Reliques of Ancient Poetry_, 47
Pictures of Morris dancers, 119
Playford’s _Dancing Master_, 153
Poaching songs, 64
Present-day teaching, 170
Pressgang songs, 69
Primitive religious customs, 102, 144
Printers of ballads and garlands, 80
Rhythms, mixed, 49
“Sailor loved a Farmer’s Daughter, A,” 33
Salii, the, 101
Sea chanties, 72
Sea songs, 67
“Shamrock Shore,” 24
Sharp, Mr Cecil J., 15, 47, 75
Sharp’s, Mr Cecil, revival of Morris dancing, 159
Sheppard, Rev. H. F., 44
Singing-games, 77
Soldier songs, 66
_Spectator_ quoted, 3, 80
Stanton, Mrs, 33
Stokoe, Mr John, 42
Stratford-on-Avon, 166
Sword dance, 145
Tolmie, Miss, 74
Treasurer, the, 144
Tunes, 130
Vacation School at Littlehampton, 166
Walton’s _Compleat Angler_, 79
Williams, Dr Vaughan, 47
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