English Folk-Song and Dance

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no doubt either that the nature of the tunes changed considerably as the whittle and dub went out of fashion and were superseded by the fiddle and later by the concertina, from which latter instrument the first revived tunes were taken by Mr Sharp from William Kimber.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.

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 the old play of Jacke Drums Entertainment (1601)—

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—

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:—

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:—

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.”

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.

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.

A Table explaining the characters which
are set down in the Rules for Dancing

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.