Read Ebook: The Morris Book Part 1 A History of Morris Dancing With a Description of Eleven Dances as Performed by the Morris-Men of England by MacIlwaine Herbert C Sharp Cecil J Cecil James

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INTRODUCTION HISTORICAL Bibliography MORRIS DANCE TUNES Notes on Morris Tunes THE DANCE The Morris Step Diagrams of Morris Steps Positions, and Change of Position Evolutions Down-and-Back; and Up-and-Back The Chain Cross-over Back-to-Back Go-and-come The Ring Steps in Foregoing Evolutions The Jump The Hands The Call Length of Dances SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR VARIOUS DANCES:-- BEAN-SETTING To Form Ring Dibbing COUNTRY GARDENS Notation of Hand-striking CONSTANT BILLY Diagram of Stick-tapping RIGS O'MARLOW Diagrams of Stick-tapping BLUFF KING HAL Description of step, and manner of dancing HOW D'YE DO? Description, and note on singing SHEPHERD'S HEY Instructions for Stick-tapping and Diagram of Hand-clapping On holding sticks NOTATION :-- BEAN-SETTING LAUDNUM BUNCHES COUNTRY GARDENS CONSTANT BILLY TRUNKLES RIGS O'MARLOW BLUFF KING HAL HOW D'YE DO? SHEPHERD'S HEY BLUE-EYED STRANGER MORRIS OFF

INTRODUCTION.

We have been drawn to the publication of tunes and description of the old English Morris, not primarily for the information of the archaeologist and scholar, but to help those who may be disposed to restore a vigorous and native custom to its lapsed pre-eminence.

Whether we have erred in believing that there exists to-day a wide and keen desire for that restoration will be plainly shown in the reception and the result of our endeavour. How we ourselves came by the belief in that desire is easily told.

The idea that the Morris dance might once again be known amongst us, in town and countryside, as the ordered expression of a national spirit, was given to us in this wise. One of us--it is not by now too much to claim--had acquired an enthusiasm for Folk-music, and a certain knack of finding it where it still survived in the ag?d memories of the peasantry, and of transcribing and preserving it when found. The other had also his knack of passing on the music that pleased him to susceptible and willing juniors, and of making them to perform the same. In a happy hour the collector with his treasury and the teacher, pining for some fresher and sincerer melodies, met together. The "Folk Songs from Somerset" were given to those working girls of London town to whom this book is dedicated. From the very start we were aware that the old songs, merry or mournful, that until then had been looked upon by this newer generation for the greater part with something of an antiquarian and merely curious eye, had been given wings and a new vitality. The songs of peasant-folk long dead, songs of love and war, parting and death, prospered and spread in the London streets and workrooms like the news of victory. We were very well used to find in these singers apt and willing learners; we were also used to note that whatsoever we had found to teach them hitherto, passed, when the performance was done, into forgetfulness: we were totally unused to find this fertility and resonance follow, as it followed upon the teaching of the Folk-songs. It was like a sowing and a full harvest in a place where, until now, we had tilled all but unavailingly.

Forbye Folk-songs, the collector had noted, some seven years before, a set of Morris tunes from Kimber, leader of the Headington men; these had lain until now unused. Seeing the Folk-music fall upon such good ground and flourish so amazingly, even amongst these quick-witted Londoners, strangers to the countryside, it naturally suggested itself to him that here was the opportunity, so long desired, to wake the Morris from its long sleep. Anybody not deaf and blind, or unobservant as a stone, knows that the genius of dancing is born in the London girl of the people, as surely as in children of the sun.

We had Kimber and his cousin up to town; and the result of their coming far outran our fondest anticipations. The Morris, like that 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 springtime. 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--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. Perfect, yet in a different order of perfection from that attainable by men. It may be noted here and now by all who have to do with the instruction of girls in the Morris, that the feminine temperament inevitably robs the dance of something of its sturdiness. It is nothing to lament; for what is lost in vigour is assuredly more than made good in gracefulness. At any rate, there was Bean-setting, perfect in its kind. No wonder Jack-and-the-Beanstalk came to mind and stayed there with the memory of this evening.

It was even so with all the other dances: to see them shown was to see them learned. And the Folk-songs had prepared us for what followed: here was no mere fugitive delight and curiosity, as of a child with a new toy. We had given back to these children of the city no less than a birthright long mislaid.

The Morris-men came in October. In the following February, 1906, the songs and dances were performed before a company of friends. The audience, if very friendly, was also very critical; and there was represented in it, literally, every element in contemporary society. And every element, or representatives of each, exhorted us to give our performance in public, since it was so good that the world in general must know of it.

In April, 1906, we did so. The performance was given very nearly in the height of the concert season; in no announcement of it was any mention made of charity, or any lack or need of funds: the entertainment was run as a public affair. And the public responded so that we filled the hall to the doors and were reluctantly constrained to refuse admittance to a host beside. The entertainment has since then been repeated several times; and every repetition brought substantial evidence of continually increasing public interest.

It should be mentioned here that Miss Mary Neal, of the Esp?rance Working Girls' Club, not only made the venture possible in the beginning, but, with her powers of help and organization, gave it a reach and strength that neither of us could have given.

But outside appreciation did not end here--one might really say that it only began. Inquiries poured in from every quarter of the Kingdom, from every class and kind of person. They all wanted to know how they also might be shown the way to do as we had done--revive these traditional English songs and dances in their neighbourhood, amongst the rising generation of English men and women. One of the inquiries, as to how the Morris dances might be imported there, came from Japan, where all things typically English are in so great request.

Thus we were faced with a sudden demand and very limited means wherewith to meet it. In these circumstances we naturally bethought ourselves of possible expedients. To us it seemed practicable to meet it only in one way--through the writing of a book on Morris dancing, by the help of which even those who had never seen the dances performed might be enabled to learn them, and so pass them on. The result of our endeavours must declare itself in the efforts of others to make use of this little handbook. That there is a demand for it is very sure: whether we have succeeded in putting together an intelligible and a workable manual of dances--notoriously a very hard thing to do--will be told presently in the tally of practising Morris-dancers in England--and Japan. We have aimed at simplicity, brevity and clearness in the description.

As to the extent of the demand and its constant tendency to increase, so far, there can be no doubt. As to the permanence of the demand, as to whether the Morris dance is likely to become again, as once it was, a feature of our national life, one can only surmise. For ourselves, we believe absolutely in the permanence of this revival, and that these astounding results of our efforts hitherto are evidence, not of a fleeting phase or vogue but of no less than that we have restored to our own people a rightful inheritance, a means and method of self-expression in movement, native and sincere, such as is offered by no other form of dancing known to us.

The outstanding feature of all our English institutions is their continuity: to have continuity you must have age and a hallowed tradition: these we have in everything national, save only in our songs and dances. These, although we are anything but an imitative race, we have imported from un-English lands, with the inevitable result that in dance and music we express everybody but ourselves. We shall go on doing so until the treasure-house of our Folk-music and dances--now for several generations mysteriously closed to us--shall be re-opened. In this handbook we have tried to do something towards restoring that forsaken repository to its rightful pre-eminence.

HISTORICAL.

We claim for this sketch no completeness: we are chiefly concerned with the Morris as a lapsed yet living art, calling, as we hold, for revival; we look to the Morris-men, not primarily as subject-matter for the industrious archaeologist, but as heralds to the sweetening of the town life of England and the re-peopling of her forsaken countryside. We have nevertheless taken some trouble in our search for all that is interesting and genuine as concerns the Morris, in the literature of our own country, and others. For the benefit of those inclined to follow the subject farther in its historical aspect than it is herein treated, we have appended a list of books in which we have found items of interest.

So far as we can discover, there is no single work devoted to the topic: all that is to be gleaned of it from books consists only in scraps of information, most of them very brief, some contradictory; as a rule almost casually introduced in works upon dancing, ancient games and customs, and such like.

Even the origin of the name Morris and the true source of the dance are not to be traced with absolute certainty. Most authorities accept, or assert, that the dance is Moorish in origin: some again bring evidence to show that the English Morris owed nothing whatever to the Moors. Still, the weight of testimony must be held to show Morocco as the fount and origin, no matter if the genius of our own folk--so very far removed from anything native to Africa--has, in the process of the centuries, altered it until it bears, in spirit, little resemblance to the parent stock.

We are given by the same writer a notation of the Morisco, or Morisque, music, steps, and description: this shows as nearly as possible the steps of the Morris as we have seen it danced in England to-day.

Again, Engel, in a passage to us of extraordinary interest, gives in modern notation "... one of the tunes headed La Morisque, probably the oldest tune of the famous Morris dance still extant. As it is interesting from having been printed in the year 1550, when most likely it was already an old tune, it shall be inserted here ...." And there we found the same tune which Tabourot gives for the dance that he described, as we have already told. It is the tune of "Morris Off," which we reproduce in our books of tunes. Just a few weeks earlier we had taken down, at Redditch, from the fiddler of the Bidford Morris-men, the same tune, note for note, as Tabourot gives it. Here in truth is a signal instance of that persistence and continuity which is always cropping up, to the lasting amazement and delight of the student of Folk-music--to the delight more especially of the student who, like ourselves, holds that in our Folk-music is a treasury not to be hoarded for the delectation of the scholar, but to be expended with both hands for the revivifying of a national spirit.

Schemes of wider research, however, we are content to leave in the hands of the intrepid Folk-lorist. We are concerned here to extract from a mass of notes and references some outstanding few, to remind practising and potential Morris-dancers of to-day that this new-old art, if not indigenous, has been, like many another foreign importation, assimilated much to our advantage.

The Morisco, from which our own Morris has obviously descended, seems to have been originally both a solo and square dance, the latter being performed by sides of six. The solo Morris existed all along, and still exists. When we saw our friend Kimber dance his Morris jig to the tune of "Rodney," had our other old friend Tabourot been present in the spirit--maybe he was--he need have altered nothing in the description we have quoted but to substitute for the boy with his face blackened a sturdy English yeoman, and to note some differences in the get-up of the dancer. The solo dance has been performed also at Bampton, between tobacco-pipes laid crosswise on the ground--to the tune of the "Bacca Pipes" jig, or "Green Sleeves"--suggesting the Scottish sword-dance, and in many other fashions.

Another feature in the history of the English Morris, which by this time may be called impossible to account for with any exactitude, is that in the elder days the Mummers and their plays, the Robin Hood games and other ancient diversions with their characters and customs, became allied--or rather mixed up--with the Morris-men, upon May-day and occasions of festivity such as the Leet-ales, Lamb-ales, Bride-ales, &c. To what extent they were allied, or mixed, will probably baffle even the combined powers of all our archaeologists to discover. In an old woodcut, for instance, preserved on the title of a penny history printed at Newcastle in 1772, is apparently the representation of a Morris dance, consisting of--A Bishop , Robin Hood, the Potter or Beggar, Little John, Friar Tuck, Maid Marian. Robin Hood and Little John carry bows of length befitting the size of each. The window, too, shown in the frontispiece is proof that the Morris-dancers were attended by other characters. The following, from Ben Jonson's "The Metamorphosed Gipsies," supplies further evidence to the same effect:--

They should be a Morris dancers by their jingle, but they have no napkins.

No, nor a hobby horse.

Oh, he's often forgotten, that's no rule; but there is no Maid Marian nor friar amongst them, which is the surer mark.

Nor a fool that I see.

But other characters, introduced for whatsoever reason, gradually disappeared, until the Morris company, as a general thing, consisted only of the dancers, the piper--that is, the musician--and the fool.

The hobby-horse, described later, was habitually associated with the Morris, until the Puritans, by their preachings and invective, succeeded in banishing it as an impious and pagan superstition. This accounts for the expression, "The hobby-horse quite forgotten"; and gives a touch of prophecy to Shakespeare's lament: "For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot." As is well known, however, the hobby-horse still prances in England to-day; at Minehead and Padstow, for instance, as an ancient and hallowed institution on its own account, and performing with the Morris-men at Bidford.

Other implements and characters may be found, used by and performing with the Morris-men, that originally had no connection with the Morris, but were borrowed from other pastimes. As we have said, however, this sets out to be no exhaustive study, whether of the Morris when it was a national dance, or of all its survivals at the present time. Such a study would in scope and purpose far outrun the limits of our intention.

Broadly speaking, the peculiar characteristics of the Morris, as it was in its heyday and as it has survived amongst us, are these: Leaving aside the solo dances, upon which we shall not touch further, the Morris is performed by six men; the records show that women have occasionally, but rarely, figured as performers. A musician is of course indispensable; also, as it seems, a fool, to supply comic relief and give the dancers breathing-time. The fool often goes by the name of "Squire," sometimes of "Rodney." These are practically invariable; but beyond and beside these, other characters have accompanied the dancers. The hobby-horse we have already mentioned as a popular addition. Some took with them an assistant, called the ragman, to carry the dancers' extra clothing. Then, a person in various disguises and habiliments went--and still goes--with the dancers to collect money, if it might be, from admiring lookers-on: sometimes the fool himself served both as the type of unwisdom and its opposite, who bears the money-box.

In some parts of the country a swordbearer accompanied the Morris-men. This officer carried a rich pound-cake impaled upon his sword-point--cake and sword were be-ribboned, the former being supplied by some local lady; and during the dances slices of it were given amongst the audience who were expected to respond with coin for the treasury. A slice of cake was by way of bringing luck to the receiver; the credulous even treasured a piece of it the year round as a minister of good fortune.

Before we go on to note some leading features in the dress and paraphernalia of the Morris-men, one more memory of the days that are gone--maybe in some fashion to return, maybe not--tempts to quotation. It is from the church-wardens' accounts of the parish of Kingston-upon-Thames, and in our prejudiced eyes has a dignity, and somehow a promise, all its own. It is from Lysons' "Environs of London," vol. i., 1792, p. 226, and runs:--

For paynting of the mores garments and ? s. d. for sarten gret leveres 0 2 4

For 4 plyts and 1/2 of lawn for the mores garments 0 2 11

For orseden for the same 0 0 10

For bellys for the dawnsars 0 0 12

For silver paper for the mores dawnsars 0 0 7

Shoes for the mores dawnsars, the frere and mayde Maryan at 7d. the payre 0 5 4

A dosyn of gold skynnes for the morres 0 0 10

As a conclusion to this imperfect sketch we would point once more to the warranty of its imperfections and sketchiness offered in the beginning. We hope for it no more than that it may serve to direct those inclined to bestow upon the Morris a closer study, to at least the beginnings of an enthralling subject. So much for the origin and history of the art. As for its living practitioners: of the men, for instance, of Gloucestershire, Norfolk, Lancashire, Northumberland--the last-named of whom danced the other day before the King at Alnwick Castle under the name of Guisards--and elsewhere, we offer no precise information. It may be that one day we shall be privileged to do so. But for the tunes we have set down, and for the dances belonging thereto we have attempted to describe, we do claim that in these we have tried most faithfully to pass on to others what the Morris-men gave to us.

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.

In earliest days of the Morris, music was made by a simple pipe, by pipe and tabour, or the bagpipe. Of these the bagpipe was apparently the original. An old madrigal, printed in 1660, runs thus:

Harke, harke, I hear the dancing And a nimble morris prancing; The bagpipe and the morris bells That they are not farre hence us tells; Come let us goe thither, And dance like friends together.

Since the disappearance of the bagpipe, pipe and tabour have been, even within the memory of living men, the accepted instruments wherewith to make music and beat time for the Morris. They are now fallen into disuse. The pipe or whittle was of wood, really an early form of the flageolet, over a foot long; sometimes it had a metal tongue in the mouthpiece; two finger-holes and a thumb-hole to vary the note, and was played with the left hand. From the left thumb the tabour, or dub, was suspended by a loop: the dub was a miniature drum, elaborately made, and was beaten by a stick held in the right hand. Pipe and tabour were sometimes played by separate men.

DRESS.

In the matter of dress, old-time accounts prove that the Morris-men indulged in considerable variety; and even amongst present-day inheritors of the tradition there are many differences. Still, certain features may be regarded as common, and the dress of Mr. Salisbury , leader of the Bidford men, may be cited as typical. The tall hat, though not universal, is the most popular and general headgear; and this dancer and his men wore a broad band of plaited ribbons on their hats some two-and-a-half inches wide, in red, green and white. The elaborately frilled and pleated white shirt is also typical; this was tied at wrist and elbow with blue ribbons, the ends left hanging. The breeches were of fawn-shaded corduroy, with braces of white webbing; on the braces were pinned, in front and at the back, level with the breast, rosettes of red, white and blue ribbons, the ends left hanging. The tie was of the same blue ribbon as that in the rosettes, also with the ends long and loose. The boots, as befitted the sturdy work they had to do, were substantial; the stockings of rough grey wool, which showed between the boots and breeches.

In the case of Mr. Kimber, leader of the Headington men , the dress, it will be noticed, was simpler. A white sweater took the place of the pleated shirt; ribbons of red, white and blue were crossed upon the chest; the trousers were of white flannel.

Some notes on the bells and on the manner of fixing them will be found under the heading "Bells."

The fool's dress would seem to be designed to-day, as in the olden time, upon no particular plan, but to follow the fancy of the individual wearer. The Bidford man, whom we saw at his really funny antics, had a fox's mask for headgear, the muzzle lying on the man's forehead, the brush hanging down his back. His face was raddled like a clown's; he had a vest of cowhide, with red sleeves; stockings and breeches much like the dancers', and he wore his bells, not on a shin-pad like them, but in a row all round the boot-top. He carried a bladder on the end of a stick, and with it he freely whacked the hobby-horse man and occasionally members of the audience.

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