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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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.

The hobby-horse man of the same company was dressed like a jockey; and, while the dancers had a rest, he and the fool carried on innumerable capers, sometimes backing in amongst the audience, occasionally overturning a few, and now and then chasing any maid that could be started on the run. If this pair be typical of the olden time, we can answer for it that their fun was uproarious and perfectly wholesome.

BELLS.

To the wearing of bells, stitched upon thongs and tied to the shin, there would seem to be no exception amongst the Morris-folk, even from the earliest times. The celebrated Kemp, who danced the Morris all the way from London to Norwich in 1599, and whose picture we reproduce, wore his bells in the traditional manner.

The records show that, even in recent times, both treble and tenor bells were worn, each carried by the opposite files of dancers. There are accounts also of bells with four different tones. But nowadays certainly the rule is that bells all of a kind are worn by all the dancers--latten bells, if that be still the correct name for the kind of bell to be found upon the harness that children use when they play at horses. The shin-pad that carries the bells varies to some extent in the details of its construction; the number of bells also varies. Sometimes the vertical strips and lateral ties of the pad are of ribbon or braid; maybe oftener of leather. Sometimes the bells are stitched upon the lateral ties, top and bottom; it is more usual, however, to fasten them on the perpendicular strips. The whole bell-pad is some seven inches square, and is worn midway between knee and ankle. Kimber, as will be seen , wears twelve bells on each leg, in three perpendicular rows of four each.

HANDKERCHIEFS.

Some dancers carry a white handkerchief--the middle finger thrust through a hole in one corner--in all their dances; we have, elsewhere, described the dances as we have seen them performed, with and without the handkerchief.

STICKS.

The stick, or staff, used in some dances, and the manner of using it, are described elsewhere. Sometimes a bunch of ribbons is tied to the butt; sometimes it is left unadorned.

OTHER PARAPHERNALIA.

As to the fool's properties, he always carries, after the time-honoured fashion of the clown, a bladder swinging on the end of a stick, or ladle; in some parts, even to-day, he is observing custom if he has a cow's tail on the other end: this to be used also to whack the unsuspecting looker-on.

The hobby-horse is, fundamentally, of wicker or some stout fabric stayed with wood, having a hole from which its rider, or footman, emerges to the waist, and is slung upon his shoulders in the familiar manner. The horse's head and tail, a pair of stockings stuffed and shod--and ludicrously disproportionate to the bulk of the horseman; the bit and bridle and caparison, may all be fashioned according to the horseman's humour.

"Glig-Gamena Angel-Deod, or The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England." London, 1801. Joseph Strutt.

"Observations on Popular Antiquities." Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1777. John Brand.

"Orchesographie, et traicte en forme de dialogue, par lequel toutes personnes peuvent facilement apprendre et practiquer l'honneste exercise des dances." Lengres, 1588 . Thoinot Arbeau .

"Shakespeare and his Times." Two vols. London, 1817. Dr. Nathan Drake.

"Robin Hood Ballads." London, 2nd edition, 1832. Joseph Ritson.

"The Environs of London." Four vols., 1792-96. Daniel Lysons.

"History of Music." Five vols., 1776. Reprinted, Novello, Ewer and Co., 1853, two vols. Sir John Hawkins.

"Popular Music of the Olden Time." Two vols. London, 1855-59. William Chappell.

"Shakespeare and Music." London, Dent and Co., 1896. Edward W. Naylor, M.A., Mus. Bac.

"Kemp's Nine Daies wonder, performed on a journey from London to Norwich." Edited from original. Privately printed, Edinburgh, 1884. E. Goldsmid.

"The Literature of National Music." London, Novello, Ewer and Co., 1879. Carl Engel.

"The Abbot." Sir Walter Scott.

"The Fair Maid of Perth." Sir Walter Scott.

"Shakespeare." Steevens.

"Notes and Queries."

"The Transactions of the Folk-Lore Society." Vol. 8, 1897.

"Dancing in all Ages." London, 1879. Edward Scott.

"A Lytell geste of Robin Hode, &c." Two vols. London, Longmans, 1847.

MORRIS DANCE TUNES.

Morris Dance is a very pretty tune, I can dance in my new shoon;

In an interesting and most instructive paper on "Morris-dancing in Oxfordshire," read by Mr. Percy Manning before the Folk-Lore Society, and printed in their "Transactions" for December, 1897, five tunes are given: "Green Garters," "Constant Billy," "Willow Tree," "Maid of the Mill," and "Bob and Joan." Mr. Manning also quotes the names only of the following Morris dances and songs: "Handsome John," "Highland Mary," "Green Sleeves," "Trunk Hose," "Cockey Brown," "The Old Road," "Moll o' the Whad," "The Cuckoo," "The Cuckoo's Nest," "White Jock," and "Hey Morris." The first three of these, as well as the tunes previously mentioned, were sung or danced by the men of Bampton; the remainder by the Morris men of Field Assarts.

Our own investigations enable us to add very materially to existing knowledge of this branch of the subject. We have noted down between twenty and thirty Morris tunes, and have collected the names of several others, which no doubt we shall eventually acquire as well. The list given below consists almost entirely of tunes which are still in constant use by Morris-men in Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire, and Derbyshire.

The figures in brackets record the number of times we have collected the same tune, or variants of it, from different Morris sides.

Laudnum Bunches. Bean Setting. Constant Billy . Blue-Eyed Stranger. The Rigs o' Marlow . Old Mother Oxford. The old Woman tossed up in a blanket . Jockie to the Fair. Rodney. How d'ye do? Trunkles . Country Gardens. Brighton Camp . Shepherd's Hey . Bluff King Hal. We won't go home till morning. Princess Royal . Heel and Toe. Morris Off. Green Sleeves. Hey Morris. The Cuckoo's Nest. Swag and Boney. The Gallant Hussars. The British Grenadiers. The Vicar of Bray. The Sherborne Jig. Belle Isle's March. Two Derbyshire tunes

It must be remembered that our investigations have up to the present been confined within a limited area, and that we have not yet attempted to deal with the northern counties of England. The experience, however, that we have already acquired is enough to prove that there are a much larger number of traditional Morris tunes still to be found in country districts than most people would imagine. Unfortunately, many Morris sides have been disbanded within the last two or three decades, and our field of work is therefore becoming more and more restricted; for it is difficult, and in many cases impossible, to acquire accurate information unless the Morris side is actually in being. We intend, however, to continue our inquiries without pause, in order that we may collect all the existing tunes and other information upon this most interesting subject before it is too late.

We append some notes on the tunes which we are publishing in connection with this volume, with the exception of "Bean Setting," "Trunkles," and "Laudnum Bunches," about which we know nothing.

NOTES ON MORRIS TUNES.

"HOW D'YE DO?"

"RIGS O' MARLOW."

This air is printed in Burke Thumoth's collection of Irish Airs , in Holden's "Old Irish Tunes" , and in "Songs of Ireland," p. 164 .

T. Crofton Croker quotes the words of the original song in "The Popular Songs of Ireland" , of which the first verse is as follows:--

AIR--"Sandy lent the man his Mull." Beauing, belling, dancing, drinking, Breaking windows, damning, sinking, Ever raking, never thinking, Live the rakes of Mallow.

Mr. Kimber, the leader of the Headington Morris, could only give us the first verse of their song, which, however, is quite different from the Irish words:--

When I go to Marlow Fair With the ribbons in my hair, All the boys and girls declare, Here comes the rigs o' Marlow.

Mallow is in County Cork and was a fashionable watering-place in the eighteenth century, when it was known as the "Irish Bath." Croker says that the young men of that fashionable water-drinking town were proverbially called "the rakes of Mallow," and he adds: "A set of pretty pickles they were, if the song descriptive of their mode of life, here recorded after the most delicate oral testimony, is not very much over-coloured."

Neither the Oxfordshire nor the Gloucestershire Morris-men, from both of whom we recovered this tune, had probably heard of "Mallow"; it was natural enough, therefore, to substitute "Marlow," which, of course, they know very well.

"COUNTRY GARDENS."

This is the prototype of "The Vicar of Bray," and Mr. Kidson tells us that he has it in an old book of airs under the more ancient title. It is also called "The Country Garden" in Playford's "Dancing Master," and in Chappell's "National English Airs," Nos. 25 and 26. Chappell gives it in 3-4 time, and remarks that it then becomes "a plaintive love ditty instead of a sturdy and bold air."

"SHEPHERD'S HEY."

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