partner, makes the Tarantella an important feature of his repertoire. The trio in la Forlana was completed with the assistance of Mlle. Louise La Gai, as Columbina, Madame Saracco-Brignole and Sr. Mascagni representing Doctor Pantalone and Harlequin, respectively, completing the little cast.

As a stock character in other pantomimes and farces, Doctor Pantalone’s characteristics, both mental and physical, are so clearly defined that he has the reality of an acquaintance. In brief, he represents self-sureness and self-importance, with a weakness of revealing complete misinformation through indulgence in a habit of correcting the statements of others. Light-headed Columbina and mischief-making Harlequin are their familiar selves. The Forlana is a composition essentially of tableaux, with steps of the dance serving to lead from one picture to another.

Harlequin’s freedom with Columbina is resented by the elderly husband, who threatens the intruder with a cane. The frivolous young people dance away, after a mock-heroic pretence by Harlequin of protecting his inamorata from her husband. They begin a series of groups made to tantalise the dotard, whose possession of the young woman has clearly ceased to exist. Harlequin embraces her, gazes into her eyes, raises her to his shoulder, kisses her, and is otherwise familiar, while Pantalone storms and pleads. Perching aloft with her partner’s support in the various ways known to dancers of an acrobatic genius, Columbina reaches out to her spouse the tip of a finger, in smiling sarcasm. Pantalone later is reduced to kissing the little foot that from time to time kicks upward as the lovers play. When at length even that is the occasion of a dignified protest from Harlequin, the defeated one withdraws from an unequal competition and gives the couple his blessing.

Pantalone, apart from his relation to the Forlana, is one of a group of characters attached to the various Italian states as allegorical representatives. To Sardinia, for instance, pertains a soldierly looking youth called Maschara Sarda. Bologna has its Doctor Balanzone; Florence, Stenterello; Rome, Rugantino; Naples, Pulcinella—and this is to enumerate only a few out of a number slightly in excess of the number of states. These mythical beings are neither heroes nor caricatures, nor are they supposed at all to portray the qualities typical of the population they represent. Their associations seem to be without underlying significance, but they are none the less indissoluble in the mind of the Italian. Those who have most cause to love them are the writers of popular comedies; the simple device of putting a Balanzone or a Rugantino among the characters of the play makes possible a direct expression of ideas purporting to be those of the state itself. Such lines, regardless of the literary tone of the play, are customarily delivered in the local dialect of the region represented.

It is the Tarantella that the world at large accepts as Italy’s national dance; and rightly enough, since there is none whose popularity is more nearly general through the land. It is rather identified with Naples. There it is said to be the amusement that the younger working people think of first, when leisure allows the thought of any amusement at all; but it is very popular, too, through the South.

It is a breezy, animated dance, varied with pantomime not very profound, to be sure, but at least merry

with character. The mimetic action concerns the varying luck of la morra, that game that consists in guessing at the number of fingers open on the opponent’s suddenly revealed hand; perhaps the only gambling game for which every one is born with full equipment of implements. To a votary, every glance at his own five fingers must seem a temptation to seek a game. For whatever reason, it seems to be a necessary element in the life of the Italian labourer. The moment of the Tarantella given over to la morra is, as it were, an acknowledgment of its place among the people’s recreations.

As castanets are to the dances of Spain, the tambourine is to those of Italy. Like castanets, the tambourine produces an amazing variety of tones when handled by an expert. The effect its jovial emphasis of tempo has on the enthusiasm of dancer and spectator need not be dwelt upon; again sobriety succumbs before rhythm’s twofold attack on eye and ear together. Vivacity is insistent, too, in the colours of the Neapolitan costume. The tambourine is dressed in ribbons, characteristically the national red, white, and stinging green. Stripes as brilliant as caprice may suggest adorn the girl’s head-dress, apron and skirt. Nor must her more substantial finery be forgotten; until a responsible age is attained by children of her own, she is guardian of an accumulating collection of necklaces and earrings, bracelets and rings that are as a family symbol of respectability. Just as in other nations the inherited table silver is brought out to grace occasions of rejoicing, the Neapolitan young woman on like occasion exhibits gold, silver and gay red coral in adornment of her person—adding much to the sparkle of the Tarantella.

The boy (in these and the pictures of la Ciociara represented by Mlle. La Gai) has a necktie as red as dyes will yield, and a long fisherman’s cap of the same colour. It is Italian stage tradition, by the way, that the Neapolitan fisher boy’s trouser-legs should be rolled up to slightly different heights.

The dance itself is full of pretty groups, well spiced with moods. The steps are happily varied and well composed. There are many turns, the boy frequently assisting with the familiar spiral twist of the girl’s upraised hands—a device that, with any execution back of it, always produces a pleasant effect. The turns also are highly enhanced in value when, as they frequently do, they terminate so as to bring the dancers into an effective embrace. Preparation for a pirouette by both dancers is utilised, at one point, as a pretext for some delightfully grotesque poses.

It is a dance worthy of study and performance by artists, and of the enthusiasm of appreciators of good work. In Corinne occurs a passage reflecting its impression on Madame de Staël. The following selections seem most suggestive of the effect produced: “ ... beating the air with her tambourine—in all her movements showing a grace, a lissomeness, a blending of modesty and abandon, which gave the spectator some idea of the power exercised over the imagination by the Indian dancing-girls, when they are, so to speak, poets in the dance, expressing varied feelings by characteristic steps and picturesque attitudes. Corinne was so well acquainted with the different attitudes which painters and sculptors have depicted, that by a slight movement of her arms, holding the tambourine sometimes above her head, sometimes in front of her, while the other hand ran over the

bells with incredible swiftness, she would recall the dancing girls of Herculaneum, and present before the eye of the painter or artist one idea after another in swift succession. It was not French dancing, so remarkable for the elegance and difficulty of its steps; it was a talent much more closely related to imagination and feeling. The mood was expressed alternately by exactness or softness of movement. Corinne, dancing, made the onlookers share her feelings, just as if she were improvising, playing the lyre, or designing figures; every motion was to her as expressive as spoken language.”

The similarity between the words Tarantella, and “tarantula,” a large and poisonous spider, causes endless speculation to the end of establishing a more than etymological relation between the two. One author seriously affirms that the dance is a standard rural remedy for the bite of the insect, the energetic movement starting a perspiration that relieves the system of poison. Various German physicians have written reports on the subject, generally ending with a statement that the said antidote for poison is of doubtful efficacy! Approaching the subject from another angle, the word tarantismos is discovered: a species of hysteria common in Calabria and Apulia, and (by etymology) attributed to the bites of tarantulas to be found in those parts. But along comes another learned person who finds that tarantismos is not due to tarantula bites, but to certain molluscs that Calabrians and Apulians customarily include in their food régime! He harks back to a certain dancing mania that was more or less epidemic in Europe during a period of the Middle Ages, a hysterical condition found curable by violent dancing. Whence he induces that the Tarantella derives its name from tarantismos, and that it originated as a cure for neurasthenia. Still another finds that the ailment causes hysterical movements, “similar to dancing!” and flatters the Tarantella with this spasmodic origin. Again, a grave experimenter finds that tarantulas, placed on floats in water so that they will be disinclined to run away, will move their feet in time to music. He does not ask us to infer from this that the steps of the dance were so originated and composed, but in the cause of general joyousness he might have, and that without much damage to the accumulated erudition on the subject.

All the Latin countries, no less than Scotland and Ireland, have their Jig. In Italy, as elsewhere, it is a composition of rapid clog and shuffle steps. More than most Occidental countries Italy has a lingering fondness for pantomime; doubtless as a heritage from the theatre of Rome, and increased through centuries of political intrigue that sometimes made the spoken word inadvisable. Like the Forlana, la Ciociara of Romagna is an example of choreographic pantomime carried to a high pitch of narrative quality. It represents a heavy-footed shepherd and his wife, and their unpaid efforts to collect coins for music and dancing during their visit to the village.

After a little promenade to the music of the pipe, or piffara, that has descended unchanged from the days of the shepherds on the slope of Mount Ida, and the tambourine of equally venerable age, the tambourine is passed before an imaginary circle of auditors. The imaginary coins failing to come forth, the couple impulsively decide to dance anyway, for their own amusement. The dance proper is of the flowing style of the Tarantella, but includes only the simpler steps. An important contribution to the amusing character of the performance is a bit of by-play that begins after the work has apparently terminated: the shepherd, oaf though he is, expresses an interest in a pretty face in the audience, and even a belief that his interest is reciprocated. He is roundly scolded by his wife, soothes her feelings, and at last retires under a not misplaced surveillance.

The Saltarello, an old and lively step-dance identified with Rome, and including several steps of the Tarantella, completes the list of popular dances for which Italy is famous. Other names there are in abundance, but of dances identified with their localities. La Siciliana is a delicate but insufficiently varied product of the island from which it has its name. Messina has a pantomimic dance known as la Ruggera; Florence its Trescona, and so on indefinitely. Of these, such as have any choreographic interest are said to owe it to the Tarantella. Of many the interest is chiefly historical, since they are woven into one tissue with old songs and old legends. Poetic and altogether fascinating as such compositions frequently are, however, their prevailing lack of the essential qualities of dancing makes discussion of them inappropriate to a book on that subject. On the other hand, the highly characteristic flavour of the music and the words of their accompanying songs makes them a fascinating study under the heads of folk-lore and folk-music, in which connection they are the subject of several writings of great interest.

CHAPTER VIII

EUROPEAN FOLK-DANCING IN GENERAL

These two divisions are far from exact; many influences modify them. But they serve as a beginning of the process of separating the gems of folk-dancing from the mass of that which bears a superficial sparkle but is without intrinsic choreographic value.

The second supposition, of a people engaged at work not sufficiently exacting in finesse to satisfy their craving for skilled co-ordination, may be taken to indicate a merely healthy race whose daily tasks require no finer technique than the ordinary labour of a farm; in such category might be put the peasants of Aragon. The same relation would exist between a people less virile and a form of daily labour still less concerned with skill, as the Andalusians. Or again, it is valid in the case of a community engaged in crafts requiring fine workmanship, if that community be of people endowed with nervous energy in excess of the requirements of the day’s work; and that is the condition in those eternally youthful nations, Scotland and Ireland.

National sense of beauty is a factor in the determination of the dances of a country. The Latins have it. The Italians and Spanish have the leisure to practice its expression. The French, on the contrary, direct their energies into work of pecuniary value, and their acceptance of the doctrine of accumulation keeps their attention where it will be paid. Pierre and Laurette frolic with the neighbours on the green, in the moonlight, in what they call a dance. It gives them exercise and many a laugh. But when they would see beauty, they patronise its specialised exponent, the ballet.

“Folk-dancing” is practically synonymous with “character dancing,” or, as the word is frequently formed in literal translation of its French original, “characteristic dancing.” It means what it implies, an exposition of the characteristics of the people to whom it pertains. Energy or dreaminess, fire or coolness, and a multitude of other qualities are bound to assert themselves, automatically; to any one who can even half read their language, character dances are an open book of intimate personal revelation. The portrayal of sports or trades, which is the sort of thing with which many folk-dances are concerned, does not detract from their interest as expositors of national temperament. Though it may be noted that, in general, the more a dance occupies itself with imitation, the less its value as a dance.

Not least of the elements of interest attaching to these dances is the measure they apply to national vitality or the lack of it. Through the form and execution of its dance, the nation as yet half-barbarous reveals vital potentiality; the people that has luxuriated in centuries of power displays its lassitude of nerve; and the young political organism shows marks of senility at birth. The aboriginal savage, huge-limbed, bounds through dances fitted to the limitations of muscles that cannot be controlled by brain, and the limitations of brain that cannot invent or sustain attention; his dance exposes him as of a race not in its youthful vigour, but in the degeneracy wrought less by time than by manner of living. The Indian of North America is dying of age; the Russian is in his youth.

The list of forces that make and preserve at nation’s dances is incomplete without the addition of the sometimes powerful element of national pride. This undoubtedly enters into the high cultivation of the dances of Scotland. The industry, thrift and all-round practical nature of the Scotch need not be enlarged upon. Though they do not lack appreciation of beauty, they consider it a luxury for only limited indulgence, except as it is provided by nature. But the Sword Dance and the Fling of their warring ancestors are as though associated with the holy cause of freedom. On many a Highland battlefield they have been stepped; they have wet their scurrying feet in spilled blood.

To learn Scotch dancing takes time, precious time. But it is time spent on a decent and a fitting thing; they are Scotch! Scotch as the thistle itself! From pulpits have come, at times, objections to them; from armed camps and lairds’ halls of other days has come the answer, far but clear: that Scottish chiefs, godly men as well as brave, trod their Flings in celebration of victories dear to memory. It is enough. The cult of the dance has continued, unchecked by the inability of occasional well-meaning divines to see its significance.

Cæsar “commented” upon the fighting qualities of the Picti, built a wall to keep them off from the Anglia that he had conquered, and decided not to push his conquests farther north. The fighting spirit of those tartaned clansmen never has softened and has had much occupation throughout the subsequent centuries; and attaching to it is an epic, a saga, in the shape of the Sword Dance.

Around the Sword Dance in particular the Scotch people group associations. In earlier times its performance was customary on the eve of battle to relieve tension, to exhibit self-control, and, perhaps most important of all, to test fortune. To touch with the foot the crossed sword or scabbard between and about which the dancing warrior picked his steps was an omen of ill for the individual or his comrades. In present-day competitions, the ill luck following this error is evident; to touch the sword or scabbard with the foot eliminates the offender from the contest.

The Highland Fling, in distinction from the above, symbolises victory or rejoicing. With the other dances of Scotland, it has been highly formalised. Moreover, its routine, steps, and the proper execution of each are so clearly defined and generally understood that any change in them is immediately resented by any Scotch audience.

Every one has seen Scotch dances; any detailed analysis of them would be superfluous. Exhilarating as Highland whiskey, sharp as the thistle, they are carried to a high plane of art. Through them all runs a homogeneous angularity of movement that literally translates the sentiment of “Caledonia, stern and wild.” To the dances of Italy and Andalusia they are as wind-blown mountain pines in contrast to orange trees fanned by Mediterranean zephyrs. The theme of the sharp angle is kept absolutely intact, unmodified by any element of sweep or curve that the eye can detect. The essential steps are two, with variations: the kicking step of the Schottische Militaire, of frequent mention on ballroom programmes of twenty-five years ago; and battements, great and small. It will be seen that these are perfectly of a kind. The surprising thing is the variety derived from combinations of these two elements with simple turns, simple jumps, and little if anything else of foot-work. The result serves, from a purely analytical point of view, as an admirable demonstration of the value of a simple theme intelligently insisted on.

Spirit, of course, is another factor of great importance in making Scotch dances what they are. A Scotch dancer without spirit could not be imagined. Spanish dancers sometimes work coldly, ballet dancers often; but a Scotch dancer never. The first note of the bagpipes inflames him.

With the rigourous definition of step, technique and style that attaches to these dances, and the thoroughness

of popular understanding of all that pertains to them, the Scotch public is qualified to exercise upon dancing the essential functions of a national academy. Standards are maintained by knowledge on the part of spectators. Indifference of performance or freedom with forms is quickly reproved. Nor, on the other hand, need any performer remain in ignorance as to just what details of his execution are lacking; among his friends there are plenty of capable critics. We noted the same conditions in Aragon, where the general love of the Jota probably would have kept its standards of execution, even without the aid of professional teachers—and certainly do protect it against the subtracting process effected by adding novelties. In Italy the Tarantella is cultivated in the same way, in Little Russia the Cossack Dance, and in Hungary the Czardás. And it is the force of educated public interest behind them that sustains them in a class approached, in requirements of skill, by few other character dances.

The accompanying illustrations from work by Miss Margaret Crawford and partner demonstrate the interesting fact that the Scotch, developing their school of execution along the lines dictated by their own keen discernment, arrive at a conclusion in important respects identical with the creed of the classic ballet. It is possible that the dances of mountain and heather were influenced by the Pavane and the Minuet in their day—for Queen Mary had her masques and balls and pageants, like other monarchs of her time. But even that will not account for the clean, sharp brilliancy of a Highlander’s battement or balloné. In so many essentials his dances are at variance with those of the seventeenth-century courts that their excellence must be attributed to a national instinct for true quality of beauty. The splendidly erect carriage of the body, the straight knee of the supporting leg during a step, as well as the crisp, straight-knee execution of a grand battement (the Scotch and other dancers do not use the French designation of steps, but the general observer may well do so for the sake of clearness), might have come direct from the French Academy. This identity is in manner, it will be understood, more than in matter. Like all character dancing, the Scotch includes in its vocabulary positions and steps that the ballet ignores. Placing the hands on the hips; the heel on the ground and the toe up; and a “rocking” step, consisting of rolling from side to side on the sides of the feet—these and other devices are of the dances of outdoors. In the case of the Scotch they are so admirably incorporated into the scheme of sharp line and movement that go to make a staccato unit that—through the sheer magic worked by cohesion of theme—they avoid the plebeian appearance into which such movements fall when not artfully combined.

The Scotch Reel has a good deal in common with the Fling, and is of the same general character. It is customarily performed by two couples. Its distinguishing feature is a figure eight, traced by a little promenade, each of the performers winding in and out among the other three. Even this promenade is performed in a sharp skipping step, that the dance may lose none of its national flavour. A variation of this dance is the Reel of Tulloch, popular in all parts of Scotland, and distinguished principally by its history. Legend places its origin in a country church, in winter; while the congregation waited for the belated minister, they danced to keep warm, and in the course of the dancing evolved a choreographic composition that made their village famous. The Strathspey alluded to in literature appears also to have been a variety of the Reel.

The Shean Treuse, a rollicking dance that covers a good deal of ground, is—according to legend—the representation of a small boy’s delight with his first pair of trousers. Naturally, it is based on a series of prancing steps, in each of which the leg is brought to horizontal to keep the trousers in evidence.

This concludes the list of the well-known dances of Scotland. Of the number the most representative, or one may say classic, are the Sword Dance and the Fling.

England has to her credit one dance, notwithstanding all that has been said and written to the disparagement of her originality in the arts; and, with execution to help it, a very respectable dance it is, as well as a monument to a social element that has contributed powerfully to England’s rank among the nations. The dance is the Sailor’s Hornpipe.

It is a dance of character in the truest sense, being based on the movements associated with the sailor’s duties. Accompanying himself with a tuneful patter of foot-work, the performer pantomimes hauling at ropes, rowing, standing watch, and sundry other duties of the sea-dog who dealt with sails and not with coal. The hands are placed on the hips palm out, to avoid touching the clothing with the tar that—as everybody knows—always covered the palms of the deep-sea sailor. While not in any sense a great dance, it is uncommonly ingenious and amusing in its combination of patter of steps and earnest pantomime. It is literally a sailor’s chantey sung in the terms of movement instead of words of mouth; even to its division into short stanzas (one for each of the duties represented) the parallel is exact. Its place in the dancing art might be defined as the same as the position of the sailor’s chantey in music.

In England there has been a recent and earnest revival of the Morris Dances, accompanied by a good deal of writing on the subject. In England they have the importance of being English. They are “quaint,” it is true. They reflect the romping, care-free spirit of Merry England; they bring to the cheek of buxom lass the blush of health; they are several centuries old; they follow the antique usage of performance to accompaniment sung by the dancers. But their composition—and its absence—commends them to the attention of the antiquarian and the sociologist, rather than that of a seeker after evolved dancing.

The word “Morris,” according to the suggestion offered by certain scholars, is a corruption of “Moorish”; which theory of its derivation is not confirmed by step, movement or sentiment to be found in the dance. What does seem reasonably possible is that it is of Gipsy derivation. Gipsies are sometimes known—in Scotland at least—as “Egyptians”; so why not, by a similar abeyance of accuracy in England, as Moors?—a process of near-reasoning the value of whose conclusion is nothing at all. At any rate, the Morris dancers have a tradition of hanging little bells around their arms and legs, and decorating themselves with haphazard streamers of ribbon, which is Gipsy-esque. Stories are recorded to the effect that there have been performers who tuned their bells, and by the movements of the dance played tunes on them. The stories offer no definite information as to the quality of dance or music.

The Morris seems to have been a dance for men only, in which respect it was unique among the old English forms unearthed in the recent revival of interest. Many of these dances certainly are interesting, if not in actual choreographic merit, in association. Their very names are rich in flavour, such as All in a Garden Green, The Old Maid in Tears, Hempstead Heath, Greensleeves (mentioned in The Merry Wives of Windsor), Wasp’s Maggott, Dull Sir John, and others equally suggestive of rustic naturalness and fun. Their revivals by Miss Coles and Miss Chaplin include full directions for performance, which is simple. Several of them preserve the ancient usage of saluting the partner with a kiss—which is not mentioned as a warning, but as an observation merely.

England has been among the nations to preserve the institution of dancing around a pole—among the English-speaking so commonly known as the “Maypole” that its use in the celebration of anything but the coming of spring seems incongruous. Other peoples, nevertheless, incorporate it into religious celebrations and what-not. The device of suspending ribbons from the top of the pole, and weaving them around it by means of an interlacing figure described by the dancers, seems to be universal. The steps employed are the simplest possible—those of the Waltz, Polka, or Schottische, varied perhaps with an occasional turn. It is another instance of a semiformalised romp called by the title of dance. In passing it may be noted that the Maypole has become a part of the Mayday celebration of the New York public school children—and those of other cities, for anything we know to the contrary. Some hundreds of poles distributed over a green, each with its brightly coloured group twinkling around it, tickles the eye with a feast of sparkle, at least. The same outing is the occasion of an exhibition of the character dancing that the children have learned as part of their school work during the preceding year. The exhibited skill is higher than one would expect, and remarkable, considering the difficulties in the way of imparting it. In one direction the celebration probably attains to the superlative: its participants numbering as they do well up in the thousands, and occupying about a quarter-section of ground, there is nothing in history to indicate that it does not constitute, in point of sheer size and numbers, the biggest ballet the world has ever seen.

Ireland has a group of dances exclusively her own, unique in structure, and developed to the utmost limit of their line of excellence. Their distinguishing property is complicated rhythmic music of the feet. The Jig, the Reel and the Hornpipe of Ireland are at once the most difficult and the most highly elaborated dances of the clog and shuffle type that can be found. In them are passages in which the feet tap the floor seventy-five times in a quarter of a minute.

They have, too, the art that interprets the character of their people. But it is not the Irishman of the comic supplement that they reveal. Rather, by means of their own vocabulary of suggestion, the eloquence of which begins where words fail, they present the acute Hibernian wit that animates the brain of Irishmen like Shaw. Intricate combinations of keen, exact steps, the Irish dances are a series of subtle epigrams directed to the eye. And like the epigrams that proceed from true wit, they are expressed so modestly that their significance may be quite lost on an intelligence not in sympathy with the manner of thought that lies back of them. To the end

of convincing us onlookers that this everyday world is made up of nothing but happiness, the music of tapping shoe flatters our senses without shame, chloroforms reason and shows us the truth—that our minds at least will float in the air like dancers’ bodies, if we but abandon them to the rhythmic charm that coaxes them to forget their sluggishness. Irish dancing has too often been the victim of caricature. In all truth, its refined intricacy makes it cousin rather to the Book of Kells, whose ancient decoration of rich yet simple interlacement gives it place among the masterpieces of the book-designer’s art.

The intent of the art of Irish dancing is the sooner understood by a word of negative description to begin with: namely, it is at the opposite pole from dancing of posture, broad movement, or pantomime. All its resources, on the contrary, are concentrated in making music of the feet. Happy music it is, with lightness of execution as a part of it. That no incident may distract attention from foot-work, the body is held almost undeviatingly erect, and the arms passive at the sides; and this is in accordance with unquestioned usage.

Among the dancers represented in the accompanying photographs is Mr. Thomas Hill, four times winner of the championship of Ireland. “The thing of greatest importance in Irish dancing,” Mr. Hill says, “is the music of the shoes. In the eleven years that I have been dancing, the greater part of my attention has been spent on the development and control of the variety of tones that can be produced by taps of heels and soles on the floor and against each other. Style is necessary, of course, as in any other dancing, and so is exactness in ‘tricky’ time. But control of a good variety of sounds, which is the most difficult part of Irish dancing, is the most important because it is the most Irish.”

Once in a great while coincidence puts one in the way of hearing the work of a virtuoso on the snare-drum. Within a minute the effect is found to be nothing less than hypnotic. Every one within hearing is patting time, swaying with the time, restraining the most urgent impulse to do something that will bring every fibre of his body into unison with that inebriating rhythm. Now, the feet of a fine Irish dancer are drumsticks as amenable to control as the drummer’s; notes long and short, dull and sharp—he has all the drum’s variety. No resource of syncopation, emphasis, or change is unknown to the Irish dances; the rhythm gets into the blood—with double the seductiveness of sound alone, since every tap on the tympanum is reinforced by the same metric beating on the vision. Joined to the resulting exhilaration is the peculiar excitement always felt in the presence of suspended gravitation; for no less than suspended gravitation it is when the foot of a man taps the ground like the paw of a kitten, and the body floats in the air like a bird that has paused but will not alight. The good Saint Basil was not only eloquent when he asked what could be more blessed than to imitate on earth the dancing of the angels. His question carries with it the important indication that he had seen an Irish Reel in his day. Because, among all the dances that are stepped on this mortal earth, what other is so light that the saint could see in it the pastime of angels?

For the sake of accuracy, let it not be thought that the steps of the Reel and the Jig, and the Hornpipe as well, were not old while Christianity was new. Mr. Patrick J. Long, himself at once a dancer of pronounced ability and a well-read scholar on Irish history, writes for this chapter: “In the days of Druidism, the Irish nation celebrated an annual feast lasting six days; three days before the first of November, and three days after. Coming after the season of harvest, it probably was like a Thanksgiving. The celebration was called in Gaelic a Feis (pronounced ‘fesh’). Now it was the custom, at the time of the Feis for the nobles of Ireland, and their ladies, and bards and harpists from far and near, to gather at the castle of the king; and there for six days there were competitions in all kinds of music and dancing.

“The dance that was popular with the nobles and their ladies was called the Rinnce Fadha (pronounced ‘reenka faudha’). This we know was a dance for several couples. It was a favourite of King Leoghaire (pronounced ‘Leery’), who ruled Ireland when St. Patrick came to convert the people from paganism. From it was derived in a later century the form of the Sir Roger de Coverley; from the Sir Roger came the Virginia Reel of America.

“The dances of Ireland are variations on the Reel, Jig and Hornpipe. The Reel is probably the most classic; it is executed in a gliding movement, and is speedy and noiseless. The Jig and the Hornpipe have a good deal in common. Both use clogging and shuffling; that is, taps of heel or sole on the floor, and light scrapes of the sole. Of the two the Hornpipe contains the more clogging. But it is richer than the Clog Dance that it resembles more or less. It is less mechanical, more varied and has prettier foot-work.

“The Reel and the Jig are danced as solos by man or woman, by two men, two women, a couple, two men and a woman, two, three, four or eight couples. In ‘set dances,’ as they are called when performed by a ‘set’ of couples, the steps are simpler than in solo work; and the time also is simpler in the music of set dances than in the airs used to accompany solos and the work of teams of two. There are Hop Jigs, Slip Jigs, Single and Triple Jigs in 9-8 time. Another peculiarity of Irish dancing, due to the character of the music, is in the irregularities of repetition of the work of one leg with the other leg. The right leg may do the principal work through eight bars; the same work is naturally to be repeated then with the left leg; but often the composition of the music gives the left leg only six bars. This is good because unexpected, but it adds a great deal to the difficulty of learning Irish dancing.”

The above-named dances represent the utmost development of clogging, which is tapping of heels, and shuffling, or scraping of the sole on the floor. Foot-work, especially that of short and rapid steps, is the element impossible to show in pictorial form. Accompanying photographs, therefore, give little idea of the charm of the art of Mr. Hill, Mr. Long, Mr. Walsh, Miss Murray and Miss Reardon, from whom they were taken.

Thanks to the American branch of the Gaelic League and its activity in the cause of Ireland’s arts, Irish dancing is in a flourishing condition in this country. In intelligent public interest, standards of excellence and number of capable performers, America now leads even Ireland. Mr. Hill attributes this to a combination of well-directed enthusiasm, and the practice of holding four important competitions each year. These are divided among as many cities. Capable management

attracts competitors of good class and large numbers, and they are classified in such a way that there is hope for all. Liberality in prizes is an added stimulus. All told, Mr. Hill says that one feis of the four annually held in this country accomplishes as much in the interest of dancing as is done in Ireland in a year.

Dublin and Cork each has its annual feis, with an interval of half-a-year between the two. Each has the dancing championship competition among its features; Mr. Hill’s title was won in 1909, ’10 and ’11 at Cork, also in 1911 at Dublin. As the Gaelic League has prominent among its purposes the restoration to popular use of the Gaelic language, dancing is only one of several artistic contests. Singing, elocution, and conversation, all in the ancient Irish tongue, have their respective laurel-seeking votaries. Superiority in the playing of violin and flute is rewarded, as in playing the war pipes and union pipes. (War pipes, as may not be universally known, are the Scotch form of bagpipes, played by lung power; the wind for union pipes, in distinction, is supplied by bellows held under the arm.) And until within a couple of years lilting has been competed in—the old singing without words, “tra-la-la-dee” sort of thing. The irreverent called it “pussy-singing.” Athletic games are included for the sake of variety. Prizes in all events are usually medals.

The feis in America follows the same model. Dancing enjoys a gratifying popularity. Good work always incites the spectators to shout their enthusiasm. With a prevailing eagerness to learn to judge it more exactly, and a highly respectable knowledge of it at the present moment, there exists also that most wholesome adjunct to interest, a division of beliefs as to school. The Cork technique is comparatively short in step, and very precise; Limerick favours a rather looser type of movement. And there comes in the world-old argument between the Academic and (by whatever name it matters not) the Impressionistic creeds. Each claims to represent the true Hibernianism.

Sweden, during a period beginning a few years ago, has taken up an enthusiastic revival of the dances of the Scandinavian world. The movement began with the foundation by the late Dr. Hazélius of the Museum of the North, and is carried on by his son.

The Museum was planned to bring together a representation of Scandinavia of old, in such a complete way as to show not only products and methods of manufacture, but modes of life and social customs. The result is unique among undertakings of the kind. In a park called the Skansen are preserved the Scandinavian flora and fauna, in appropriate surroundings. Farms are cultivated in the manner of the various provinces, and on the farms are their appropriate buildings, characteristic in every detail. To complete the re-creation of antiquity, churches and all the other structures pertinent to community life are included.

The numerous people required to animate such an establishment, including as it does accommodations for visitors, are the expositors of the national dances. Farmers, shoemakers, waiters in the cafés, are required to learn and practise them, and present them publicly three times a week. It goes without saying that they dress at all times in the costume of the locality of which they are representatives.

The influences of the Skansen have been of a sort to gratify its founder. Society now, as a custom, dresses itself for garden parties in the picturesque gaiety and brilliant colour of old Scandinavia, and dances the Skralât and Kadriljs of the peasants. A saying has sprung up that “dancing is a form of patriotism.” The sentiment has impressed itself no less upon the working people than upon the rich. Children receive dancing instruction gratis in the Skansen, and knowledge has spread into all parts of Sweden. Now, instead of the Polka, which fifty years ago swept over Scandinavia and fastened itself on the land with a hold that smothered every other dance, are to be seen the merry steps and forms that are distinctively of the Norseland, accompanied by the old music. A princess of the royal house sanctions the revival of Scandinavianism (if the word be permitted) to the extent of dressing herself and the servants at her summer-place according to the new-old modes. She is popular and the movement is strengthened accordingly.

The dances are simple in step, though often complicated in figure; lively and gay in manner, and rich in pantomime. Accepted standards of execution require decided grace and a good style. Gustavus III, when he visited France, is said to have been deeply impressed by the exquisite dancing of Marie Antoinette and her court. The element of beauty to be seen in Swedish dancing is supposed to be due in part, at least, to that royal visit.

One of the most pleasing dance-arrangements is inspired by the work of the weaver, with the happy changes of effect constantly wrought by the action of the loom. The Vafva Vadna this dance is called. It is highly complicated, the stretched threads are simulated in the lines of performers, through whom flashes back and forth the girl who represents the movements of the shuttle. Rich variety is gained by involved intercrossings of the lines of boys and girls.

The taming of womankind is the motive of the pantomimic Daldans. Over the head of the meekly kneeling woman the man swings his foot, as a symbol; in another figure the woman’s coquetry reduces the man to helplessness. The Vingakersdans pantomimes the competition of two women for the same man. The favoured one seats herself a moment on the man’s knee, and finishes the number by waltzing with him; while the defeated charmer bites her nails with vexation.

These are characteristic specimens of a very numerous group. Their revival seems to progress more rapidly in the villages than in the big cities—interesting as a case of the country leading the cities in a movement of modernism. Many of the pantomimes are based on work from which the rural population is less remote than are those who dwell in cities. The movements of making a shoe are known to every villager; he has watched the cobbler many a time, and known him usually as the local philosopher. Upon the village, therefore, no touch of character in the Cobblers’ Dance would be lost. The humours of harvesting might in like manner fail to reach a city audience without the aid of spoken word; harvest, with other elemental work, provides many of the Scandinavian dance motives.

Holland and Belgium are alike unproductive of dancing of much choreographic value. The strength of the people is not accompanied by either the lightness or agility found in dancing nations. As a coincidence, it is notable that dancing does not flourish in regions of wooden shoes. The Dutch have a species of sailors’ dance called the Mâtelot, performed by groups of men and women; but it is a romp and little or nothing more. This is characteristic of the dances of the Netherlands, as is confirmed by genre pictures from the time of Teniers down to the present.

The Waltz, it should be said at this point, is universal. If ever it is asserted that the people of a locality do not dance, an exception may be made to cover the Waltz, so long as the locality referred to is in the Occident. The seeming caution with which peasants perform their Waltzes practically removes them from the category of dancing, though not from that of humour.

France, the Eden of the Grand Ballet, the home of a race of lovers of beauty, might be expected to abound in rich character dances; but the exact reverse is true. The people of the country are, first of all, workers; the dances that enliven their fêtes are the careless celebration of children released from confining tasks. The principal cities have their opera ballets; through them is supplied the national demand for choreographic beauty.

The old name of la Bourrée survives in Auvergne. In its present form it bears no resemblance to the old Bourrée of eighteenth-century courts, but is one of those informal frolics of an indefinite number of couples, hand-clapping, finger-snapping, and energetic bounding, mingled with shouts of joy.

The Farandole is popular in the South of France. Under its name a chain of boys and girls, united by handkerchiefs that they hold, “serpentines” and zigzags in directions dictated by the caprice of their leader, perhaps traversing the length of the streets of a village. From time to time the leading couple will halt and form their arms into an arch for those following to pass under; or again stop the procession in such a way as to wind up the line into a compact mass. Again the game partakes of the nature of “follow the leader,” the whole party imitating the leader in any antic he may perform.

The ancient Contredanses—which word England changed to Country Dances, of frequent mention in story—were the roots of modern Quadrilles. These, however, are polished out of any semblance to character dances; they are of the ballroom and infinitely removed from the soil.

Germany, with its fondness for legend and care in its preservation, would be a fertile field for search on the part of a compiler of ancient observances more or less allied to dancing. A specimen of the latter is the Perchtentanz of Salzburg. Perchta is another name for Freya, Woden’s consort and the mother of the Northmen’s gods. She is powerful even in these modern times, and malicious unless propitiated by proper formulæ of actions and words. Placing a spoonful of food from each dish of the Christmas dinner for her on the fence outside the house is one of the tributes. She has spirit-followers: some kindly, called “schön Perchten,” others wild and fierce, known as “schiachen Perchten.” The latter alight on houses and scream mischievously, lure men into danger and punish undiscovered crimes.

At irregular intervals is performed the Perchtentanz; not apparently as an act of propitiation, but presumably having that motive as its origin. Good and evil Perchten both are represented. On an accompanying page of European miscellany is a drawing of one of the “beautiful.” The huge plaques are covered with sparkling trinkets and adorned with braid, ribbon and embroidery. Stuffed birds are also popular for their decorations; a dozen of them may be affixed to the lower plaque, a