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Title: English Folk-Song and Dance
Author: Kidson, Frank, Sherwood, Mary Neal
Language: English
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ENGLISH FOLK-SONG AND DANCE
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
London: FETTER LANE, E.C.
C. F. CLAY, MANAGER
[Illustration]
Edinburgh: 100 PRINCES STREET
Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
Toronto: J. M. DENT & SONS, LTD.
Tokyo: THE MARUZEN KABUSHIKI-KAISHA
_All rights reserved_
ENGLISH FOLK-SONG
AND DANCE
BY
FRANK KIDSON
AND
MARY NEAL
Cambridge:
at the University Press
1915
CONTENTS
ENGLISH FOLK-SONG
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 3
I. DEFINITION 9
II. THE ORIGIN OF FOLK-SONG 11
III. THE CANTE-FABLE 15
IV. THE CONSTRUCTION OF FOLK-MUSIC 19
V. CHANGES THAT OCCUR IN FOLK-MUSIC 25
VI. THE QUALITY OF FOLK-SONG, AND ITS DIFFUSION 36
VII. THE MOVEMENT FOR COLLECTING ENGLISH FOLK-SONG 40
VIII. THE NOTING OF FOLK-MUSIC 47
IX. THE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF FOLK-SONG 52
X. THE NARRATIVE BALLAD 53
XI. LOVE SONGS AND MYSTIC SONGS 57
XII. THE PASTORAL 60
XIII. DRINKING SONGS AND HUMOROUS SONGS 62
XIV. HIGHWAYMAN AND POACHER SONGS 64
XV. SOLDIER SONGS 66
XVI. SEA SONGS 67
XVII. PRESSGANG SONGS 69
XVIII. HUNTING AND SPORTING SONGS 70
XIX. SONGS OF LABOUR 71
XX. TRADITIONAL CAROLS 74
XXI. CHILDREN’S SINGING-GAMES 77
XXII. THE BALLAD SHEET AND SONG GARLAND 78
BIBLIOGRAPHY 86
ENGLISH FOLK-DANCE
INTRODUCTION 97
I. THE MORRIS DANCE TO-DAY 125
II. TUNES 130
III. MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 132
IV. THE DRESS 136
V. EXTRA CHARACTERS 141
VI. THE SWORD DANCE 145
VII. THE FURRY DANCE 150
VIII. THE COUNTRY DANCE 152
IX. THE PRESENT-DAY REVIVAL OF THE FOLK-DANCE 158
X. CONCLUSIONS 167
BIBLIOGRAPHY 173
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
MORRIS DANCERS AT BAMPTON-IN-THE-BUSH, OXON. 97
(By kind permission of _The Daily Chronicle_)
ABINGDON DANCES, WHOSE TRADITION GOES BACK TO 1700 104
(From _The Espérance Morris Book_, Vol. I.,
by kind permission of Messrs J. Curwen & Son)
MORRIS DANCERS IN THE TIME OF JAMES I. 120
MORRIS DANCE AND MUSIC 125
(From the _Orchesographie_ of Thoinot-Arbeau,
British Museum)
WHIT-MONDAY AT BAMPTON-IN-THE-BUSH, OXON. 145
(By kind permission of _The Daily Chronicle_)
THE LOCK; CHARACTERISTIC OF SWORD DANCES 148
(From _The Espérance Morris Book_, Vol. II.,
by kind permission of Messrs J. Curwen & Son)
ENGLISH FOLK-SONG
BY FRANK KIDSON
_NOTE_
_I am indebted to Miss Lucy E. Broadwood
for permission to use a folk-tune of her
collecting, and for many helpful suggestions._
_F. K._
INTRODUCTION
Writing two centuries ago, Joseph Addison tells us in the character of
Mr Spectator:—
“When I travelled I took a particular delight in hearing the songs and
fables that are come down from father to son, and are most in vogue
among the common people of the countries through which I passed; for it
is impossible that anything should be universally tasted and approved
of by a multitude, though they are only the rabble of the nation, which
hath not in it some peculiar aptness to please and gratify the mind of
man” (_Spectator_, No. 70). He further says:—
“An ordinary song or ballad, that is the delight of the common people,
cannot fail to please all such readers as are not unqualified for the
entertainment by their affectation or ignorance.”
It was not only the cultured Mr Addison who recognised the claims of
the people’s songs as expressive of sentiments that were worthy the
consideration of the more learned, for quotation upon quotation could
be given of examples where the refined and learned have found in the
primitive song that which appealed in the highest degree.
The moderns need no excuse for the study of folk-song, and few will
regard the consideration of people’s-lore as an idle amusement.
The present essay is put forth with all diffidence as a very slight
dissertation upon a complex subject, and it does not pretend to do more
than enter into the fringe of it.
The younger of the present generation have seen the gradual speeding up
of technique in composition and performance, but with this increased
standard there has been a tendency to let fall certain very sacred and
essential things that belong to musical art. In too many cases the
composer has not quite justified the complexity of his composition;
while glorying in the skill of his craftsmanship he has too frequently
forgotten the primitive demand for art and beauty, apart from technical
elaboration.
That type of simple melody that formerly pleased what we might regard
as a less cultured age, holds no place in present-day composition or in
the esteem of a certain class.
It is probable that this melodic starvation turned so many, who had not
lost the feeling for simple tune, towards folk-music when this was
dragged from obscurity and declared by competent musical judges to be
worthy of consideration. Then people began to revel in its charm, and
to feel that here was something that had been withheld from them, but
which was good for their musical souls.
A simple air of eight or sixteen bars may not appear difficult to
evolve, or even worth evolving at all, much less of record; but
when the matter is further considered, we have to acknowledge that
seemingly trivial melodies have wrought effects which have upset
thrones and changed the fate of nations. Where they have not had this
great political influence their histories show that they have rooted
themselves deeply into the hearts of a people, and put into shade the
finest compositions of great musicians. An undying vitality appears
to be inherent in them, and this is shown by their general appeal
throughout periods of thought and life totally unlike. Many examples
prove this, and such an air as “Greensleeves” might be cited in this
connexion.
One would suppose that nothing could be more apart in thought, action,
and habit than the gallant of Elizabeth’s reign and an English farm
labourer of the present day. And yet the tune “Greensleeves” that
pleased the sixteenth century culture is found the cherished possession
of countrymen in the Midlands, who execute a rustic dance to a
traditional survival of it. Further proof that it is one of those
immortal tunes to which reference has been made is shown by the fact
that it exists in various forms, and has had all kinds of songs fitted
to it from its first recorded appearance in Shakespeare’s time (who
mentions it) down to the present day.
“Greensleeves” is probably an “art” tune and not strictly folk-music.
Hence in its passage downwards it has gradually got stripped of some of
its subtilty, as it has been chiefly passed onward by tradition. This
change will be noted further on.
Other tunes that, coming from remote antiquity, still find a welcome
with the people are, “John Anderson my Jo,” and “Scots wha hae,” while
“Lillibulero,” and “Boyne Water,” though of lesser age, fall into the
same category.
We have even taken to our hearts tunes of other nationalities, and
perhaps have more French airs among our popular music than of any other
country. As every student of national song knows, “We won’t go home
till morning” is but “Malbrook,” the favourite of Marie Antoinette, who
learned it from the peasant woman called in to nurse her first child.
“Ah vous dirai je” is known as “Baa baa black sheep” in every nursery,
while “In my cottage near a wood” is a literal translation from an old
French song to its proper tune.
Such of these, or of this class, as are not folk-tunes have the same
spirit, and it is this indefinable quality that causes folk-music to be
so tenacious of existence. If it be good enough it is almost impossible
for it to die and be totally forgotten. A tune may lie dormant for half
a century, but it rises again and has its period of renewed popularity.
One might name many a music-hall air, over which the people have for a
period gone half wild, that is merely a resuscitation of a tune that
has pleased a former generation. Thus such airs pass through strata of
widely differing thought and mode of life.
It is folk-music that appeals to the bed-rock temperament of the
people. Artificial music can only do so to a culture, which may
change its standards with a change of thought, and that which is the
applauded of one generation becomes the despised of a succeeding one;
musical history can furnish many such examples. These facts justify our
appreciation of folk-music and elevate its study.
I. DEFINITION
The word “folk-song” is so elastic in definition that it has been
freely used to indicate types of song and melody that greatly
differ from each other. The word conveys a different signification
to different people, and writers have got sadly confused from this
circumstance. Even the word “song” has not a fixed meaning, for it can
imply both a lyric with its music, and the words of the lyric only.
“Folk-song,” or “people’s song,” may be understood to imply, in its
broadest sense, as _Volkslied_ does to the German, a song and its
music which is generally approved by the bulk of the people. Thus any
current popular drawing-room song, or the latest music-hall production,
would naturally hold this meaning, though it would not come into line
with the other conceptions of folk-song, and probably not altogether
satisfy the German ideal. Then, what may fitly be called “national”
songs have a strong claim upon the word. “God save the King,” “Home
sweet Home,” “Tom Bowling,” “Heart of Oak,” and countless others that
form our national store of song and melody could under this meaning be
called folk-songs, and this might come closer to the German idea of a
_Volkslied_.
The type, however, which lies nearest the definition of folk-song, as
understood by the modern expert, is a song born of the people and used
by the people—practically exclusively used by them before being noted
down by collectors and placed before a different class of singers.
To pursue the subject further one might split straws over the word
“people,” but it may be generally accepted that “the people,” in this
instance, stands for a stratum of society where education of a literary
kind is, in a greater or lesser degree, absent.
This last definition of folk-song, as “song and melody born of the
people and used by the people as an expression of their emotions, and
(as in the case of historical ballads) for lyrical narrative,” is
the one adopted in these pages and that generally recognised by the
chief collectors and by the Folk-Song Society. In addition it may be
mentioned that folk-song is practically almost always traditional, so
far as its melody is concerned, and, like all traditional lore, subject
to corruption and alteration. Also, that we have no definite knowledge
of its original birth, and frequently but a very vague idea as to its
period.
It has been cleverly said that a proverb is the “wit of one and the
wisdom of many.” In a folk-song or folk-ballad we may accept a similar
definition, to the effect that it is in the power of one person to
put into tangible form a history, a legend, or a sentiment which is
generally known to, or felt by, the community at large, but which few
are able to put into definite shape. We may suppose that such effort
from one individual may be either crude or polished; that matters
little if the sentiment is a commonly felt one, for common usage will
give it some degree of polish, or at any rate round off some of its
corners.
II. THE ORIGIN OF FOLK-SONG
Every nation, both savage and civilized, has its folk-song, and this
folk-song is a reflection of the current thought of the class among
which it is popular. It is frequently a spontaneous production that
invests in lyric form the commonly felt emotion or sentiment of the
moment.
This type is more observable among savage tribes than among civilized
nations. Folk-song is therefore not so permanent among the former
as it is among the latter. So far as we can gather, though it is
difficult to get at the truth of this matter, among primitive people
the savage does not appear to retain his song-traditions, but invents
new lyrics as occasion calls. For example, one is continually reading
in books of travel of negroes, or natives of wild countries, chanting
extemporary songs descriptive of things which have been the happenings
of the day, and telling of the white man who has come among them,
of the feast he has provided, of the dangers they have encountered
during the journey, and so forth. The tunes of these songs appear to
be chiefly monotonous chants, and the accompanying music of the rudest
character, produced on tom-toms, horns, reed-flutes, or similar kinds
of instruments. A very typical description of this class of folk-song,
the like of which may be found in most books of travel, occurs in Day’s
_Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan_. The
author says:—
“The ordinary folk-songs of the country are called
“Lavanis,” and will be familiar to every one who has
heard the coolies sing as they do their work, the
women nursing their children, the bullock-drivers and
dooley-bearers, or Sepoys on the march. The airs are
usually very monotonous, the words, if not impromptu,
are a sort of history, or ballad in praise of some
warrior, or ‘burra-sahib.’ Some have a kind of chorus,
each in turn singing an improvised verse.”
This type appears to be the origin of a nation’s folk-song.
It is a sign of a country’s civilization when it begins to keep
records, either by tradition or more fixed methods, and it is a theory
(which may be probably accepted as correct) that chronicles were
first chanted in ballad form and thus more easily passed downward in
remembrance. This may be accepted as the origin of the folk-ballad.
Its music has originated by the same natural instinct that produces
language.
Much has been said of the communal origin of folk-song and folk-music,
but it is somewhat difficult fully to realise what is meant by such a
term in relation to these matters.
Those who hold this theory appear to assert that a folk-song with its
music has had a primal formation at some early and indefinite time, and
that this germ, thrown upon the world, has been fashioned and changed
by numberless brains according to the popular demand, and has only met
with general acceptance when it has fulfilled the requirements that
the populace have demanded. This change is called its “evolution,”
and it is sometimes claimed that this evolution still goes on where
folk-songs are yet sung; this means that the folk-song is virtually in
a state of fluidity.
Such, briefly, appears to be the idea of those who hold the
evolutionary, or communal, theory of folk-song origin. It cannot be
denied that there is an obvious truth in such a contention, but before
it can be generally accepted surely there must be much modification.
It cannot be altogether decided that the original germ is absolutely
different from the folk-song as found existing to-day, but that both
folk-song and folk-music are subject to change also cannot be disputed.
The parlour game “Gossip,” in which A whispers a short narrative to
B, who in turn whispers it to C, the narrative passing finally to Z,
has been used as an illustration of the variations that folk-song
undergoes. In the game, the tale originally put forth by A is generally
found to be much unlike that received by Z. Folk-song in some degree
suffers such change by conscious or unconscious alteration. Unconscious
alteration we can easily understand; that is merely the result of
imperfect remembrance. Conscious alteration may be the effect, in
vocal rendering, of a difficulty in individual singers of attaining
certain intervals, or from choice. Alteration in instrumental rendering
of folk-music is chiefly due to lack of skill in the performer on a
particular instrument. Thus, what may be difficult to render on a
flute may be easy on a fiddle; hence we can conceive an alteration may
be purposely made for facility of performance. This is decidedly not
evolution, nor communal origin.
III. THE CANTE-FABLE
The existence of the “Cante-fable” has furnished another theory of
folk-song origin. The Cante-fable is a traditional prose narrative
having rhymed passages incorporated with the tale. These rhymes are
generally short verses, or couplets, which recur at dramatic points
of the story. They were probably sung to tunes, but present-day
remembrance has failed to preserve more than a few specimens, and the
verse, or couplet, is now generally recited.
It has been asserted that the Cante-fable is a sort of germ from which
both ballad and prose narrative have evolved. Mr Jacobs, in _English
Fairy Tales_, says—“The Cante-fable is probably the protoplasm out of
which both ballad and folk-tale have been differentiated; the ballad by
omitting the narrative prose, and the folk-tale by expanding it.”
Mr Cecil J. Sharp, in _English Folk-song: Some Conclusions_, p. 6,
tells of having noted a version of the ballad “Lord Thomas and Fair
Eleanor”—“in which the whole of the story was sung, with the exception
of three lines, which the singer assured me should be spoken. This was
clearly a case of a Cante-fable that had very nearly, but not quite,
passed into the form of a ballad, thus corroborating Mr Jacobs’ theory.”
The present writer is sorry to differ from Mr Jacobs as well as from Mr
Sharp in this matter, but he does not think that facts quite justify
the conclusion. He can but look upon the speaking of the three lines
of the “Fair Eleanor” ballad, instead of singing them, as merely an
individual eccentricity that has no value as pointing to a nearly
completed evolution. Their theory indicates, to put it crudely, that
the Cante-fable is in the condition of a tadpole which by and by will
have its fins and tail turned into legs, will forsake its original
element, and hop about a meadow, instead of being entirely confined to
pond water.
An examination of existing Cante-fables will certainly reveal the fact
that the fragments of verse are used either as a literary ornament, or
to force some particular dramatic situation home to the hearer. Also,
it must be noticed that the rhyme passages are not merely fragmentary
parts of a prose narrative which is gradually turning wholly into
rhyme, but most frequently consist of a repeated verse, or couplet,
that occurs at parts of the story, which could not be so effectively
told in prose.
The commonly known story of “Orange,” versions of which, all having
the same rhyme passages, are to be found in English, German, and other
folk-tales is a good example. With little variation the story tells of
a stepmother who kills her husband’s child, makes the body into a pie,
to be eaten by the father, and buries the bones in the cellar. First
one member of the family goes into this place and hears the voice of
the murdered child sing,—
“My mother did kill me and put me in pies,
My father did eat me and say I was nice;
My two little sisters came picking my bones,
And buried me under cold marble stones.”
Then other members of the family go to the cellar and in turn hear the
same voice repeating the rhyme (see _Folk-Song Journal_, vol. ii.,
p. 295, for a version of the tale and a tune sung to the above words
learned from Liverpool children).
Another Cante-fable, surely a genuine one, is given by Charles Dickens
in “Nurses’ Stories” in _The Uncommercial Traveller_.
In this case the rhyme—
“A lemon has pips,
A yard has ships,
And I’ll have Chips!”
is brought out with vivid effect by the narrator at intervals and with
terror-striking force due to its expected recurrence, just as in the
case of the story of “Orange.” As Dickens puts it—“I don’t know why,
but the fact of the Devil expressing himself in rhyme was peculiarly
trying to me.” And again—“For this refrain I had waited since its last
appearance with inexpressible horror, which now culminated.” And—“The
invariable effect of this alarming tautology on the part of the Evil
Spirit was to deprive me of my senses.”
There can be but little doubt that this Cante-fable is a real nurse’s
story, remembered by the great author from his childhood, and Dickens
so well describes the feeling of terror that the rhyme inspires in the
childish listener, that we cannot but grant that the original makers
of Cante-fable were quite alive to the dramatic force such recurring
rhymes possess.
Other examples of the Cante-fable are to be found in Chambers’ _Popular
Rhymes of Scotland_ and elsewhere. All, however, point to the verse
being used as an ornamental and dramatic addition to the story, and
certainly not as indicating a transitionary stage between a rhyming and
a prose narrative.
The question of a Cante-fable origin of the folk-ballad is here
somewhat fully dealt with, as it is a sufficiently romantic theory to
lead people, who have not fully considered all the points involved, to
accept it on trust.
IV. THE CONSTRUCTION OF FOLK-MUSIC
It will be quite evident to the average hearer that much folk-music is
built upon scales different from those that form the foundation of the
ordinary modern tune. This fact is accounted for by the circumstance
that a large percentage of folk-melodies are “modal”; _i.e._
constructed upon the so-called “ecclesiastical modes” which, whether
adopted from the Greek musical system or not, had Greek nomenclature,
and were employed in the early church services.
The ecclesiastical scales may be realised by playing an octave scale
on the white keys of the piano only. Thus—C to C is Ionian, D to
D Dorian, E to E Phrygian, F to F Lydian (rarely used), G to G
Mixolydian, A to A Æolian, and B to B Locrian (practically unused).
Progress in harmony and polyphony gradually revealed the cramping
effect of many modal intervals, and already by the beginning of the
seventeenth century our modern major and minor scales (the first,
however, corresponding to the Ionian mode in structure) had supplanted
the rest, so far as trained musicians were concerned. Not so with the
folk-tune maker; he was conservative enough to preserve that which had
become obsolete elsewhere. We find a large proportion of folk-airs are
in the Dorian, Mixolydian, and Æolian modes, with much fewer in the
Phrygian.
When folk-music began to be first studied scientifically a theory was
held that because of its modal character it was necessarily a reflex
of ecclesiastical music, and that secular melodies were either church
chants set to songs, or in some other way derived from them. It is
known that many of the early clerics established schools for the
teaching of music, with intent to enrich the services. But while this
theory is temptingly plausible, yet it is incapable of proof, and a
reverse one might, with equal reason, be held to maintain that the
church took its music directly from the people, or at any rate adapted
its form from that mostly popular.
It has also been asserted that the modal character of folk-music is a
clear proof of great age. It is certainly more than likely that most of
the modal tunes that are found are of considerable antiquity, but it
is scarcely safe to conclude that all are so. How old any particular
folk-tune may be is a problem incapable of solution, and all attempts
to fix its age and period can be but, at best, mere guesswork.
We may grant that folk-music has been handed down traditionally by
many generations of singers, but if it has pleased these different
generations we must also admit that any new composition of folk-music,
to please the people, must conform to their common demand.
Folk-music seems to have held its own traditional ideals longer
and more closely than music composed for that class which has so
persistently ignored it. The cultured musician is always, consciously
or unconsciously, influenced by the music of his day, and as a
consequence adheres to its idioms, or is genius enough to found a
school of his own. His music too is far more elaborate than that
produced by the rustic, or untaught musician. It has harmony, and many
more points of evidence that enable us definitely to fix its period of
composition.
The composer of folk-music may be compared, in a sense, to the Indian,
or Chinese art-worker who repeats the class of patterns that has come
down to him from time immemorial. When European influence was brought
to bear on his work his patterns became debased, lost their original
beauty, and gained nothing from the new source of inspiration.
There is no space in this small manual to enter into a disquisition on
the Modes. The reader is referred to such a work as the new edition
of Grove’s _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_ (vol. iii., p. 222),
to Carl Engel’s _Study of National Music_, and to a most valuable
contribution to the subject by Miss A. G. Gilchrist, “Note on the Modal
System of Gaelic Tunes,” in the _Journal of the Folk-Song Society_,
vol. iv., No. 16.
The following are given as examples of modal folk-tunes, in the modes
most frequently found:—
[Music: ONE MOONLIGHT NIGHT
DORIAN _Sung in a “Cante-Fable”_
One moonlight night, as I sat high,
I looked for one, but two came by;
The boughs did bend, the leaves did shake,
To see the hole the fox did make.
]
[Music: THE BONNY LABOURING BOY
_Noted by Miss L. E. Broadwood_ _Sung by Mr Lough, Surrey_
MIXOLYDIAN
As I roved out one evening, being in the blooming spring,
I heard a lovely damsel fair most grievously did sing,
Saying “Cruel were my parents that did me so annoy.
They did not let me marry with my bonny lab’ring boy.”
]
[Music: CHRISTMAS CAROL AS SUNG IN NORTH YORKSHIRE
ÆOLIAN MODE
God rest you merry, merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas day,
To save our souls from Satan’s pow’r that long had gone astray,
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, and joy, and joy,
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, and joy.
]
In addition to modal tunes we have a certain number of folk-airs built
upon a “gapped,” or limited, scale of five notes instead of the usual
seven. This “pentatonic” scale, which appears to be very characteristic
of the primitive music of all nations, was formerly held as an
infallible sign of a Scottish origin, and the old recipe to produce a
Scottish air was—“stick to the black keys of the piano.” It is quite
true that a large number of Scottish melodies have the characteristics
of the pentatonic scale, but so also have the Irish tunes, and there
are a lesser number that may claim to be English.
Much nonsense has been written to account for the existence of the
pentatonic scale, the general conclusion arrived at being that it arose
from the use of an imperfect instrument that could only produce five
tones. Whatever the instrument so limited may have been, it was neither
the primitive flute (like the tin whistle) of six vents, which is
sufficient to produce well over an octave, nor was it the human voice.
The universal use of the five note scale among many nations wide apart
has never been satisfactorily explained. The following is an Irish
pentatonic traditional air.
[Music: THE SHAMROCK SHORE
PENTATONIC]
V. CHANGES THAT OCCUR IN FOLK-MUSIC
That all traditional lore is subject to change is of course a
well-recognised fact, and this change is so uncertain in its effects,
and so erratic in its selection that no law appears to govern it. In
ballads or prose narratives that exist only by verbal transmission we
may expect the dropping of obsolete words and phrases, and this usually
occurs; though sometimes corruptions of such remain and are meaningless
to those who repeat them.
For instance, in a certain singing-game, children of a particular
district were accustomed to say—
“She knocked at the door and picked up a pin.” It is quite obvious that
the original stood—
“She knocked at the door and tirled at the pin.” The “tirling
pin” having completely gone out of usage, and even out of popular
remembrance, in the limited area where it formerly served the purpose
of attracting the attention of the householder, the phrase would have
no meaning to the modern child; hence the change into something more
comprehensible.
There is considerable analogy in the above to the change that takes
place in folk-music. But as musical phrases do not, at any rate
in folk-music, become so obsolete as words, the variation is less
considerable and is probably due to different causes. These are chiefly
wilful alteration for particular reasons, and unconscious change due to
lapse of memory, or imperfect hearing. We may usefully consider two or
three examples of these kinds of alterations. The tune “Greensleeves”
is a very characteristic instance. The first record of the song is at
the date 1580, when the ballad was entered at Stationers’ Hall. It is
evident that both words and tune became immediately popular, and from
that time to our own day it has always retained considerable favour,
for it was one of those stock tunes used for ephemeral political
ditties, and for the scraps of verse that were employed in the early
ballad operas. It is easy to trace, from the eighteenth century printed
copies, how the tendency has been to eliminate complex passages, and
generally to simplify, while retaining the essential features of the
tune. Probably this is its pure sixteenth century form—
[Music: GREENSLEEVES (_Earliest form_) _16th Century_]
It is rather a shock to find that the beautiful air has by careless
transmission or wilful change got so degraded as finally to appear in a
manuscript book of fiddle airs dated 1838, thus,—
[Music: GREENSLEEVES _From a Manuscript Book, dated 1838_]
Other copies which have deplorably lost much of the purity of the
original are to be seen in D’Urfey’s _Wit and Mirth_, _The Beggar’s
Opera_ and other early eighteenth century publications. This is from an
edition of _The Dancing Master_, dated 1716:
[Music: GREENSLEEVES AND YELLOW LACE _Printed 1716_]
We may trace a curious corruption in the tune as found in traditional
usage in Ireland nearly eighty years ago. Thomas Moore employed this
traditional version for his song, “Oh, could we do with this world of
ours,” and published it united to his verses in his _Irish Melodies_,
the tenth number dated 1834. He gives the tune the name of “The Basket
of Oysters.” The real tune which went by this title, otherwise known
as “Paddy the Weaver,” is to be seen in Aird’s _Selection of Scotch,
English, Irish and Foreign Airs_, vol. iii., Glasgow [1788], and
elsewhere. It will be noticed that Moore’s tune is “Greensleeves,” to
which is joined a part of “Paddy the Weaver.” It is a notable example
of the manner in which traditional tunes suffer change from imperfect
remembrances or other causes.
[Music: THE BASKET OF OYSTERS _Greensleeves, Irish Version, 1834_]
[Music: A BASKET OF OYSTERS, OR PADDY THE WEAVER
_From Aird’s “Selection,”_ 1788 ]
Although “Greensleeves” is probably not a folk-tune, yet in some cases
folk-tunes are apt to suffer a like degradation in character, although
it must be clearly stated that tradition frequently holds them together
in a wonderfully perfect manner.
In this latter case we may rank “Joan’s placket is torn,” which
survives in the modern “Cock o’ the North,” with “Greensleeves,” and
their histories are well worth recalling.
We may pass over the tradition that “Joan’s placket” was played at
the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. The structure of the tune shows
it to have been originally a trumpet tune, and strangely enough
throughout the whole course of its existence it seems to have been
used in defiance or ridicule. Mr Pepys tells us that when the English
sailors left the deserted “Royal Charles” in the Medway in 1667, a
Dutch trumpeter sounded the tune from the deck of the captured ship.
After this period political lampoons were adapted to the melody. It is
difficult to find out when the tune was first named “The Cock o’ the
North,” or when, under that title, it was adopted as a British army
tune, but there is a striking instance of its use during the siege of
Lucknow in the Mutiny of 1857. It was the practice to signal by flag
and bugle call from the City to the Residency, both in a state of
siege. On one occasion a drummer boy, named Ross, after the signalling
was over again climbed to the high dome from which it was conducted,
and in spite of the Sepoy rifles sounded “The Cock o’ the North” as a
defiance. We all know the story of the wounded piper, shot in the ankle
during the rush at Dargai, crouching behind a rock and still sounding
the pipe tune the “Cock o’ the North” that had inspired the onslaught.
How little the traditional “Cock o’ the North” differs from “Joan’s
Placket” the reader will be able to see from the following copies:—
[Music: JOAN’S PLACKET IS TORN _17th Century_]
[Music: THE COCK O’ THE NORTH _20th Century_] Many other examples of
traditional cohesion as regards folk-tunes might be cited did space
permit.
The tune “A sailor loved a farmer’s daughter,” given in Edward
Bunting’s _Ancient Music of Ireland_, 1840, has recently been noted
from a farm labourer by Mrs Stanton of Armscott, Warwickshire, in a
form practically identical with the printed version, though it is
quite evident that the tune noted in Warwickshire has had a source
independent of Bunting’s. Every collector could point to such instances
from his own experience.
Another fact forces itself into notice. A tune may develop by
traditional passage, or by wilful alteration, into several forms,
and thus we get airs having points of similarity but also points
of difference. In some cases the likeness may be so close that the
different tunes are classed as “variants.”
It must be realised that a folk-song singer is under no bond to sing
an air strictly as he has received it. Fortunately, in many cases, as
shown above, he does, and religiously adheres to the melody as far
as his memory, or skill, will permit. There are, however, difficult
tunes to remember as well as easy ones, and this fact has considerable
bearing on the question.
The reason why we find well-known folk-songs adapted to different airs
is somewhat obvious, and the following explanation may be I think
accepted. Where a singer reads a folk-song from a ballad sheet and does
not know its particular tune, it is easy to believe that he uses one
with which he is already familiar, or adapts one, or even composes an
air from the stock musical phrases that he knows in other melodies.
Thus we find folk-songs sung to many different airs, and this is not
evolution.
It may be noticed that in the lesser marked tunes, or rather less
original airs, stock musical phrases are in use just as the stock
phrases of the ballad-maker are employed by him over and over again.
The folk-song singer looks for and welcomes these passages. They are
conventional and are the most acceptable. Just as a child gives a
better welcome to a story beginning “Once upon a time” than to a less
hackneyed manner of opening, and as the folk-singer demands that every
girl shall be “a fair damsel,” that the incident of the song shall
happen “As I was a-walking one morning in May,” and that his mode of
address shall be “I stepped up boldly to her,” or the like, so there
are certain inevitable musical phrases in folk-music that one meets
with in a particular type of melody.
Waggish musicians are sometimes guilty of inventing “a folk-melody”
for the purpose of deceiving and laughing at collectors. The collector,
recognising the phrases he knows so well, may accept the tune as
genuine. He is not wrong or ignorant in this; the musician has got
possession of the material and spirit of folk-music, and then deception
is easy. A man may have a Johnsonian method of diction without having
the wit or learning of the great lexicographer, and might even pass off
a short speech as a genuine one of the Doctor’s.
These stock phrases are of course freely used in folk-music, and it
is quite easy for a singer of folk-song legitimately to make an air
for a ballad whose proper tune he may not know. This is another way
in which variation of tunes occurs, and such results are frequently
very puzzling to the expert. The singer may have remembered a passage
of a melody and to this he has fitted other phrases that he is also
familiar with. He is probably not conscious of the composite tune he is
making,—he may even think that he is singing the correct tune.
VI. THE QUALITY OF FOLK-SONG, AND ITS DIFFUSION
The strongest and most valuable feature of folk-song is its earnestness
and good faith. Though the quality of earnestness is indefinable it is
the soul of art work, and its presence is ever felt.
A folk-song may be very doggerel in verse, its subject trite and
trivial, yet it possesses that subtle character that has the appeal and
lasting power only belonging to sincerity. The maker of a folk-song
did not produce his work for professional reasons; he sang because he
must, and sometimes he was very ill-fitted for the task. Yet the work,
being done in good faith, has not only the power of appeal to the class
for which it was made, but also to a higher culture. Work of greater
cleverness if it lack this great asset of earnestness cannot do more
than please a particular cult for the moment.
As with folk-music and folk-song, so with the original folk-song
singer. In general he does not sing anything that is not fully in
accord with his own sentiments, and this is really why folk-song not
only keeps in favour with him, but also why it maintains its integrity
in tradition. It is seldom, except for the reasons I have before
given, that a folk-song singer wilfully alters his song. As I have
said, he may, and indeed frequently does, make unconscious changes, but
he has a respect for the songs handed down to him.
On the other hand a singer will without scruple rob another district
of its right in a folk-song. What in one district is “Scarbro’ Fair”
becomes “Whittingham Fair,” and “Birmingham Fair” becomes “Brocklesby
Fair,” according to the places where the songs are current. Otherwise
the song sustains no material change, and each set of singers will
declare their own version is the true one.
The drawing-room vocalist has not the same constancy to his songs as
the folk-song singer, nor have his songs the same stability. When
the stout respectable father of a family proclaims his passion for a
fascinating nymph, and entreats her to fly with him, his wife smiles
approval and silently applauds his efforts. When a feeble-looking
young man voices sentiments of a blood-thirsty or gruesome character
nobody is expected to believe him. In fact he is not in earnest, and in
neither of the two cases I have supposed do the singer’s voice their
general sentiments. On the other hand, the folk-song singer really
_does_ feel the sentiments he sings. If he likes fox-hunting, he
sings a fox-hunting song, and is in perfect agreement with the ditty
that proclaims fox-hunting a noble sport. And the song represents his
feelings when he sings of the joys of farming, or of good liquor, or
any other subject that appeals to him as a man, including love. When a
young girl or even an old lady sings—
“Oh, my very heart is breaking
All for the love of him,”
we may be quite sure that this puts into song some sentiments that
either hold possession of the soul or recalls certain sacred memories.
Such songs as voice commonly felt sentiments are quickly diffused over
the countryside, and they are to be found very widely spread. Where
songs deal with the usages of a district, which, from some cause or
another, do not obtain elsewhere, they are less likely to travel.
For example, we find few harvest-home songs current in the north
of England, and not so many that deal with the joys of farming. In
the south-west, where there are large tracts of agricultural land,
and more organised merry-makings at the close of the harvest, or at
sheep-shearing, there are plenty of songs which proclaim that the life
of a farmer, or a ploughman, is all that can be desired.
In the North, where there is more grazing land, and the harvest is
harder to wring from the soil, this type of song scarcely exists. The
fact is therefore again forced upon us that the folk-song singer, or
maker, deals with things with which he is most familiar. Except for
these limitations it is unsafe to class a folk-song as “Yorkshire,”
“Devonshire,” or otherwise fix it to a particular county.
There are, of course, a very small number of folk-songs that obviously
belong to certain districts, but because a song is sung or noted
in one county we cannot claim that such county is the place of its
origin. Before folk-song collecting was so general as at present it
was frequently customary to fall into this error, but as collectors
and their published “finds” have increased in number, it has become
apparent that folk-songs have been very widespread.
For some reason a song may linger longer in one place than another.
Such a one may be compared to the snow which may have completely
covered a hill-side, but ultimately melting leaves its remnants only in
the sheltered nooks, to disappear last of all.
In a similar way we may find that a dialect word which might be hastily
assumed to belong strictly to, say, Yorkshire, is used in another part
of the country—quite remote, and is generally considered to be a local
word. Instances of such might be given, and we may speculate as to how
the word, or the song has got there, whether by travel, or whether,
like the snowdrift, by survival.
VII. THE MOVEMENT FOR COLLECTING ENGLISH FOLK-SONG
It remains now to consider what has been done towards the noting of
traditionary songs and their airs. Little attention was paid to the
songs sung by country singers prior to the first half of the nineteenth
century. In England, the first step toward the recognition of country
folk-song was made by the Rev. John Broadwood, squire of Lyne, on
the Sussex and Surrey border. In 1843 he published (modestly keeping
his name from the title page) a collection of sixteen songs which
were harmonised by a country organist. The title of the Rev. John
Broadwood’s book is lengthy, but so curious and explanatory that I
reproduce it. The work itself is of extraordinary rarity.
“Old English Songs, as now sung by the peasantry of the weald of Surrey
and Sussex, and collected by one who has learnt them by hearing them
sung every Christmas from early childhood by the country people who go
about to the neighbouring houses, singing, or ‘wassailing,’ as it is
called, at that season. The airs are set to music exactly as they are
now sung, to rescue them from oblivion, and to afford a specimen of
genuine old English Melody, and the words are given in their original
rough state with an occasional slight alteration to render the sense
intelligible. Harmonised for the collector, in 1843, by G. A. Dusart,
organist to the Chapel of Ease at Worthing, London. Published for
the Collector by Balls & Co., 408 Oxford St. for private circulation
(folio, pp. 32).”
It was about this time that William Chappell was bringing into notice
the fine store of English melodies, which were then quite unknown save
to a few musical antiquaries. He had already published a couple of
volumes of airs, but in 1856 he commenced the issue of his _Popular
Music of the Olden Time_, and among the tunes there printed he included
a small number of traditional melodies which he had taken down chiefly
in the South of England. Many of these have won their way into the
hearts of lovers of our national music, and it seems a pity that
they are omitted from the new edition of Chappell’s work. For a long
time after Chappell’s publication little attention was paid to the
folk-songs of our own country, though many German songs that claimed
to be people’s song obtained considerable favour with us. About 1878
a revival of interest in the Northumbrian small pipes caused a search
to be made for pipe tunes, and Mr John Stokoe, of South Shields,
was an active worker in the field. Commencing in December 1878 he
contributed to the _Newcastle Courant_ a series of pipe and fiddle
tunes once popular among Northumbrian pipers. They were chiefly taken
from manuscript collections, but while the airs were, in many cases,
merely transcripts from books of printed tunes for the violin or flute,
published in England and Scotland during the eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries, there remained a number of traditional melodies
of purely Northumbrian usage.
In 1882, under the auspices of the Society of Antiquaries,
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Mr Stokoe, in collaboration with Dr Collingwood
Bruce, published a volume entitled _Northumbrian Minstrelsy_, and here
the _Courant_ tunes were republished with other material. The work has
the fault of including as fresh material much of what had already been
printed in early dance collections and elsewhere, but having small
claim to be considered as of Northumbrian origin.
A book of traditional nursery rhymes, chiefly from a Northumbrian
source, had already been issued (in 1877) by Miss M. A. Mason. In
1888 a small illustrated booklet, _The Besom Maker and other Country
Folk-Songs_, containing nine songs, was issued by Mr Heywood Sumner.
It was about this period that a wave of sympathy impelled several
persons to turn their attention to the consideration of the songs sung
by rustics and other persons who remembered the songs sung by their
parents or elders. Most persons were under the impression that these
country songs were merely remembrances from printed sources, and that
practically little, or nothing, existed purely traditionary.
A little study of the question, however, soon convinced Miss Lucy E.
Broadwood, Dr William Alexander Barrett, the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould,
and the present writer to the contrary.
Miss Broadwood, then living at Lyne in Sussex, found an unworked mine
of great richness among the country people of her district. The late
Dr Barrett had already gathered much, chiefly in the South of England,
while a chance suggestion at a dinner-table caused Mr Baring-Gould to
turn his attention to the collecting of the song current in Devonshire
and Cornwall. Mr Baring-Gould absolutely revelled in this work, and his
wild journeys over Dartmoor, with periods of settling down for a time
at village inns, brought him in a plentiful harvest of charming songs
and delightful melody. In this task he was associated with the Rev. H.
Fleetwood Sheppard and Mr F. W. Bussell. The work of these collectors
saw publication in _Songs of the West_, the first part of which was
issued about 1889, and the fourth and last part in 1891.
Another work of Mr Baring-Gould’s, in conjunction with the late Mr
Sheppard, is a _Garland of Country Songs_, 1895. This is some portion
of the material left over from _Songs of the West_; both were published
by Methuen. A re-issue of _Songs of the West_ with additions appeared
in 1905.
A small part of Miss Broadwood’s work was incorporated in _English
County Songs_, which she edited in collaboration with Mr J. A. Fuller
Maitland in 1893. The great popularity of this work is justified by its
excellence. A further selection appeared in _English Traditional Songs
and Carols_ (Boosey, 1908).
Dr Wm. Alex. Barrett, in February 1891, a few months prior to his
death, issued, through Novello & Co., _English Folk-Songs_, a most
interesting collection of fifty-four songs, some of which, however, are
to be found in print in earlier publications.
In the spring of 1891 the present writer issued the result of his
collecting under the title _Traditional Tunes, a collection of ballad
airs chiefly obtained in Yorkshire and the South of Scotland, by Frank
Kidson_.
After these publications no further work on English folk-song appeared
before the formation of the Folk-Song Society. This society, the most
important factor in calling attention to the existence of unnoted
folk-song, owed its existence to three or four enthusiasts in the cause
who saw the utility of such a thing. At first it was projected as a
branch of the Folk-Lore Society, but, finally, it was thought advisable
that it should stand alone. The Folk-Song Society was duly formed on
June 16th, 1898. The first president was the late Lord Herschell; the
vice-presidents the late Sir John Stainer, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Sir
Hubert Parry, Professor (now Sir Charles) Stanford, and the committee
as follows—Mrs Frederick Beer, Miss Lucy E. Broadwood, Sir Ernest
Clarke, Mr W. H. Gill, Mrs (now Lady) Gomme, Messrs A. P. Graves, (the
late) E. F. Jacques, Frank Kidson, J. A. Fuller Maitland, J. P. Rogers,
W. Barclay Squire, and Dr Todhunter. The late Mrs Kate Lee acted as
Hon. Secretary and Mr A. Kalisch as Hon. Treasurer, both being on the
committee.
In the first year 110 members joined; at the present time there are
probably more than three times that number. In 1904 Miss Lucy E.
Broadwood became Hon. Secretary, and the useful work of the society
advanced by leaps and bounds. Mrs Walter Ford, and Mr Frederick Keel,
the present secretary, followed Miss Broadwood.
The “Journals” of the Society, which by January 1914 had reached
eighteen issues, are of the utmost importance in the study of
folk-song. They contain material gathered by members of the Society
in different parts of the United Kingdom. The original members of the
Council of the Folk-Song Society who have died or retired have been
replaced by musicians and collectors equally enthusiastic, and such
additional names as Dr Vaughan Williams, Mr Percy Grainger, Mr Clive
Carey, and Mr Cecil J. Sharp bear witness to the excellent hands in
which the Society is held.
It would be invidious to name the individual members who have supplied
matter to the Journals of the Folk-Song Society, but besides the above
named, Miss A. G. Gilchrist, the late Dr Gardiner, the late H. E. D.
Hammond, Mrs Leather, Miss Tolmie (with her Gaelic songs), and Mr W.
P. Merrick have all contributed largely and well. Miss Gilchrist has
written with great knowledge on the construction of folk-tunes, and has
supplied other notes of much value.
English folk-song and folk-music has been utilised in several
compositions by Dr Vaughan Williams, Mr H. Balfour Gardiner, Mr Rutland
Boughton, and Mr Percy Grainger.
The part that Mr Cecil Sharp has taken in the advancement of folk-song
is well known. He has collected extensively, chiefly in Somerset, and
his vigorous methods of bringing the subject before the public have
caused “folk-song” to become a household word wherever the English
language is spoken.
VIII. THE NOTING OF FOLK-MUSIC
When the songs and the ballads of the people began to be recognised
as belonging, more or less, to literature, the editors of collections
deemed it was essential that their crudities of style, rhyme, and
diction should be amended, and that the whole should undergo a
polishing process before being launched to the public.
Bishop Percy, of course, naturally occurs to one’s mind in this
connection, and we must grant that in the classic age when he issued
his three volumes (1765) there was reason on his side, and he had some
justification for the trimming he did—the world was not yet ripe for
the folk-ballad collector.
There is much reason to suspect the later editors of ballad lore did
as much as Percy in the work of polishing, and even went beyond him
by pure fabrication. No excuse for such work as this nowadays exists.
People are quite prepared to accept fragments of traditional ballads or
songs precisely in the state they are sung or recited.
In a much lesser degree the same kind of thing held as regards certain
earlier collectors of folk-music. This attitude was not one of deceit,
but rather of ignorance. The modal influence on folk-music was not
understood. As a consequence intervals were altered to conform to the
harmony of another scale. As folk-music began to be better realised
more scientific knowledge was brought to bear on the subject, and every
nerve strained to obtain accuracy of notation.
The phonograph at once suggested itself as a ready and accurate
instrument for the work of noting traditional melody, and many
collectors employ it for this purpose. There is, however, a section
of workers in folk-song who rather mistrust its claim to give the
best results. The motive that inspires the use of the phonograph is
praiseworthy in the extreme, but those opposed to its use suggest that
these results are sometimes not very satisfactory where transcriptions
taken directly from phonograph records have been published. They are
generally complex and confusing, and for examples of the excessively
elaborate rhythms and shifting tonality from phonographic records,
the reader is invited to refer to some particular Journals of the
Folk-Song Society. The transcriber should certainly bear in mind that
mixed rhythms (2-4 time changing to 6-8, 7-8, 4-4, 5-8, and so forth
in one short air) can hardly belong to the original structure of the
tune, but rather to the method of singing it. If the performance of any
great singer were phonographed, and its actual note-value faithfully
transcribed, this would scarcely be considered a fair way of treating
it. It would show a complexity of rhythms of which both the singer and
the audience would be quite unaware. The composer would most certainly
repudiate such a notation, though he might be quite satisfied with
the singer’s treatment of the piece. He would claim that the most
legitimate method would be to indicate time-deviations by the ordinary
accepted marks of expression.
The difficulty of noting melodies from the ordinary possessor of
folk-song is very great, and varies with every singer. Some are a
delight to listen to, others, though it is quite evident that they
possess songs and melodies of the highest interest, produce an opposite
effect on the listener. A phonographic record from one would be a joy,
from the other a painful experience.
Practically every singer of original folk-song is an amateur, and
this by no means lessens the beauty of his singing; in many cases,
though, it offers much disadvantage to the one who notes his tunes.
Unconsciously the vocalist sings the air frequently with more or
less slight difference, and is sometimes not quite true to his note
or key. Any mechanical contrivance for noting his song reproduces
these inaccuracies, and, what is still more to the point, eight
folk-singers out of ten asked to sing into that strange funnel above
a moving cylinder will be nervous and not sing their best, either in
time or tune. A sturdy young farmer, perhaps, who knows all about
the gramophone, may come out of the ordeal with flying colours, and
his strong masculine voice be reproduced with good effect, but not
so a feeble old lady whose songs can only be obtained by careful
tact and sympathetic manner, nor can such be noted otherwise than by
getting constant repetitions and making selections from her differing
renderings.
It is the business of the folk-song collector not to make a hard and
fast record of one rendering of a folk-tune, with all its accidental
inaccuracies, but to obtain what the singer obviously means. Where
possible, the best rendering should be given in its full integrity, and
any emendation stated as such, with reasons given for the alteration.
It is too much to expect that every folk-song singer should be a
paragon of faithful accuracy. In many cases, as before observed, he
sings his tune with some difference on occasions, and this is due to
slips of memory, to wilful alteration, when he thinks such alterations
an improvement, and to extraneous influences—nervousness and the like.
Therefore the collector to give a true rendering of the original
folk-melody should get as many notations of it as possible, and make
such selection as his judgment and knowledge dictate. The ordinary
simple “composed” tune generally continues throughout its length in one
character of rhythm or time. The folk-air as sung to-day frequently
ignores this rule, and may have passages in the middle of it which
differ from the general run of the tune. The earlier collectors ignored
this fact, and practically always placed such airs under one time
signature, considering that any alteration of time-rhythm made by the
singer was a grammatical error on his part. In some cases they were
probably right, but recent comparisons of certain tunes, noted by
different collectors in various parts of the country, go to prove that,
to give particular effect to certain word passages, many folk-tunes
have been composed with deliberate intention of breaking rhythm. The
wary collector, therefore, while he is fully alive to the knowledge
that folk-singers are not always to be relied upon for accurate
transmission, is also aware of the fact I have above indicated.
IX. THE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF FOLK-SONG
The folk-song that does, or did within recent years, exist is manifold
in its variety. It reflects very accurately the type of thought
that is, or was, current among the class who sang it. Its limits
are strictly within their understanding, though now and again its
commonplaces are tinged with romance. Yet this romance is not above the
comprehension of the most humble and constitutes a grown-up’s fairy
tale.
It tells its story or voices its sentiment in the fewest possible
words, and in tragedy is almost Biblical in narrative.
A consideration of a few of its types may be useful.
X. THE NARRATIVE BALLAD
This in its earliest form is, without doubt, the oldest surviving kind
of folk-song. In all cases it is a long rhyming story which tells of
events more or less romantic, and more or less true. It is probable
that such ballads have come down to us from the middle ages, when
professional glee-men, or minstrels, went from one noble house to
another and sang such lyrics to the harp or to other accompaniment.
The stories are dramatic and sufficiently well-marked in character to
be easily remembered. Obsolete expressions may be changed or may even
remain, but the essentials of the story will be retained.
We have sufficient remnants on ballad sheets as well as in popular
remembrance to show that there must have been an enormous number
of these lyrical narratives in common currency. How long these had
remained in oral transmission before being printed on ballad sheets
is a question not easily answered. The question whether, in some
instances, they were printed before being handed to the people may be
answered in the affirmative in respect to a certain number of obviously
later ballads.
The ballad-seller was bound to provide new wares for his patrons, and
his trade could not go on without fresh material. Undoubtedly many of
the ballads he printed were a re-dishing up of old stories, and many
rhymesters, in default of newer ideas, fell back upon the Greek classic
stories for subject. In fact, the common person of the sixteenth
century might claim to be more familiar with the Homeric romance than
the average “man in the street” of to-day. These can scarcely be called
folk-ballads in the strictest sense, because they are evidently the
work of people educated enough to put such matter from the classic, as
well as from Italian authors, into doggerel verse.
The man of an earlier period was as anxious for novelty as he is
to-day. The only difference is this—at the present time novelties so
crowd upon him that they become stale very rapidly. In the “golden age”
people gave leisurely consideration to and digested that which was put
before them. Hence it was held tenaciously in memory, and ballads and
tales lost none of their interest.
The invention of printing wrought a great change in every direction,
and when the press gave forth the ballad sheet it produced a new era in
folk-singing. The ballad sheet is so inextricably mixed up with the
folk-song that, for a clear understanding, it will be necessary to
devote some pages to it later on.
It is a noteworthy fact that among our ballad literature we find
numbers of stories that are practically the same in other languages and
current in other countries. If we find, as we frequently do, a ballad
common amongst Scandinavian folk that is also known in England, or
perhaps Brittany, we cannot safely determine its original birthplace,
for there can be no doubt that popular folk-tales and ballads travelled
from one country to another in a very remarkable degree.
Scotland has always been famous for her wealth of dramatic ballads. No
man can read unmoved the many fine ballad narratives that are published
in her ballad books, and without wondering whence came the rich flow of
fancy and poetic beauty that inspired them.
In spite of all that has been written, much regarding the Scottish
ballads remains a mystery. The early collectors appear to have had
little scruple in regard to the ballads being printed exactly as
received.
One thing we have satisfaction in, namely, that ballads of this
character _did_ exist, and that emendation of phrase, or addition
of verse, affects the matter, on the whole, very little. The
consideration of the Scottish ballad is, however, outside our inquiry,
although some narrative lyrics that are commonly thought to have had
origin in Scotland are found among English folk-singers. Of these,
“Lammikin,” collected by Miss Broadwood in Surrey, is a notable
example, as also the different versions of “The Gipsy Laddie,” and one
or two others that may be found in the Folk-Song Society’s Journals.
Certainly the best-known narrative ballad among English folk-singers
is “Lord Bateman,” and versions of this exist in the Scottish ballad
collections. “Barbara Allan” is another that has a Scottish variant,
while the “Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green” seems to be entirely English.
“Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor,” “The Outlandish Knight,” “Geordie” are
long ballads which, in a more or less fragmentary state, have been
found in nearly every part of England.
One or two of the Robin Hood ballads have also been recovered from
tradition, but such are, strangely enough, not common. All the tunes
found united to the above-named narrative ballads appear to be ancient
and contemporary with early versions of the words.
XI. LOVE SONGS AND MYSTIC SONGS
Love holds first place in all lyrics, and there is no exception to this
rule in the folk-song. There is, however, this difference;—whilst the
art-song is frequently couched in language abstract and sentimental,
and enriched with metaphor and simile, the folk-song is almost always
direct, and from its baldness of diction possessed of great force.
The declaration of love in a folk-song is simple, and there is no
mincing of words. It is unmistakably fervent and in earnest. The
tragedy of a girl’s forsakenness is Biblical in its plainness;
sometimes it is a song rather of triumph than pity.
Few more beautiful and direct specimens of the former type exist than
the one beginning—
“A brisk young farmer courted me,
He stole away my liberty,
He stole my heart with my free goodwill,
I must confess I love him still.
There is an ale-house in this town,
Where my love goes and sits him down;
He takes another girl on his knee,
Ah! is not that a grief to me?
A grief to me, I’ll tell you why,
Because she has more gold than I;
Her gold will waste, her beauty blast,
Poor girl she’ll come like me at last”;
and so forth.
Another very beautiful love song is “The bonnie bonnie boy” noted by
Miss Broadwood, and published in _English County Songs_. It opens—
“I once loved a boy, a bonnie, bonnie boy,
I loved him I’ll vow and protest.
I loved him so well, and so very, very well,
That I built him a bower in my breast,” etc.
A great feature in the love song of the folk-singer is the use of
allegory. The words “thyme,” “rue,” the “broom,” “barley,” “wearing
the green gown,” and several other similes are freely used, and have
an original meaning, for the most part, hidden from the modern singer.
The ever popular “I sowed the seeds of love,” in which is inextricably
entangled that other song, “The sprig of thyme,” is an inoffensive
example of this type. The latter runs—
“Come all you pretty fair maids
That are just in your prime,
I’d have you weed your garden clear
And let no one steal your thyme.
I once had a sprig of thyme,
It prospered night and day;
By chance there came a false young man
And he stole my thyme away,” etc.
As can be well realised, examples of love songs could be given to any
extent.
The folk-singer delights in something that gives a thrill of mysticism,
and there are many having this characteristic in traditional
remembrance. “The unquiet grave” is an example in point. It begins—
“Cold blows the wind over my true love,
And cold blows the drops of rain.
I never, never had but one true love,
And in the greenwood he was slain,” etc.
“The Cruel Ship’s Carpenter,” and “The Nightingale” have each a ghost,
as in a like manner has the one just quoted.
Of the mystic class is “The Prickly Bush.” It is undoubtedly very old
and is found in different forms among country singers. A copy occurs in
_English County Songs_—
“‘O Hangman hold thy hand,’ he c‘ied,
‘O hold thy hand awhile,
For I can see my own dear father
Coming over yonder stile.
Oh, the prickly, prickly bush,
The prickly, prickly bush,
It pricked my hand full sore;
If ever I get out of the prickly bush,
I’ll never get in any more,’” etc.
Common all over the country, with place names that vary according to
the district, is “The Lover’s Test,” sometimes called “Scarborough
Fair.” The lover in this demands a cambric shirt made without needle
and thread, and other impossibilities, with the reward that the lady
shall then be his true love. The lady, equally ready, demands an acre
of land between the sea foam and the sea sand. This is to be ploughed
with a ram’s horn, and to be sown all over with one peppercorn, and so
on. When all this is done the lover can come for his cambric shirt.
The story is a version of “The Elfin Knight,” and of the same type as
“Captain Wedderburn’s Courtship.”
XII. THE PASTORAL
The pastoral song is fairly frequent, especially in the Southern
counties of England. Its chief theme is the joys of country life. Such
are the songs in which the ploughman is the chief personage, and one
who glories in his calling. In _Sussex Songs_ we find a very typical
example—
“Come all ye jolly ploughboys, come listen to my lays,
And join with me in chorus, I’ll sing the ploughboy’s praise.
My song is of the ploughboy’s fame,
And unto you I’ll relate the same,
He whistles, sings, and drives his team,
The brave ploughing boy.”
Then there are sheep-shearing songs, some of which may be seen in Dr
Barrett’s _English Folk-Songs_ and elsewhere. _English County Songs_
provides this ordinary example—
“Our sheep shear is over, and supper is past;
Here’s a health to our mistress all in vull glaas,
For she’s a good ’ooman and purvides us good cheer,
Here’s a health to our mistress, so drink up your beer.”
Other verses would, of course, provide for consumption of more beer
by drinking the health of all the members of the family, and of such
neighbours as the contents of the barrel allowed.
Harvest-home songs too are not lacking, and a small number take the
form of a dialogue between a gardener and a ploughman, or between a
husbandman and a serving-man.
A famous song well known among farm-labourers is that known as “Poor
Old Horse,” and of this there are several versions. This song probably
suggested to Charles Dibdin his once popular song “The High-Mettled
Racer,” and to Thomas Bewick, the wood-engraver, his fine print of a
worn-out horse in the rain called “Waiting for Death.”
The ploughboy is sometimes in love and sings of his passion in the
folk-song. Sometimes it is the lady who declares her love for the
handsome ploughboy, and both varieties are quite popular specimens of
rural simplicity.
XIII. DRINKING SONGS AND HUMOROUS SONGS
The drinking song is not very common among folk-songs. “The good old
leathern bottle,” and some other South country songs, chiefly dealing
with harvest-home festivities, can scarcely be called such. They
speak of the home-brewed farm ale in an honest fashion, and without
the gloating over liquor which is so much a feature of the eighteenth
century bacchanalian song. “When Joan’s ale was new” is popular over
most parts of England, and “Drink old England dry” is another very
harmless production.
The humorous song does not very frequently occur. Sometimes we may come
across one that fulfils all the essentials of wit but will scarcely
bear repetition. Others are humorous and in other respects quite
satisfactory. “Richard of Taunton Dean” is too well known to quote, and
“The Dumb Wife Cured” is another that has been frequently reprinted,
and it is possibly, really, not a folk-song. “The Grey Mare” is an
excellent example. It tells of a young miller who made overtures to
a young lady’s father to obtain her hand. The dowry was agreed upon,
save that the young man had fixed his mind upon the farmer’s grey
mare as part of it. The old man not being inclined to part with this
the bargain was “off.” After the death of the farmer the miller again
sought the lady, who declared she did not know him. Except that
“A man in your likeness,
With long yellow hair,
_Did_ once come a-courting
My father’s grey mare.”
“Eggs in the basket,” narrating the adventures of two sailors, of which
there are several versions in the _Folk-Song Journal_, comes under
the category of humorous songs, and the Devonshire song “Widdicombe
Fair” has, since its publication in _Songs of the West_, met with wide
appreciation. Songs in dispraise of a married life are not frequent
in folk-song, but there is a well-known one in “Advice to Bachelors,”
in Dr Barrett’s _English Folk-Songs_, that appears to be a genuine
folk-song. Its end verse contains the gist of the story. A criminal
under the gallows is offered free pardon if he will marry, but—
“He pondered deep, for life is dear,
But still he thought without a fear
That wives are cheap, and he knew well
How much his sorrows one might swell.
There’s people here of every sort,
And why should I prevent their sport?
The bargain’s hard in every part;
But the woman’s the worst—
Drive on the cart!”
XIV. HIGHWAYMAN AND POACHER SONGS
If the pressgang was an unpleasant factor in eighteenth century life,
so also were the footpad and highwayman. The highwayman generally
claimed the sympathy of the folk-song maker on the ground that—
“He never robbed a poor man upon the King’s highway,” and that his
takings from the rich were distributed among the poor. This atoned
for all crimes against person and property that were committed by
such men as “Brennan on the Moor,” the hero of a very favourite
ballad. Sometimes these highwayman songs take a more moral tone, and
the criminal, in the condemned cell, offers his fate as a warning to
others. Charles Reilly, for example, sings—
“Adieu, adieu, I must meet my fate,
I was brought up in a tender state,
Until bad counsel did me entice
To leave off work, and follow vice.
Which makes me to lament and say,
As in my doleful cell I lay,
‘Pity the fall of young fellows all;
Ah well a day! Ah well a day!’
At seventeen I took a wife;
She was the joy of all my life,
And to maintain her rich and gay,
I went to rob on the King’s highway,
Which makes me to lament and say,” etc.
Poaching was a matter so near the class that sang folk-songs that as
a subject it could not fail in interest. If the folk-singer was not
himself a poacher he was sufficiently in touch to feel a brotherly
sympathy with him in his misfortunes, and in his triumphs, over the
gamekeeper. As a consequence there are many poaching songs well known
in rural districts, as—“Young Henry the poacher,” “The Sledmere
poachers,” “The death of Bill Brown,” “Hares in the old plantation,”
etc.
Highway robbery and poaching led to execution and transportation, and
both these are subjects for the folk-song maker. The execution songs
appear, however, generally to be the work of professional ballad
makers, and the “last dying speech and confession” of a criminal, with
appended verses, was in print long before he had paid the penalty of
his crime. The ballad was sung to one or other of those doleful tunes
especially appropriated to this kind of song by the ballad chanter, who
hawked the broadsides through the towns on the night of the execution.
Frequently the tag to such ditties was—
“Young men all now beware
How you fall into a snare.”
In a somewhat similar strain are the songs that tell of the miseries of
transportation to Van Diemen’s Land, for poaching or other offences.
XV. SOLDIER SONGS
Of soldier songs the folk-singer has comparatively few. One of the
prettiest is that indifferently called “The Summer Morning,” or “The
White Cockade.” It commences—
“It was one Monday morning, as I came o’er the moss,
I had no thought of listing till the soldiers did me cross;
They kindly did invite me to a flowing bowl, and down
They advancèd me some money, ten guineas and a crown.
’Tis true my love has ’listed; he wears a white cockade;
He is a handsome, tall young man, besides a roving blade;
He is a handsome young man, and he’s gone to serve the King.
Oh! my very heart is breaking all for the love of him!”
Another soldier’s song popular among folk-singers is “Pretty Polly
Oliver,” or “Polly Oliver’s Ramble.”
“One night Polly Oliver lay musing in bed;
A comical fancy came into her head,
Neither father nor mother shall make me false prove,
I’ll ’list for a soldier and follow my love.”
Polly dresses herself in male attire, mounts her father’s black
gelding, and joins the regiment, with the captain of which she is in
love.
Then we have the pathetic “Deserter.”
“When first I deserted I thought myself free
Until my false comrade informed on me.”
Another favourite is “The Gentleman Soldier,” and yet another, “The
bonny Scotch lad with his bonnet so blue.” The battle of Waterloo gave
rise to several long ballads descriptive of the fight, and these in
their full integrity of twenty or thirty verses used, not long ago, to
be remembered by old soldiers.
XVI. SEA SONGS
These have always been welcome among English singers, and our nation
has a plenitude of fine ones. In folk-song they generally take a
narrative form and treat of adventures with pirates, and the like.
Examples of this type are “Paul Jones,” “Ward the pirate,” “Henry
Martin,” “The bold Princess Royal,” and some others. The pressgang
songs might, in a sense, go under the heading “sailor songs,” and,
certainly, the Chanty, but these are dealt with separately. “The Golden
Vanity” is popular, so is “The Mermaid,” and both are well known to
modern singers. “The Greenland Whale Fishery” is a fine example of a
genuine whaling ditty (see _A Garland of Country Songs_), and “All on
Spurn Point” is a narrative of a wreck.
The charming song “Stowbrow,” or the “Drowned Sailor,” is chiefly known
on the Yorkshire coast.
“The Cruel Ship’s Carpenter” is a story of a murder and a ghost, which
follows the murderer to sea and denounces him. “William Taylor” (of
which a parody exists) is fairly well known.
“The Coasts of Barbary” is a fine sea song, and “The Indian Lass,”
“Just as the tide was flowing,” “On board a man-of-war,” “Outward
bound,” and “The bold privateers” are sea songs that are commonly
known but can boast no great degree of antiquity. “Fair Phœbe and her
dark-ey’d sailor,” and “The broken token”—the one being a variation of
the other—are songs that fall under the heading “Love Songs.”
XVII. PRESSGANG SONGS
These have a greater dramatic effect than any other type before dealt
with. In the eighteenth century, when the constant war with France
demanded a supply of men to man the navy, the pressgang was a very
vital thing in the lives of the humbler classes. The law empowered
(under a press warrant) officers of the King’s Navy to seize any man,
with few exceptions, and then and there remove him to a King’s ship
to serve as a common sailor. Violence was freely used, and at dead
of night whole villages were cleared of their male inhabitants, and
husbands and bread-winners dragged away, never, in most cases, to
return. Such occurrences were well within the memory of those only just
passed away. With such happenings in their midst, the folk-song makers
had no lack of thrilling and appealing material. The romantic element
was not absent, for it was quite possible, as the folk-song generally
makes it, for an irate father to bribe the pressgang for the removal
of an undesirable young ploughman, and so put an end to the love
passages that existed between his daughter and him, thus leaving the
ground clear for a wealthier or more favoured suitor. Poetic justice is
almost always satisfied in the song by the lady seeking her true love
on shipboard, and, by the production of “gold,” reclaiming him. “The
Banks of Sweet Dundee,” which is widespread and a universal favourite,
affords an excellent example of the pressgang song.
The beautiful song beginning—
“’Twas early, early in the Spring
My love was pressed to serve the King,”
and that one called “The Nightingale,” are earlier in date and quite
charming specimens of the class.
XVIII. HUNTING AND SPORTING SONGS
The folk-singer does not lack songs dealing with the sports he loves.
The fox-and hare-hunting songs are in a degree reflexes of the
eighteenth century ones—of great compass, and of much allusion to the
Greek gods. It is in these that Diana, Aurora and Phœbus figure so
largely.
The folk-song that deals with hunting, generally is local in its
narrative, and tells of some particular famous fox hunt or hare hunt,
naming every squire or yeoman farmer that joined in it. “The Fylingdale
Foxhunt” in _Traditional Tunes_ is a good and typical example. In the
same work will be found “The White Hare” (a description of a hare
hunt), and a song of a not very frequent type detailing a cock fight.
XIX. SONGS OF LABOUR
Primitive folk appear to have always had particular songs appropriate
to specific kinds of labour. Such songs seem to have been traditionally
associated with each class of work, and to have been used either to
give a marked rhythm, by which the efforts of a number of people are
united at a certain moment (as the pull upon a rope), or generally to
lighten work, an effect which song certainly has. It is well known that
girls in a weaving shop, or other factory, work twice as well and feel
the strain lighter while they are singing in chorus some favourite song
or hymn. Soldiers on the march are less tired if the men are allowed
to sing, or while the band plays. The Irish regiments marched out of
Brussels before Waterloo to the strains of the then popular Moore’s
“Melodies,” “The Young May Moon” being among the favourites. The men
of the North during the American Civil War were cheered by the song
“John Brown’s Body,” and our own soldiers in South Africa sung, with
deep meaning (considering that the Boers always managed to have the
advantage of the crest of the hill), “All that ever I want is a little
bit off the top.” Every great river of the world has its boat songs;
in most cases used by the rowers as an aid to their work. Specimens of
these river boat songs have been noted in China, India, on the Nile,
and elsewhere. The well-known “Canadian Boat Song,” of Thomas Moore,
was adapted by him from a chant he himself heard on the St Lawrence
river, the original of which chant, by the way, differs materially from
the version he published.
The Sea Chanty is too wide a subject to be dealt with in this small
volume. Its purpose is to give time to the pull of a rope, the thrust
against a capstan bar, or on occasions when the pumps have to be used.
The “Chanty” may be almost spoken of as obsolete. Its real home was the
sailing vessel, but, at the present day, steam does so much of what
formerly was man’s labour, that the chanty has almost died a natural
death.
There were capstan, pumping, and hauling chanties, and those used in
furling sail, apart from the sailors’ songs pure and simple. The sea
chanty was generally commenced by a leader—the chanty man, who would
perhaps string a few extemporary rough rhymes together, fitted to a
well-known tune, while the men joined in a recognised nonsense chorus
as they did the pulling, thrusting, or other work required.
The Chanties mostly in evidence amongst the English, or
English-speaking, sailors are “Whiskey for my Johnnie,” “Haul the
bowline,” “We’re all bound to go,” “The Rio Grande,” “Reuben Ranzo,”
“Tom’s gone to Ilo,” “Storm Along,” “Lowlands,” “Santa Anna,” “Sally
Brown,” “Banks of Sacramento,” and many others, copies of which, with
most of the above, are to be found in the _Folk-Song Journals_. The
fact cannot be ignored that there is decided American influence in most
of the sea chanties, and that points to them being interchangeable
between the English and the American sailor. The ships trading to San
Francisco and other sailing vessels that took long voyages round the
“Horn” were fit resting-places for the chanty. In former times, on the
old man-of-war ships, a fiddler was frequently requisitioned, or the
anchor was raised to the music of a fife.
Songs of occupation appear to have lingered longest, in the United
Kingdom, in the Hebrides, and quite recently there have been published
in the _Folk-Song Journal_ a number of interesting examples collected
by Miss Tolmie. Others have been obtained by Mrs Kennedy Fraser.
The boat songs, or “Iorrams,” are a feature of Gaelic music, as are the
“luinigs” sung by the women as songs to lighten work where there are a
number of people employed at any one occupation.
Gaelic music and song is outside the scope of this manual; although the
subject of the work-songs used in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland
is here lightly referred to for the purpose of indicating to the
student that such a class of song is still in existence in the British
Isles.
XX. TRADITIONAL CAROLS
That a large number of carols existed in a purely traditional form
was somewhat of a revelation, even to the folk-song collector, when
Miss Lucy Broadwood, Mr Cecil Sharp, and Dr Vaughan Williams published
their “finds” in the _Folk-Song Journal_. Mr Robin H. Legge, as early
as 1890, or before, had collected a number of traditional carols
in Cornwall, but his valuable manuscript collection of them was
accidentally destroyed.
Some of the folk-carols that have lately been recovered embody curious
legends, the origin of which is difficult to trace. “The Bitter Withy”
is one of these, and of this particular carol several variants have
been obtained, chiefly in the Midland Counties. The story is to the
effect that the infant Jesus being reproached for His humble birth by
His play-fellows, “lords’ and ladies’ sons,” makes a bridge over water
with the beams of the sun, and passes safely over; His companions who
follow Him being drowned. His Mother, Mary, chides Him and whips Him
with a bunch of the withy (willow) twigs. Jesus then lays a curse on
the willow and ordains that it shall for ever be rotten at the heart.
Another singular carol noted by Miss Broadwood is “King Pharaoh.” It
was obtained from the singing of gypsies in Sussex. Another version as
“King Herod and the Cock” was obtained by Mr Cecil Sharp, and earlier
versions, as “The Carnel and the Crane,” are to be found in Sandys’
_Christmas Carols_, and elsewhere. A roasted cock that crows three
times and corn which is in ear and ripened the same day are the chief
points in the story, as miracles that occur to testify to the divine
origin of the infant Christ.
“The Moon shines bright,” “The Cherry-tree Carol,” “The joys of Mary,”
with “God rest you merry gentlemen,” are all folk-carols, but words and
tunes have long been in print.
There are two different types of carol—the religious, dealing with
the Holy Nativity, and the festive. “Here we come a-wassailing” is
a folk-carol of the latter kind, and there are many others of this
character. One of the best known, which is yet sung traditionally,
is the carol which, from some cause, is named as belonging to
Gloucestershire—
“Wassail, wassail all over the town,
Our toast it is white, and our ale it is brown,
Our bowl it is made of the maplin tree,
So here’s good fellow, I’ll drink to thee,” etc.
The Gloucestershire rustics singing the song used formerly to go from
house to house bearing a gaily decorated maple-wood potato bowl, which
it was expected would be filled with liquor, or in lieu of this a
contribution of money placed in the bowl.
The May-day carol exists in several different kinds. Copies are to
be found in Dr Barrett’s collection, _English County Songs_, and in
several other works.
William Hone, in his _Ancient Mysteries_, 1822, speaks of the
Christmas carols that were at that time annually printed in chap-books
and on broadsides. He gives a list of eighty-nine of these, some of
which are still remembered among folk-singers.
XXI. CHILDREN’S SINGING-GAMES
The tunes used by children in the traditional singing-games rank as
folk-music, and are always of the most simple and marked character.
Having these qualities they are easily remembered, and capable of being
passed from one generation of children to another with but little
chance of corruption. Although certain games have the same rhymes and
tunes in different parts of the country, yet there are others where the
airs are not so fixed.
A very high antiquity has been allotted to the origin of these games.
It is claimed that many are reflexes of pagan marriage and burial
customs, and even of sacrificial rites. Into this question it is
outside the province of this book to inquire, but whatever may be
adduced as to the great age the games themselves possess, it seems
doubtful whether any exceptional degree of antiquity can be safely
assigned to the existing tunes, though they are all pretty and
charming, and well worth preservation, apart from their antiquarian
association.
Many collections of these singing-games have been published; details
of these will be found in the bibliography. Miss A. G. Gilchrist, of
Southport, has noted a very great number from children in different
parts of the country. Her collection, up to the present, remains in
manuscript.
A number of the singing-game tunes resemble in a greater or less degree
certain published airs, as “Nancy Dawson,” “Sheriff Muir,” and some
others. Whether the children have taken these airs for their games, or
whether the composers of the printed tunes have gone to the children’s
games for inspiration, is a problem not easily solved.
XXII. THE BALLAD SHEET AND SONG GARLAND
When the folk-song singer did not get his song by oral transmission he
took it from a ballad sheet, or from those small collections of songs
which, for at least three centuries, were called “Garlands.” The words
of most of our folk-songs were generally printed either on the ballad
sheet (otherwise “broadside”), or included among those that formed
the contents of the “Garland,” and nowhere else, except in the rarest
instances. Regular song books were too dignified to admit songs or
ballads of the folk-song class. As a consequence the folk-songs that
survive in an early printed form are chiefly found on broadsides.
Technically, the broadside is a printed piece of paper (the size is
immaterial) meant to be read unfolded. A tradesman’s hand-bill, for
example, is a broadside. Folded, the broadside becomes folio, quarto,
or octavo. The “garlands” were small folded booklets of either eight or
sixteen pages, and contained ten or twelve songs, the outer page being
generally decorated with a woodcut, and having a list of the songs
contained within.
The reason why the broadside ballad was printed on one side only
appears to be this—It was the practice to paste them on cottage walls,
inside cupboard doors, chest lids, and such like places. There are many
references in literature to this method of displaying the ballad, as
for example—
“I will now lead you to an honest ale-house where we shall find a
cleanly room, lavender in the window, and twenty ballads stuck about
the wall.”—Walton’s _Compleat Angler_, 1653.
No wonder that the old angler and his pupil found so many delightful
snatches of quaint old song current where ballads and songs were so
fostered. The _Spectator_ shows that the usage had not died out in
Queen Anne’s reign—
“I cannot for my heart leave a room before I have thoroughly studied
the walls of it, and examined the several printed papers which are
usually pasted upon them.”—No. 85, vol. ii.
Although the ballad was freely hawked about the streets of towns, and
carried into the country by “flying stationers” and pedlars (witness
Autolycus in the _Winter’s Tale_), yet the pastings upon walls and
the constant foldings of loose ballad sheets soon destroyed existing
copies, for few of the old ballad lovers were like Mr Pepys and Captain
Cox. Laneham, it will be remembered, tells in his “Letter,” 1575,
describing the festivities at Kenilworth Castle, that Cox’s ballads
numbered more than a hundred, and were “all ancient,” and were “fair
wrapt in parchment, and tied with a whip cord.” Would there had been
more of the Captain’s careful disposition.
Broadside ballads must have come among the people with the first dawn
of printing, and in Henry the Eighth’s reign they had become of such
weight in political influence that one or more royal edicts were
levied against them. The earliest known English printed ballad is, in
date, about 1540. Ballad printing was generally done by small local
printers, or else by those larger London printers who made a speciality
of the work, and who supplied the whole country with ballads and with
“garlands.”
Gough, Redman, Bankes, Walley, and many others who worked in London
during the sixteenth century were noted printers of ballads. In the
seventeenth century ballad printing became more general, and many
of the publishers clubbed together, so that we find several names
on one imprint. Henry Gosson printed in 1616, and John Trundle, his
contemporary, was so noted as a ballad vendor that he is named in Ben
Jonson’s play, “Every Man in His Humour.” In 1642 Francis Coles (or
Coules) flourished and issued ballads in conjunction with William
Gilbertson, having a shop on Saffron Hill. Of this period also were
Alexander Milbourn, Francis Grove, J. Wright, William Onley, and the
“Assignees of Thomas Symcocke.” At a later date William Thackeray, at
the “Angel in Duck Lane,” issued, with Passenger, at the “Three Bibles
on London Bridge,” many interesting ballads, garlands, and chap-books.
One of their dates is 1687.
All these seventeenth century ballads, or the chief part of them, were
printed in “_=black-letter=_,” a type of Gothic character which was
specially reserved for law books, bibles, and romances long after its
discontinuance as ordinary text. They were generally printed on rather
large paper, about 14 inches by 10 inches, and, of course, only on one
side of the paper. The name of the tune was frequently given, and on
some a few musical notes, professing to be the tune, were appended to
the verses. These musical notes, however, were a fraudulent inducement
to purchasers, for they were merely set at random. Rude woodcuts, which
more or less illustrated the theme of the ballad, generally headed the
whole.
The most noted collections of this period of ballad are the Roxburghe
collection in the British Museum, and the Pepysian at Cambridge. It
must be pointed out that a great number of these ballads were scarcely
folk-songs—that is, they were not “born of the people”—and only a
certain proportion were current among them. There were professional
ballad writers who supplied rhymed narratives to order for the ballad
seller, not only upon topical events, but re-dishings of earlier
romances, and other matter.
Whether at the opening of the eighteenth century printed ballads began
to be out of favour, or whether the ballads have not been so carefully
preserved, is not quite clear, but they are certainly more rare of this
period.
The chief ballad printer of this date was John Cluer, who was printing
ballads in 1720, and shortly after this date was established as a music
publisher of repute. He worked in Bow Church Yard, Cheapside, and was
succeeded by William Dicey, who had been in partnership with Robert
Raikes, at Northampton, in the ballad and chap-book printing business.
Robert Raikes removed to Gloucester, where he established the first
Gloucester newspaper. He was father to Robert Raikes, the originator of
Sunday Schools.
An important range of ballad sheets were those which issued from the
Aldermary Church Yard press. In 1793 J. Marshall was at this address,
printing engraved song sheets with pictorial headings. There was also
a J. Marshall at Newcastle-on-Tyne, who published song garlands about
1820.
One of the best-known ballad printers at the end of the eighteenth
century was John Evans, of 42 Long Lane, Smithfield. He printed
broadside ballads, chap-books, and garlands. He and his sons at a later
date printed for the Religious Tract Society, producing such quaint
religious stories as _The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain_. The Evans
family, and successors, were in full vigour as printers as late as
1815.
It was at the beginning of the nineteenth century that the great
ballad printer J. Pitts appeared. It is said that “Johnny Pitts” was
a female who had been a bumboat woman. The ballad sheets that issued
from the Pitts’ press are all of interest, and many genuine folk-songs
appear on them. A rival to Pitts came from Alnwick in the person of
James Catnach, the son of a printer in that small Northumbrian town.
James Catnach first commenced business in 1813, at 2 and 3 Monmouth
Court, Seven Dials, and he made a complete revolution in ballad sheet
printing. The early ballad-mongers used a rough grey, or blue tinted,
paper and their type was none of the best, or clearest. Catnach changed
the shape of the ballad sheet into Large Post Quarto (about 10 × 8
inches), used good, though thin, white paper, and clear type. Many of
his wood-blocks were either by the Bewick brothers, or by their pupils.
He put forth an enormous quantity of ballads and songs, and seems
to have not only employed men to write songs on topical events, but
also to have for the first time put into print many a stray folk-song
which the ballad-singers, who flocked to buy his ballads, would recite
to him. This latter fact accounts for a certain amount of ignorant
mistakes that occur in the text.
After founding an immense business he retired in 1838, and died in
1841. His married sister, Anne Ryle, took over the business and
advertised that she had “4000 sorts” of ballad sheets. Her manager,
James Paul, appears to have been some sort of an editor for her, and
it is believed that he wrote, or re-wrote, certain of the ballads and
songs she printed. He was, with others, proprietor of the business
at one time, but finally it became the property of W. S. Fortey, who
reprinted from Catnach’s old stereotypes. T. Batchelor, Piggot, and T.
Birt were other ballad printers, a little later than Catnach.
The broadsides printed by Henry Such are of considerable interest
to the collector, as they contain versions of folk-songs which are
generally good. He was printing in 1849, and his successors of the same
surname reprinted his ballad sheets up to a recent date. Provincial
ballad sheet printers are Walker of Durham (flourishing in 1839), and
Harkness of Preston, of a somewhat later date. R. Barr of Leeds and
J. Bebbington of Manchester were broadside printers of forty or fifty
years ago, while Shelmerdine & Co. of Manchester date from about 1815.
The folk-song collector cannot ignore the ballad sheet, for upon it are
found the words of many folk-songs of which he may only obtain very
fragmentary versions from the singer. It is not to be understood that
the ballad sheet version of a folk-song is always an accurate one, but
it is worth having, for the folk-song singer has generally learned his
words, or at any rate refreshed his memory, from the broadside copy.
The ballad printer was too wise a business man to print on the sheet
_only_ folk-songs. He printed a popular lyric side by side with an
old traditional song, for the sheet had room for at least two sets of
verses, and he, by this means, catered for two classes of customers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following works have each a bearing upon English Folk-Song and
Folk-Music, and the student will find a reference to them of great help
in obtaining a full knowledge of the subject. Many others might have
been named, for it is difficult, if not impossible, to fix a limit for
the bibliography of a particular line of study.
COLLECTION OF BALLADS AND SONGS, WITHOUT MUSIC
ASHTON, JOHN. A Century of Ballads. Collected,
edited, and illustrated in facsimile by ——. 1887.
—— Modern Street Ballads. 1888.
—— Real Sailor Songs.
BALLAD SOCIETY, THE. Published between 1868
and 1881 many volumes of ballads which were
reprinted from the black letter broadsides in
the British Museum and elsewhere.
BALLADS, THE ROXBURGHE. A Book of Roxburghe Ballads.
Edited by J. Payne Collier. 1847.
—— Edited by Charles Hindley. 2 vols. 1874.
(These two publications are merely selections
from the collection.)
BELL, JOHN. Rhymes of Northern Bards; being a
curious collection of old and new songs and poems
peculiar to the counties of Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
Northumberland, and Durham. 1812.
BELL, ROBERT. Early Ballads illustrative of History,
Tradition, and Custom. Edited by ——. 1856.
—— Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry
of England. Edited by ——. 1857.
(Of these two most useful volumes many later
editions have been published. They were really
compiled and annotated by John Henry Dixon, and
originally appeared in 1846, with some slight
differences, as one of the publications of the
Percy Society. As they formed one of the series
of “Bell’s English Poets,” the general editor’s
name appeared instead of the real compiler’s.
Other volumes of the Percy Society’s publications
have some interest for the inquirer into English
folk-song.)
CHILD, F. J. English and Scottish Ballads.
Selected and edited by ——. 8 vols. 1857-1859.
(This is the original American edition. A later
edition was published in 1861, and finally a large
quarto edition with much new matter was begun
in 1882, and completed in 1898 in 10 parts. A
condensed edition of Child’s ballads was issued in
1904.)
CLARK, ANDREW. The Shirburn Ballads,
1585-1616. Reprinted from the MS. by ——. 1907.
EVANS, THOMAS. Old Ballads, historical and
narrative, with some of modern date. 2 vols. 1777.
(A later edition in 4 vols., 1784. A different
and fuller edition, 1810, 4 vols.)
HARLAND, JOHN. Ballads and Songs of Lancashire.
Chiefly older than the nineteenth century. 1865.
JEWITT, L. Ballads and Songs of Derbyshire,
with illustrative notes and examples. 1867.
LILLY, JOSEPH. A collection of seventy-nine
black letter ballads and broadsides printed in
the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 1867.
(This is a reprint from a collection of
broadsides that formerly belonged to George Daniels,
the antiquary.)
LOGAN, W. H. A Pedlar’s Pack of ballads and songs. 1869.
PERCY, BISHOP. Reliques of Ancient English
Poetry, consisting of old heroic ballads, songs,
and other pieces of popular poetry. 3 vols. 1765.
(Second edition, 1767; third, 1775; fourth, 1794;
and numerous later editions.)
—— Folio Manuscript. A reprint by Hales and Furnivall
of this celebrated collection from which the
“Reliques” were selected. 4 vols. 1867-1868.
RIMBAULT, DR E. F. A little book of songs and
ballads, gathered from ancient musick books, MS.
and printed, 1851.
RITSON, JOSEPH. Ancient Songs and Ballads from
the reign of Henry the Second. 2 vols. 1787.
(Later editions, 1790, 1792, and 1829.)
—— Northern Garlands. 1810. A reprinted edition, 1887.
(They consist of four song “Garlands” issued by
Joseph Ritson. “The Bishopric Garland or Durham
Minstrel,” 1784—enlarged edition, 1792; “The
Yorkshire Garland,” 1788; “The Northumberland
Garland,” 1793; and “The North Country Chorister,”
1802.)
—— Robin Hood, a collection of all the ancient poems,
songs, and ballads now extant relative to that
celebrated English outlaw. 2 vols. 1795.
(Collections of the Robin Hood ballads reprinted
from Ritson’s work are innumerable. An excellent
edition appeared in 1820, and again in 1823, while
a very useful one was published by Griffin about 1850.)
Another reprint was issued in 2 vols. in 1884.
SHARP, Sir CUTHBERT. The Bishopric
Garland of Legends, Songs, Ballads, etc., belonging
to the county of Durham. 1834.
SIDGWICK, FRANK. Popular Ballads of the Olden
Time. First to fourth series, 1903-1912.
(See also several small carol books compiled
by the above.)
ENGLISH FOLK-SONG COLLECTIONS WITH THE TUNES, OR MUSICAL WORKS BEARING
ON THE SUBJECT
CHAPPELL, WM. National English Airs. 2 vols.
1838-1839.
—— Popular Music of the Olden Time. 2 vols. 1856-1859.
(The new edition of Chappell’s “Popular Music”
edited by H. E. Wooldridge was published in 1893,
but the traditional airs obtained by Chappell and
his friends are omitted.)
RIMBAULT, EDWARD F. Musical Illustrations of
Bishop Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.
A collection of old ballad tunes chiefly from rare
MSS. and early printed books. 1850.
—— Nursery Rhymes. Edited and arranged by E. F.
Rimbault. (Several editions.) Chappell.
MASON, Miss M. A. Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs. 1877.
(A reprint by Metzler, recently issued.)
BRUCE, Dr C., and J. STOKOE.
Northumbrian Minstrelsy: Ballads, Melodies, and
Pipe Tunes of Northumbria. 1882.
STOKOE, JOHN, and SAMUEL REAY.
Songs and Ballads of Northern England.
(Contents principally taken from “Northumbrian
Minstrelsy” harmonised by the late Mr S. Reay,
about 1895.)
SUMNER, HEYWOOD. The Besom Maker, and other
country folk-songs. 1888.
SMITH, LAURA A. Music of the Waters. 1888.
—— Through Romany Song-land. 1889.
BROADWOOD, Rev. JOHN. Sussex Songs,
arranged by H. F. Birch Reynardson. 1889.
(This is a reprint of the tunes collected and
privately issued in 1843 by the Rev. John
Broadwood, with additional ones collected by
Miss Lucy E. Broadwood.)
BARING-GOULD, Rev. SABINE. Songs and
Ballads of the West. A collection made from the
mouths of the people, by Rev. S. Baring-Gould and
Rev. H. Fleetwood Sheppard. 4 parts. 1889-1891.
Methuen.
(Several later editions of the parts, and in volume
form. Also an entirely new edition in association
with Mr Cecil J. Sharp, published 1905.)
—— A Garland of Country Songs. 1895.
KIDSON, FRANK. Old English Country Dances
gathered from scarce printed collections, and from
manuscript. 1890.
(Contains several hitherto unprinted folk-airs
used as dance tunes.)
—— Traditional Tunes: a collection of ballad airs,
chiefly obtained in Yorkshire and the South of
Scotland. 1891.
BARRETT, W. ALEX. English Folk-Songs.
Collected and arranged by W. A. Barrett. Novello.
1891.
BROADWOOD, LUCY E., and J. A. FULLER
MAITLAND. English County Songs. Collected and
edited by ——. Leadenhall Press, and Cramer. 1893.
—— English Traditional Songs and Carols. Boosey. 1908.
TOZER, F. Sailors’ Songs and Chanties. Words
by F. Davis, music arranged from traditional
sailors’ airs. Boosey.
BRADFORD, J., and A. FAGGE. Old Sea
Chanties. Collected and arranged by ——. Metzler.
GRAHAM, JOHN. Dialect Songs of the North.
Collected and edited by ——. Curwen.
SHARP, CECIL J. Folk-Songs from Somerset,
gathered and edited with pianoforte accompaniments
by Cecil J. Sharp (and Rev. Charles L. Marson). 1905.
(Four more parts afterwards added. In the fourth
and fifth parts Mr Sharp’s name alone appears as
editor.)
—— Folk-Song Airs. Collected and arranged for the
pianoforte by ——. Books I. and II. Novello.
—— A School Series of Folk-Songs, in numbers. Novello.
BARING-GOULD, Rev. S., and CECIL J.
SHARP. English Folk-Songs for Schools. 1906.
Curwen.
FOLK-SONGS OF ENGLAND. Novello.
Book I. Folk-Songs from Dorset. Collected by
H. E. D. Hammond.
Book II. Folk-Songs from the Eastern Counties.
Collected by R. Vaughan Williams.
Book III. Folk-Songs from Hampshire. Collected
by George B. Gardiner.
FOLK-SONG SOCIETY, JOURNALS OF. 18 parts have
been issued. (Hon. Sec., 19 Berners Street.)
CAROLS
GILBERT, DAVIES. Some Ancient Christmas Carols
with the tunes to which they were formerly sung.
1822. Second edition, 1823.
(The tunes are eight in number.)
SANDYS, WILLIAM. Christmas Carols, Ancient and
Modern, including the most popular in the West
of England. 1833.
—— Christmastide: its history, festivities and
carols. _c._ 1852.
RIMBAULT, E. F. Christmas Carols. Edited and
arranged by ——. Chappell.
HUSK, W. H. Songs of the Nativity, being
Christmas Carols old and new. _c._ 1865.
HELMORE, THOMAS. Christmas Carols. Novello.
1853.
BRAMLEY, Rev. H. R., and STAINER,
JOHN. Christmas Carols old and new. _c._ 1868.
Reprinted in two small editions with a third series
added. Novello.
FULLER MAITLAND, J. A. English Carols of the
Fifteenth Century, from a MS. roll in the library
of Trinity College, Cambridge, with added parts by
W. S. Rockstro.
DUNCOMBE, W. D. V. A Collection of Old English
Carols as sung at Hereford Cathedral. Weekes.
HILL, Rev. GEOFFRY. Wiltshire
Folk-Songs and Carols. 1904.
BROADWOOD, LUCY E. English Traditional Songs
and Carols. Boosey. 1908.
SHARP, CECIL J. English Folk-Carols. Novello.
1911.
GILLINGTON, ALICE. Old Christmas Carols of the
Southern Counties. Curwen.
SHAW, MARTIN, and PERCY DEARMER. The
English Carol Book. 1913.
SINGING-GAMES
GOMME, ALICE B. Traditional Games of England,
Scotland, and Ireland. 2 vols. 1894-1898.
—— Children’s Singing-Games, with the tunes to
which they are sung. Oblong. 2 series. 1894.
—— Old English Singing-Games.
KIDSON, FRANK, and ALFRED MOFFAT.
Eighty Singing-Games, old, new, and adapted.
Bayley & Ferguson.
GILLINGTON, ALICE E. Old Hampshire Singing-Games.
—— Old Isle of Wight Singing-Games.
—— Old Surrey Singing-Games. Curwen.
LITERATURE
ECKENSTEIN, LINA. Comparative Studies in
Nursery Rhymes. 1906.
ENGEL, CARL. The Study of National Music. 1866.
—— The Literature of National Music. 1879.
GLYN, MARGARET H. Analysis of the Evolution
of Musical Form. 1909.
HALLIWELL, JAMES ORCHARD. The Nursery Rhymes
of England, obtained principally from Oral
Tradition. 1843.
(A reprint from the volume contributed to the Percy
Society’s publications by Halliwell in 1841. A most
valuable work, several times, with the addition of
“Nursery Tales,” re-issued.)
MUSICAL ASSOCIATION, PROCEEDINGS OF.
For 1904-1905-1907-1908.
(These years contain different papers on folk-music.)
SHARP, CECIL J. English Folk-Songs: Some Conclusions. 1907.
ENGLISH FOLK-DANCE
BY MARY NEAL
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Acknowledgment is given with many thanks to—
Miss LUCY BROADWOOD, who directed attention to
several works of reference.
Miss A. G. GILCHRIST, for permission to use
the music of the Moston rush-bearing Morris dance
and for pointing out its connection with “To-morrow
shall be my dancing day.”
Miss NELLIE CHAPLIN, for allowing me to use
her copy of _Playford’s Dancing Master_.
Mr CLIVE CAREY, for reading proofs and other
help.
Mr WALTER DODGSON, for translating passages
from _Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda_ by Leopold
von Schroeder.
Mr BRASSINGTON, of the Stratford-on-Avon
Memorial Library, for help in looking up works of
reference.
Mr JOHN GRAHAM, for suggesting works of
reference.
Mr JOHN BECK, for lending _Kemp’s Morris
Dance Wonder_.
Sir J. G. FRAZER, whose work, _The Golden
Bough_, is indispensable to the study of folk-dance.
_The Daily Chronicle_, for permission to reproduce the
pictures of the Bampton dancers.
Messrs CURWEN & SONS, for permission to
reproduce two pictures from the _Espérance Morris
Books_.
[Illustration: Morris Dancers at Bampton-in-the-Bush, Oxon.]
INTRODUCTION
Before the year 1905 few people knew that England possessed a
traditional folk-dance of her own, and fewer still realised that the
national dances were still practised on certain festival occasions in
several villages and country towns, for the most part in the Midland
and Northern counties. The word “folk” when used to describe a dance
may be interpreted in two ways. It may be used to signify a dance
(either traditional or not) at one time popular amongst the people,
or its meaning may be limited to those dances whose origin is lost in
antiquity and which have been passed on from generation to generation
by unlettered folk without the aid of written music or written
instruction as to steps or evolutions. That this book may be of more
use to those who wish either to study the available English dances or
to pass them on to the present generation, the wider meaning of the
word “folk” will be understood.
But a very marked distinction must be drawn between the two classes
of folk-dance, between those recorded in books and still danced by
peasant folk as a merely social dance, with no special significance
beyond being an occasion for the display of gallantry, coquetry, and
the courtesies of social intercourse; and those dances, until lately
unrecorded, which are religious in origin and are the expression in
rhythm of primitive beliefs and magical ceremonial.
In the former are included the country dances and certain popular court
dances. The latter include the Sword dances, Morris dances, the Furry
dance, and Horn dance. As the origin of all dancing may be directly or
indirectly traced to the ceremonial of primitive religions, it will
be well first of all to give some account of those traditional dances
still lingering in English villages which give unmistakable signs of
their origin.
The primitive forms of the traditional dance can only be guessed at
by the student of to-day, for probably every epoch, every generation,
and every individual dancer has added to, modified, or taken from
the original dance, but enough is still with us to make the study an
intensely interesting one both from the archæological and from the
social point of view.
The most important surviving traditional dance in England to-day
is undoubtedly the Morris dance, both because of the far greater
number of Morris dances still in existence and because of the greater
differences between the individual dances. But very closely allied to,
if not identical with, the Morris is the Sword dance, and again allied
to both is the Mummers’ play.
My own experience in talking to country dancers coincides with that of
Mr Cecil Sharp, who says that if you ask a sword dancer of Grenoside
or Earsdon, he will insist that he is a Morris dancer, and that one
is often sent after a Morris dance, only to find traces of a Mummers’
play. He adds, “In due course it will dawn upon him (the collector)
that the sword dancer of Northern England, the Morris dancer of the
Midlands and the South, and the Mummer of all England and Scotland are
in the popular view as one and pass under the same name.” And it is
the word “Morris” which gives the clue to the origin and nature of the
dance, whatever the precise form which it takes.
With one exception the dictionaries and glossaries I have consulted
derive the word “Morris” from “Moorish.” Mr Cecil Sharp says that the
weight of testimony must be held to show Morocco as the fount and
origin of the dance,[1] but Mr John Graham and Mr Kidson throw doubt
on its Moorish origin. The fact that the Morisco, supposed to be the
counterpart of the English Morris, was a solo dance performed with
castanets, and the fact that amongst Orientals only women danced,
whilst the Morris is essentially a man’s dance, seems to me to put the
Morris definitely into an entirely different category from the Morisco,
although both words are used for the same dance.
[1] Later, I believe, Mr Sharp changed his opinion.
Eventually I found what I believe to be the true derivation of the
word in the Glossary of C. Mackay, LL.D., published in 1887. He says
that the word “Morris” is probably of Keltic origin, and comes from
“Mor,” great, and “uasal,” noble and dignified. The final syllable was
dropped in the course of ages, when Mor-uasal and Mor-uiseil became
Moruis, great, noble, stately, dignified, solemn. Dr Mackay connects
the dance with the Druidical Festival of Beltane (from Bal or Bael, the
Sun-god), and he says that all traditions of the Druids show the solemn
importance which they attached to May Day, or Beltane. Multitudes of
devotees preceded by three orders of the priesthood—priests, bards,
and prophets—marched in solemn procession to the top of a high hill to
watch the kindling of a fire on May the first by the direct agency of
the sun. The solemn and mysterious dance around the fire thus kindled
appears to have been the origin of the Morris or Mor-uiseil dance.
Many writers have pointed out the curious resemblance between the
dances of the Salii and the English Morris and sword dances, and this
resemblance adds to the evidence in favour of our traditional dance
having originated in sun worship and nature worship generally.
The following description of the Salii from _The Golden Bough_ will
illustrate this point:—“As priests of Mars, the god of Agriculture,
the Salii probably had also certain agricultural functions. They were
named from the remarkable leaps which they made. Now we have seen that
dancing and leaping high are common sympathetic charms to make the
crops grow high. Was it one of the functions of the Salii to dance and
leap on the fields at the spring or autumn sowing, or at both?
“The dancing procession of the Salii took place in October as well as
in March, and the Romans sowed both in spring and autumn. The weapons
borne by the Salii, while effective against demons in general, may have
been especially directed against the demons who steal the seed corn
in the ripe grain. In Western Africa the field labours of tilling and
sowing are sometimes accompanied by dances of armed men in the fields.”
In a footnote the author also throws out a suggestion that, as the
Salii were said to have been founded by Morrius, King of Veii, and
this seems to be etymologically the same as Mamurius and Mars, the
word “Morris” may be the same. In answer to a query, however, he does
not appear to take this as a really serious suggestion.[2]
[2] L. von Schrœder in _Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda_ (p. 113)
suggests, following A. Kuhn, that the root of the word “Morris” is the
same as that of Maruts, the band of dancing warriors attendant upon
Indra.
The following are some of the reasons for connecting the Morris dance
with primitive religious customs:—
(1) The characteristic of the processional form of the
dance as performed by the living dancers to-day is
a slow, dignified rhythmic movement, which is very
marked in the Bampton (Oxon.) dancers, who have an
unbroken tradition going back some hundreds of years.
The set dances display a much more lively character
and are characterised by wild leaps, twirlings
round, hand-clapping, stick clashing, and the
waving of handkerchiefs, so that we can easily
imagine the present Morris as a descendant of the
solemn processional up the mountain-side to greet
the morning sun, and the scenes of wild joy on the
summit at the appearance of the source of light and
life to his waiting worshippers.
(2) Many of the Morris and Sword dancers have
evolutions which are characteristic of ceremonial
used by savage people in the worship of the sun.
The Abingdon (Berks) dances, a very old tradition,
end with a complete circle. Bean-setting, one
of the Headington (Oxon.) dances, begins with
two half-circles danced in opposite directions.
The Bampton dances have circles, half-circles,
and gypsies, another form of circle. The
Gloucestershire dances have the same. In some
dances the dancers advance and retire into the
centre, forming a widening and narrowing circle
alternately, all of which illustrate by mimetic
action the supposed movements of the sun and the
sun’s rays. All were probably actuated by mimetic
magic, primitive man believing that by imitating
the rising and setting of the sun and by lighting
fires he actually caused the return of the sun to
the earth.
(3) The appearance in different forms of the King
and Queen, the Lord and Lady, the Mayor and
Squire in the ceremonial of the dance. These
figures indubitably link up the dances with those
ceremonies attending the crowning of the King of the
Wood, who, representing the life of the earth’s
vegetation, was yearly slain lest his vigour might wane
and all the green life of earth perish with it. The
slaying of this King and the revels which preceded it
and the crowning of the fresh and younger Monarch were
all still dimly to be traced in many revels and dances
in English villages within quite recent years.
At Abingdon, the story runs, two hundred years ago a great fight took
place between the dwellers in Ock Street and the rest of the burghers
of the town. The Ock Street people outnumbering the rest of the whole
town thought they had the right to appoint a Mayor. A beast was slain
in the market-place and roasted whole, a fight took place for the
horns, and the winning side then carried the horns in the Morris
dancing round the town. The horns are in existence to-day and are
carried by the Mayor of the Morris accompanied by the Squire carrying
a Sword. There are traces left still of the gold used to tip the
horns which are mounted on a bull’s head, with flaming red nostrils,
thus making it evident that the beast was regarded as sacred. These
ceremonies took place on St John the Baptist’s Eve, celebrating the
summer solstice.
[Illustration: Abingdon Dancers, whose tradition goes back to 1700
(_“The Squire” holding the sword, wooden cup, and collection box, also
the pole on which is mounted the bull’s head and horns formerly carried
by the “Mayor of the Morris”_)]
At Kirtlington it was customary for the dancers to conduct ceremonially
a young maiden from her father’s house early in the morning. She
must be of spotless reputation, and dressed in white with floating
blue ribbons. She stayed with the dancers until night fell, when she
was taken back to her father’s house. During the time she was with
the dancers she was regarded as sacred, and anyone who so much as
jostled her in the crowd must pay a fine of half a crown. Later a lamb
substituted for the maiden was decorated with flowers and ribbons,
carried round by the dancers, and at intervals put down while they
danced round about it in a circle.
At Kidlington (Oxon.) Blount describes a similar ceremony. “The Monday
after Whitsun week a fat lamb was provided, and the maidens of the town
having their thumbs tied together were permitted to run after it, and
she who with her mouth took hold of the lamb was declared the Lady of
the Lamb, which was killed, cleaned, and with the skin hanging on it
was carried on a pole before the lady and her companions to the green
attended with music and a Morisco dance of men and another of women.
The rest of the day was spent in mirth and merry glee. Next day the
lamb, partly baked, partly boiled and partly roasted, was served up
for the lady’s feast, when she sat majestically at the upper end of
the table and her companions, with the music playing during the repast,
which having finished the solemnity ended.”
In most places where there are still lingering traces of the Morris
there also linger these traces of the ancient sacrifice of the King of
the Wood, and of the Worship of the Sun.
Another link with the festivals of ancient religions seems to be the
constant use of a mask in the traditional dance, or the disguising of
the face with black, white, or red paint. In _The Golden Bough_ Sir
James Frazer gives an account of a pagan festival which may possibly
account for this survival.
“In Mexico a Woman who represented the Mother of the Gods, the Earth
Goddess, after being feasted and entertained by sham fights for some
days was beheaded on the shoulders of a man. The body was flayed, and
one of the men clothing himself in the skin became the representative
of the goddess Toci. The skin of the thigh was removed separately, and
the young man who represented the Maize god, the son of the goddess
Toci, wrapt it round his face as a mask. Various ceremonies then
followed in which the two men clad in the woman’s skin played the parts
respectively of god and goddess.”
To-day in England curious hints still survive which show that the
simple country folk never altogether lost the feeling that these
dances were not quite ordinary, but represented some sort of magic
charm with which it would be unsafe to interfere. Mr Sidney O. Addy,
in his _Household Tales_, says:—“At Curbar, in Derbyshire, it is said
that Morris dancing is really fairy dancing, and that ‘Morris dancing’
means ‘fairy dancing.’ Morris dancers of the present day (1895), it is
said, go through the same form of dancing that the fairies go through,
except that of course they cannot perform such intricate figures as the
fairies can. The figures which the Morris dancers of the present day go
through are very elaborate and very difficult to learn. A man said to
me ‘that Morris dancing had been taken away from the fairies.’ There
is something beautiful and strange in the music to which the Morris
dancers dance. If ever music was not of this world it is this. To hear
it is to believe that Morris dancing was a religious rite.“
The following extract seems to link up our English Morris dance with
the Moorish dance, so that whether we choose to derive the word
“Morris” from the Keltic Mor-uiseil, or from the Moorish, or whether
we think that the similarity of the two words made a confusion in the
popular mind, and so the two kinds of dances came to be known by one
name, we can still hold the belief that the English traditional dance
which has come to us down the ages was originally a religious dance
celebrating the return of the Sun-god and the sowing and the gathering
of the crops on which man’s life depended.
Mr Addy asks:—“Has it (the Morris dance) descended to us from a dusky
Iberian people, once a distinct caste in England, in whose magical
powers and religion the dominant races believed? In his dictionary,
Professor Skeat has concluded that a Morris dancer was a Moorish
dancer. Assuming that such is the case, we may ask ourselves why these
dances were so called. Are we to suppose that English peasants borrowed
the dance from the Moors in historical times? Or are we to believe that
it was handed down in England from an early period by the remnants of
a dark-coloured Iberian people who, according to Tacitus, crossed over
from Spain and were, in fact, Moors? In Yorkshire, a rude Christmas
play known as the Peace Egg is performed. In that play the chief act
is the slaughter by St George of England of a Black Prince of Paladine
whom St George stigmatises as a ‘Black Morocco Dog.’ The play seems
to represent an old feud between a light-haired and a dark-haired
people once inhabiting England: and it may be that in popular speech
the dark-haired people were once known as Moors. If this dramatised
contest between St George of England and the ‘Black Morocco Dog’ does
not point back to a time when conflicts existed in this country between
a dusky race of Iberian or Moorish origin and a light-haired people
which conquered and enslaved them, to what can we ascribe its origin?
We can only say that this play is of historical or literary and not
of traditional origin. But the form of the play renders an historical
or literary origin impossible, and the whole performance seems to be
nothing else but a rude and popular reminiscence of an ancient national
feud.
“It seems relevant to mention here an old earthwork, extending for
some miles in length near Sheffield, known in one part of its course
as Barber Balk. The direction of the earthwork is from south-west to
north-east, and the ditch is uniformly on the southern side, as if it
had been intended as a defence against attack from that side. Some
modern scholars identify the Barbars or Berbers, a people inhabiting
the Saracen countries along the north coast of Africa, with the
Iberians. Can it be that an invading Celtic people threw up this
earthwork as a defence against a dusky Iberian foe coming from the
south, and that the ancient name of the earthwork has been handed down
from a remote time, thereby preserving its true history? And is it not
possible that the Iberians, the Morris or Moor, the ‘Black Morocco Dog’
of the traditional play and the Barber are identical?
“A great authority on early Britain ‘has accepted and employed the
theory advanced by ethnologists that the early inhabitants of this
country were of Iberian origin.’”
The fact that the Morris dancers sometimes blackened their faces need
not necessarily mean that they wish to represent the Moors, but that
they were thought to represent Moors because their faces were blackened.
The Morris dance was called in some places the Northern lights and the
Aurora Borealis because of its desultory movements, and it may have
been this which inspired Milton to write—
“The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the Moon in wavering Morrice move.”
If, as I have tried to show, the traditional dance is part of an
ancient religious ceremonial dating from pre-Christian days, we shall
not be surprised to find that in Early Christian times the dance still
found some place in the ceremonial of worship.
Sir Hubert Parry, in a chapter on dance rhythm in Grove’s _Dictionary
of Music_, says:—“Dance rhythm and dance gestures have exerted the
most powerful influence on music from prehistoric times until to-day.
The analogy of a similar state of things among uncultivated races
still existing confirms the inherent probability of the view that
definiteness of any kind of music, whether of figure or phrase, was
first arrived at through connection with dancing. The beating of
some kind of noisy instrument as an accompaniment to gestures in the
excitement of actual war or victory or other such exciting cause was
the first type of rhythmic music, and the telling of tribal or national
stories, of deeds of heroes in the indefinite chant consisting of a
monotone slightly varying with occasional cadences which is met with
among so many barbarous peoples, was the first type of vocal music.
“This vague approach to musical recitation must have received its
first rhythmic arrangement when it came to be accompanied by rhythmic
gestures and the two processes were thereby combined, while song and
dance went on together as in mediæval times in Europe.
“In Oratorio the importance of dance rhythm is shown by negative as
well as positive evidence. In the parts in which composers arrived
at pure declamatory music, the result, though often expressive, is
hopelessly and inextricably indefinite in form. But in most cases they
submitted either openly or covertly to dance rhythm in some part or
other of their works.
“In Oratorio the dance influence maintained its place, but not so
openly as in Opera.”
In actual Church worship we find that rhythmic ball was played by
bishop and priests round the altar, and at the present day on Corpus
Christi Day and other festivals in the Cathedral at Seville the choir
boys perform a dance.
The fact that to-day the Christian Festival of Whitsuntide is the most
usual time for Morris dancing in those places where it still survives
is also an indication that the pagan ceremonial dance was transferred
to the Christian Church ceremonial in early Christian times.
Several Churchwarden accounts giving items paid for Morris dancers’
clothes, decorations, and regalia also point the same way. One at
Kingston-on-Thames reads thus—
1508. For payneing of the Mores garments and
for sarten gret leveres £0 2 4
” For plyts and ¼ of laun for the Mores
garments 0 2 11
” For Orsden for the same 0 0 10
” For bellys for the daunsars 0 0 12
1509-10. For silver paper for the Mores daunsars
the frere, and Mayde Maryan at 1d.
a peyne £0 5 4
1521-22. Eight yards of fustyan for the Mores
daunsars’ coats 0 16 0
” A dozyn of gold skynnes for the Mores 0 0 10
1536-37. Five hats and 4 porses for the daunsars 0 0 4½
But a carol collected in 1833 from a peasant in West Cornwall and
included in William Sandys’ collection is the most interesting proof
I have yet found of the association between dancing and the Christian
religion. Nothing more is known of the Carol in spite of many inquiries
which are still being pursued. This is the carol—
[Music: TO-MORROW SHALL BE MY DANCING DAY]
To-morrow shall be my dancing day,
I would my true love did so chance
To see the legend of my play,
To call my true love to my dance.
CHORUS
Sing, oh! my love,
Oh, my love, my love, my love,
This have I done for my true love.
2. “Then was I born of a Virgin pure,
Of her I took fleshly substance:
Then was I knit to man’s nature,
To call my true love to my dance.
Sing oh! etc.
3. “In a manger laid and wrapp’d I was,
So very poor this was my chance,
Betwixt an ox and a silly poor ass,
To call my true love to my dance.
Sing oh! etc.
4. “Then afterwards baptised I was,
The Holy Ghost on me did glance,
My Father’s voice heard from above,
To call my true love to my dance.
Sing oh! etc.
5. “Into the desert I was led,
Where I fasted without substance:
The Devil bade me make stones my bread,
To have me break my true love’s dance.
Sing oh! etc.
6. “The Jews on me they made great suit,
And with me made great variance,
Because they loved darkness rather than light,
To call my true love to the dance.
Sing oh! etc.
7. “For thirty pence Judas me sold,
His covetousness for to advance;
Mark, where I kiss, the same do hold,
The same is he shall lead the dance,
Sing oh! etc.
8. “Before Pilate the Jews me brought,
When Barabbas had deliverance;
They scourg’d me and set me at nought,
Judged me to die to lead the dance.
Sing oh! etc.
9. “When on the cross hanged I was;
When a spear to my heart did glance,
There issued forth both water and blood,
To call my true love to the dance.
Sing oh! etc.
10. “Then down to Hell I took my way,
For my true love’s deliverance,
And rose again on the third day,
Up to my true love and the dance.
Sing oh! etc.
11. “Then up to Heaven I did ascend,
Where now I dwell in sure substance,
On the right hand of God, that man
May come into the general dance.
Sing oh! etc.”
Mr G. R. S. Mead thinks that this carol was originally sung by the
mediæval minstrels, jongleurs, and troubadours, who are said to have
invented the word carol, meaning a dance in which the performers
moved slowly in a circle, singing as they went. The Troubadours are
responsible for the preservation of many fragments of old mystery
plays, and this carol is probably one such fragment, and as such is a
link between the definitely pagan folk-dance and through the Christian
Church to those alive in England to-day.
The following tune is taken from Miss A. G. Gilchrist’s Manuscript
Collection, and was noted and sent to her by Mr Smith Williamson,
bandmaster of Moston, W. Manchester, in 1907. Miss Gilchrist thinks it
interesting in connection with the tune of this Carol, as it is called
“My love, my love,” and was played as a Morris dance at the Rush-Cart
ceremony at Moston up to forty-five or fifty years ago.
[Music: MOSTON RUSH-CART MORRIS TUNE, “MY LOVE, MY LOVE”]
The following account of the sacred all-night dance written by Philo
(about A.D. 26) is quoted by Mr Mead in _Quest_, October 1910, and is
interesting because the dance described is curiously like the surviving
processional dances which have intervals in the processional when a set
dance is performed.
“After the banquet they kept the sacred all-night festival. And this is
how they keep it. They all stand up in a body, and in the middle of the
banqueting-place they first form the Choroi, one of men and the other
of women, and a leader and conductor is chosen for each, the one whose
reputation is greatest for a knowledge of music: they then chant hymns
composed in God’s honour in many metres and melodies, sometimes singing
together, sometimes one chorus beating the measure with their hands
for the antiphonal chanting of the other, now dancing to the measure
and now inspiring it, at times dancing in procession, at times set
dances, and then circle-dances right and left.” The latter part of this
description might almost have been taken down from some of the Morris
dances danced to-day.
In Anglo-Saxon times the sword dance was in great repute, and Saxon
nobles kept dancers to amuse their guests. There is mention of Morris
dancing in Edward III.’s reign, when John of Gaunt returned from
Spain, but few, if any, vestiges of it can be traced in writers beyond
the reign of Henry VII.: about which time, and particularly in that
of Henry VIII., the Churchwarden’s accounts in several parishes show
that the Morris dance made a very considerable figure in the parochial
festivals. Some of the accounts of the May Games of Robin Hood include
a Morris dance, but it is doubtful if the Morris was an intrinsic part
of the Robin Hood pageant, as it was very often danced on separate
occasions altogether. I am inclined to think that both are fragments
of much older dances and dramas, and that it is almost impossible to
say what was their exact relation to one another. By the time of Henry
VIII. and Elizabeth, when references to the Morris dance are very
frequent, all idea of its religious significance had disappeared, and
it represented the characteristics of the English peasant in a holiday
mood in the days when life was a big adventure, and revelry and sport
were rude and boisterous. It is a little difficult to realise, as one
watches the few remaining traditional dancers to-day, either that their
dancing has represented all that mankind knew of primitive religious
aspiration and ceremonial, or later that it embodied all the frolic and
revel of the rollicking days of Queen Elizabeth.
Although there is only one written record of steps and figures, there
are so many general descriptions of the dances in the writers of that
time that it is a little difficult, in the short space at my disposal,
to choose which will give the best idea of the dance as then performed.
I have chosen a few descriptions which seem best to fulfil this purpose.
But first there are four pictures of Morris dancing which may be here
described.
The first is a painted glass window at Betley, in Staffordshire. It
exhibits in all probability the most curious as well as the oldest
representation of an English May game and Morris dance that is anywhere
to be found. The dresses look as if they belong to the reign of Edward
IV., but the owner, Tollet, thought they were in the time of Henry VIII.
Another early representation of a Morris dance is a copy of a very
scarce engraving on copper by Israhel Van Meckenem (died 1503), so
named from the place of his nativity, a German village in the confines
of Flanders, in which latter country this artist appears chiefly to
have resided, and therefore in most of his prints we may observe the
Flemish costume of his time. From the pointed shoes that we see in one
of the figures it must have been executed between the years 1460 and
1470, about which latter period the broad-toed shoes came into fashion
in France and Flanders. It seems to have been intended as a pattern for
goldsmith’s work, probably a cup or tankard.
And thirdly, there is in the old Town Hall at Munich a series of ten
figures of Morris dancers, carved in wood by Erasmus Schnitznar in
1480. All these figures have bells, and one has long streamers to his
sleeves.
There is a fourth described by Walpole in his _Catalogue of English
Engravers_, under the name of Peter Stent. It is a painting at Lord
Fitzwilliam’s on Richmond Green, which came out of the old neighbouring
palace. It was executed by Vinckenkroom about the end of the reign of
James I., and exhibits a view of the above palace. A Morris dance is
introduced, consisting of seven figures, viz.:—A fool, hobby-horse,
piper, Maid Marian, and three dancers, the rest of the figures being
spectators.
In a tract entitled _Plaine Percevall the Peace Maker of England_,
1590, mention is made of a “stranger, which, seeing a quintessence
(besides the Foole and Maid Marian) of all the picked youth strained
out of a whole endship, footing the Morris about a May-pole, and he,
not hearing the ministrelsie for the noise of the tabors, bluntly
demanded if they were not all beside themselves that they so lip’d and
skip’d without an occasion.”
Stubbes, in his _Anatomie of Abuses_, thus describes a Morris dance
under the title of the “Devil’s Daunce.”
[Illustration: Morris Dancers in the time of James I.]
_Description of the Lord of Misrule, and attendant Morris_
“First, all the wilde heads of the parish, flocking together, chuse
them a graund Captaine (of Mischiefe) whome they innoble with the title
of _my Lord of Misrule_, and him they crowne with great solemnitie,
and adopt for their King. This king annoynted, chooseth forth twentie,
fourtie, three score or a hundred lustie guttes like to himselfe to
wait upon his Lordly Majesty, and to guard his noble person. Then
everyone of these his men he investeth with his liveries of greene,
yellow, or some other light wanton colour. And as though that were
not (bawdy) gawdy ynough, I should say, they bedecke themselves with
scarffes, ribbons and laces hanged all over with golde ringes, precious
stones and other jewels: this done, they tie about either legge
twentie or fourtie belles with rich handkerchiefe in their handes and
sometimes laide a cross over their shoulders and neckes, borrowed for
the most part of their pretie _Mopsies_ and loving _Bessies_, for
bussing them in the darke. Thus all things set in order, then have they
their hobby-horses, their dragons and other antiques together with
their baudie pipers and thundering drummers, to strike up the _Devil’s
Daunce_, withall: then martch this heathen company towards the Church
and Church-yarde, their pypers pyping, their drummers thundering,
their stumpes dauncing, their belles iyngling, their handkercheefes
fluttering about their heades like madde men, their hobbie horses and
other monsters skirmishing amongst the throng: and in this sorte they
goe to the Church (though the Minister be at prayer or preaching),
dauncing and swinging their handkercheefes over their heads in the
Church like Devils incarnate, with such a confused noise, that no man
can heare his owne voyce.”
To come to later times; in a curious story of a Country Squire who
turned Methodist and went about the country preaching, called “The
Spiritual Quixote or the Summer’s Ramble” of Mr Geoffry Wildgoose, a
comic romance (1773), there is an amusing account of a Morris dance.
“In the afternoon when they were got within a few miles of Gloucester
at a genteel house near the end of the village they saw almost the
whole parish assembled in the Court to see a set of Morrice dancers
who (this holiday time), dressed up in bells and ribbands, were
performing for the entertainment of the family of some company that had
dined there.”
* * * * *
“Those who are acquainted with this sort of Morrice dance (which is
still practised in several parts of England) must know that they are
usually attended with one character called the Tom fool, who like the
clown in the pantomime seems to be a burlesque upon all the rest. His
fool’s cap has a fox’s tail depending like a ramillie whip: and instead
of the small bells which the others wear on their legs he has a great
sheep-bell hung on his back side. Whilst the company therefore were all
attention to the preacher this buffoon contrived to slip the fool’s cap
upon Tugwell’s head, and to fix the sheep’s bell to his rump. Which
Jerry no sooner perceived than his choler arose, and spitting into his
hands and clenching his fists he gave the Tom fool a swinging blow in
the face. Tugwell pursued with the sheep-bell at his tail. Ended the
preaching.”
At Abingdon-on-Thames the date on the regalia of the Morris dances
still in existence is 1700, and the Bampton Morris “side” claims an
unbroken tradition, so that in these places at any rate we are in touch
with the dance as it has come to us from the days when it was an
inherent part of country life, and it is from these and other isolated
“sides” and individuals that the steps, figures, and tunes have been
taken down at the present day. A complete reconstruction of the dance
is of course impossible, so is an exact lesson of the way in which it
should be danced, but with the general descriptions and the remaining
dancers enough can be ascertained to justify the contention that
England has a real folk-dance of her own which compares very favourably
with that of other nations.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Morris Dance and Music from the _Orchesographie_ of
Thoinot-Arbeau]
I. THE MORRIS DANCE TO-DAY
Before the revival of Morris dancing in 1905, there was only one
description of the steps and evolutions of the dance, and that was in
_Orchesographie et Traicte en Forme de Dialogue_, by Thoinot-Arbeau,
published in 1588.
This is so interesting that I have had a photograph of it taken from
the copy in the British Museum.
The Morris dance may be roughly divided into five kinds—processional,
corner, handkerchief, stick dances, and solo jigs.
The corner dances are danced with handkerchiefs and so are the
processional and jigs, but there are also others where handkerchiefs
take the place of sticks.
Since 1905 Mr Cecil Sharp has published instructions for the Morris
dance in a series called the Morris Book, with the tunes as played
at the present day. The first two volumes of the series were written
in collaboration with Mr H. C. MacIlwaine, and with the help of Miss
Florence Warren, of the Espérance Guild of Morris dancers, from whom
the steps of most of the dances were taken down as she had learned them
from William Kimber, of Headington.
I have also edited, with the help of Mr Clive Carey, Mr Geoffrey Toye,
and Miss Florence Warren, two volumes called _The Espérance Morris
Book_, and Mr John Graham has collected Midland, Lancashire, and
Cheshire dances in two volumes.[3]
It is probable that these books contain complete instructions in the
steps and figures of the dance and are a fairly complete collection
of the existing dances, and that others still in the Collector’s
books, but not yet published, may only be variants. There is a varied
and extensive terminology used by the old dancers, and it is often
difficult to arrive at the exact meaning of certain expressions, for
each set of dancers has its own phraseology, which varies considerably
from that of other sets even when they are not many miles apart in
locality. The following are some of the terms used:—“Shake up” and
“foot up” for the first figure of a dance; “hey up” or “hey sides up,”
“back to back,” “hands across,” and “capers.” “Gipsies” must be seen to
be understood, and “galley” is a turning round on your own axis with a
single or double shake of the leg, which seems to be better done the
older and more shaky the dancer is.
[3] Both the first volume of _The Espérance Morris Book_ and the first
volume of Mr Sharp’s _Morris Book_ have been revised.
Each village has its own steps and its own evolutions, and the
evolutions generally follow the same order in each dance, the
particular steps of that dance being done between the evolutions.
This is a very usual order in which the dance is done—
Foot up or Shake up. Special step.
Special step. Back to back.
Hey up. Special step.
Special step. Hey up and All in.
Hands across.
But it would take a whole volume to describe each step done by each
“side” of dancers, and by the time this book was in print other
variants would have arisen, if any of the “sides” had danced in the
meantime.
For practical purposes one has to decide on the most typical step one
has seen and adopt it for those to whom one is responsible for teaching
the dances.
But the characteristics of all the dances are vigour and virility, and
there is nothing in the least like the posturing with pointed toe which
characterises the ordinary ball-room and stage dances.
The following is a complete list as far as I know of all the Morris
dances collected and published since the revival in 1905:—
Bean-setting.
Laudnum Bunches.
Country Gardens.
Constant Billy.
Trunkles.
Rigs o’ Marlow.
Bluff King Hal.
How d’ye do, Sir?
Shepherds’ Hey.
Blue-eyed Stranger.
Hey diddle Dis.
Hunting the Squirrel.
Getting up Stairs.
Double set Back.
Haste to the Wedding.
Rodney.
Processional Morris.
Jockie to the Fair.
Old Mother Oxford.
Old Woman tossed up in a blanket.
Bacca Pipes jig.
Flowers of Edinburgh.
The Rose.
Field Town Morris.
The Maid of the Mill.
Bobbing Joe.
Glorisheers.
The Gallant Hussar.
Leap Frog.
Shooting.
Brighton Camp.
Green Garters.
Princess Royal.
Lumps of Plum Pudding.
The Fool’s Dance.
Derbyshire Morris.
Derbyshire Morris Reel.
The Cuckoo’s Nest.
The Monk’s March.
Longborough Morris.
Heel and Toe.
Bobby’s Joan.
Banks of the Dee.
Dearest Dicky.
London Pride.
Swaggering Boney.
Young Collins.
All’s for the Best and Richmond Hill.
Step Back.[4]
I’ll go and enlist for a Sailor.
Sherborne Jig.
None so Pretty.
Cross Caper, or Prince’s Royal.
We won’t go home till Morning.
Abraham Brown.
Morris Off.
Long Morris.
Cross Morris.
Three Cans Morris.
Nancy Dawson.
The Boatman’s Song.
The Tight Little Island.
The Girl I left behind Me.
The Rose Tree and The British Grenadiers.
Garryowen.
With a Hundred Pipers.
Ninety-five.
Draw Back.
Bumpus o’ Stretton.
Lively Jig.
Morris On.
Sally Luker.
A Nutting we will go.
[4] As far as I can gather, this is the dance called “Molly Oxford” by
the Field Town dancers; it seems that Mr Sharp has substituted this
name owing to the fact that it is not danced to the “Molly Oxford”
tune. One of the dancers repudiates the title on the ground that the
characteristic figure is a spring and not a step back.
In addition to these Mr F. Kidson has also published a set of Country
and Morris dance tunes, but without instructions as to the dances.
Although this list gives a very fair idea of the traditional Morris
dances still lingering in country places, two things must be borne
in mind—first, that many of these dances with different names are
practically the same dances; another tune and a very slight alteration
in the step is quite enough for a Morris dancer to say he has another
dance to show; and secondly, that the collectors have not yet finished
their work. I have in my possession quite a long list of people and
places as yet unvisited which may yield dances yet unrecorded, and Mr
Cecil Sharp has announced many dances and variants collected but not
published.
The Folk-dance has been found in the following counties:—
Gloucestershire. Monmouthshire.
Oxfordshire. Yorkshire.
Berkshire. Lancashire.
Northamptonshire. Cheshire.
Lincolnshire. Northumberland.
Derbyshire. Warwickshire.
Nottinghamshire. Worcestershire.
Sussex. Surrey.
Cornwall.
II. TUNES
A word must be said about the tunes played for the dances by country
musicians to-day.
These tunes are, of course, of much later date than the Morris and
Sword dances, and probably contemporary with the original country
dances. The musicians took any tune which was popular at the time and
adapted it to the dances, so that the tunes are not by any means all
traditional. As an instance of this, I remember that old Mr Trafford,
of Headington, told me that one day when he heard a military band
playing, he went and listened at the door of the barracks, and that he
was so attracted by the tune that he at once hummed it to the Morris
dance fiddler and adapted it to a Morris dance. To this day he likes
the tune, which he calls “Buffalo Gals,”[5] so much that he wanted Mr
Carey to take it down and use it. There is no doubt that at any given
time the musicians used to adapt to the dances any popular tune that
took their fancy, and I think that probably the name of the dance was
altered to fit the tune. Anyway the tune which Mr Trafford liked,
called “The Buffalo Girls,” had certainly been taken for the name of
a dance. The only dance tune that I have been able to discover which
has its dance steps attached to it is the one before mentioned in
Arbeau’s book. There is no doubt either that the nature of the tunes
changed considerably as the whittle and dub went out of fashion and
were superseded by the fiddle and later by the concertina, from which
latter instrument the first revived tunes were taken by Mr Sharp from
William Kimber. The tunes taken from the violin were more likely to
be played in a modal scale; for instance, Kimber played “The Rigs of
Marlow” in the modern scale, but Mark Cox, who gave it to us from the
fiddle, played it in a modal form.
[5] A Christy minstrel tune, popular some years back.
In the summer of 1912 the fiddler who played for the Morris dancers
at “Shakspeare’s England” in a few days played in a modal form a tune
which had been given him in the modern scale and was quite unconscious
that he had altered it.
Two Morris dance tunes, “Bean-setting” and “Laudnum Bunches,” do not
seem to be allied to any other forms of the airs.
In insisting on the traditional nature of the dances it is necessary to
admit that the same cannot be said of all, or even most, of the tunes
played to-day.
III. MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
In the earliest records of Morris dancing, the pipe and tabor, or
whittle and dub, were the musical instruments in use, and the oldest
dancers to-day are never tired of lamenting that the pipe and tabor to
which they danced in their youth have gone out of fashion.
A Morris dancer in Fleet Street, London, is described in a seventeenth
century manuscript in the British Museum (Harleian MS. 3910):
“In Fleet Strete then I heard a shoote:
I putt of my hatt, and I made no staye,
And when I came unto the roote,
Good Lord! I heard a taber play,
For so, God save me, a morrys-daunce.”
In the old play of _Jacke Drums Entertainment_ (1601)—
_The taber and pipe strike up a morrice._
_A shoute within._
_Ed._ Oh, a morrice is come, observe our country sports,
’Tis Whitsun-tyde and we must frolick it.
_Enter the Morrice._
THE SONG
“Skip it and trip it, nimbly, nimbly,
Tickle it, tickle it lustily,
Strike up the taber, for the wenches favour,
Tickle it, tickle it lustily.
Let us be seen in Hygate Greene,
To dance for the honour of Holloway.
Since we are come hither, let’s spare no leather,
To dance for the honour of Holloway.”
Later the fiddle took the place of pipe and tabor, and still more
recently the concertina.
The present-day fiddler at Bampton, Mr Wells, and Mr Mark Cox of
Headington are well worth a visit from musicians interested in the
actual form in which the tunes are played to-day by the musically
unlettered.
Mr William Kimber, jun., of Headington, is also in possession of the
old tunes, which he plays skilfully on the concertina. Patience will
be needed should the tunes be noted, for very few musicians can repeat
a phrase, even if it is the very last bar, without going right back to
the beginning of the tune. When the phrase is intricate, and has to be
often repeated, this means that a considerable amount of time is taken
up. The same applies to the dance; the traditional dancer is quite
unselfconscious, and if he is pulled up and asked for a repetition of a
step, he cannot give it, as a rule, without going back to the beginning
of the dance; so that in writing down the steps and evolutions of the
dance much patience is needed and understanding of the way in which the
minds of simple folk work.
Within the memory of some of the oldest dancers the dancing was always
accompanied by singing, and old Master Druce, of Ducklington, told us
that the Morris could not be properly danced without singing. He could,
however, only remember a few of the words of one dance—“The Lollypop
Man.”
The Bampton men gave us a few odd verses of one or two songs, but I am
afraid the real song will never be recovered, for, as one old man put
it to a friend of mine, “the words are too clumsy for girls.”
Miss Gilchrist gave me the words of a Lancashire Morris which we have
often used with very good effect—
“Morris dance is a very pretty tune,
Lads and lassies plenty,
Every lad shall have his lass,
And I’ll have four and twenty.
My new shoone they are so good,
I could dance Morris if I would,
And if hat and coat be dressed,
I will dance Morris with the best.
This is it and that is it,
And this is Morris dancing,
My poor father broke his leg,
And so it was a’chancing.
Bread and cheese and the old cow’s head
Roasted in a lantern,
A bit for me and a bit for you,
And a bit for the Morris dancer.”
Even in this doggerel there are traces of the old sacrificial rite of
animal sacrifice in which the head was considered as the most sacred
part of the animal and much coveted. It was generally awarded to the
victor or victorious side in a fight for its possession.
IV. THE DRESS
The Morris dance dress had two characteristics; it was the holiday
attire of the dancers and it had added to that certain special
ceremonial features. These were bells, ribbons, sticks or swords, and
handkerchiefs.
In the Kingston-on-Thames Churchwardens’ Accounts (1536-37) the dresses
of the Morris dancers are thus described:—They consisted of four coats
of white fustian spangled, and two green satin coats with garters
on which small bells were fastened. In an old tract called “Old Meg
of Herefordshire for a Mayde Marian, and Hereford Town for a Morris
Daunce” (1609), the musicians and the twelve dancers have “long coats
of the old fashion, high sleeves gathered at the elbows, and hanging
sleeves behind: the stuff red buffin striped with white, girdles with
white stockings, white and red roses to their shoes: the one Six,
a white jew’s cap with a jewel and a long red feather: the other a
scarlet jew’s cap with a jewel and a white feather.” Scarves, ribbands,
and laces hung all over with gold rings, and even precious stones
are also mentioned in the time of Elizabeth. Miles, the Miller of
Ruddington, in Sampson’s play, “The Vow Breaker, or the Fayre Maid of
Clifton” (1636), says he is come to borrow “a few ribbands, bracelets,
eare-rings, wyasyters and silke girdle and hand-kerchers for a morris.”
Joe Miller, writing in 1874, gives the following description of the
preparations of a Morris dance:—“One Molly o’ Cheetham’s sent specially
to London for bows and flowerets to dress her Robin’s hat with, and
Jenny of the Warden House Cottage kept her thumb nail strapped up
for a month to crimp her Billy’s ruffled shirt. She was so feared of
spoiling the edge of the nail: and Phœbe of the Dean Farm, took Billy’s
breeches to St Ann’s Square (Manchester) to have them laced with blue
ribbons and bows down the side. All the lasses of the village were as
busy as bees, making bows, getting up fine shirts, and tying white
handkerchiefs with ribbons to dance with.”
The late Mr Alfred Burton, writing in 1891, says:—“The costume worn now
and for many years past (colour being left to individual taste, except
in the case of the breeches, which are generally of the same colour
and material in each band of dancers) consists of shoes with buckles,
white stockings, knee breeches tied with ribbons, a brightly coloured
scarf or sash round the waist, white shirt trimmed with ribbons and
fastened with brooches, and white straw hats decorated with ribbons
and rosettes. White handkerchiefs or streamers are tied to the wrist.”
Strutt, in his _Sports and Pastimes of the People of England_ (1810),
observes that the garments of the Morris dancers were adorned with
bells, which were not placed there merely for the sake of ornament,
but were to be sounded as they danced. These bells were of unequal
sizes and differently denominated, as the fore-bell, the second-bell,
the treble, and the tenor or great bell, and mention is also made of
double bells. Sometimes they used trebles only, but these refinements
were of later times. At first, these bells were small and numerous and
affixed to all parts of the body—the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists,
waist, knee, and ankle: the wrist, knee, and ankle being, however, the
principal places. The number of bells round each leg sometimes amounted
to from twenty to forty. They were occasionally jingled by the hands.
The following description of a Morris dancer taken from _Recreations
for Ingenious Head Pieces_ (1667) gives a very good idea of his
appearance at that date:—
“With a noyse and a din,
Comes the Maurice dancer in,
With a fine linnen shirt, but a buckram skin.
Oh! he treads out such a peale,
From his paire of legs of veale.
The quarters are idols to him.
Nor do those knaves inviron
Their toes with so much iron,
’Twill ruin a smith to shoe him.”
The Morris dancers’ dress has fallen on somewhat evil days of late
years. The best they can do is a white suit of duck or flannel with
trousers, short knee breeches, or even ordinary dark cloth trousers
with a white shirt. The shirt is decorated with ribbons and rosettes,
and sometimes a double baldric is worn crossed on the chest and hanging
down at the sides. The bells are sewn on to a pad, and a pair which I
have is made of long bits of coloured cloth such as a sailor uses to
make a hearthrug with, the bells sewn in between. This was got from a
pawnshop in Oxford with a pipe and tabor, a pathetic sign of the decay
of national gaiety!
The hat is sometimes a box hat, sometimes a bowler, sometimes a cap,
but it must be gaily decorated with ribbons and artificial flowers,
bits of feather, or anything that comes in handy. Mr Brookes, of Godley
Hill, who came to London to teach the Lancashire dances, wore a bowler
hat covered tightly with white calico, and over that a mass of flowers,
and ribbons hanging down behind.
I confess that this curious mixture of a traditional ceremonial dress
and the modern bowler hat does not attract me nor appeal to my sense of
the fitness of things, but I think that for present-day performance one
must either adopt the least objectionable form of present-day holiday
dress, which is usually white flannel, add as much colour as possible
in ribbons and sash, and leave it at that, or if any fancy dress is
adopted I think it is best to adopt the Elizabethan peasants’ holiday
dress and add the bells, ribbons, etc., as it was during her reign that
the Morris dance was very usually danced at fairs and festivals.
The only woman’s dress described in old writers is that of Maid Marian,
but as the character was taken by a man dressed as a woman, who was
very grotesquely dressed, it is better to-day to adopt a very simple
dress, such as a cotton frock and a sun bonnet, with a bunch of ribbons
at the waist. Every girl should have a different colour, though the
general style may be the same.
The shoes of the dancers should be ordinary walking shoes with low
heels and no pointed toes, because these dances were danced in the open
air and on the open road. A good dancer can make the “bells speak” even
on a boarded floor, and that is all that is necessary. I think that any
sort of thin ballet shoe is quite out of place and spoils the character
of an open-air dance.
V. EXTRA CHARACTERS
In the days when the Morris dance was an integral part of the people’s
life it was no one’s business to make exact records in writing either
of the dance itself, of the ceremonies connected with it, or of the
characters associated with it. It is therefore very difficult to
differentiate with any exactitude just where the Morris dance merged
into the sword dance, and just where the dances were merged into the
Mummers’ plays and other early pageants and ceremonies.
All primitive forms of dance and drama are attempts to express man’s
worship of the natural forces and facts of life, so that we shall
expect to find other characters than those of the actual dancers.
The most common of these are the Lord and Lady, the King and Queen,
evidently representing early ideas of the masculine and feminine
principles in nature and worshipped as the forces which brought the
return of the green life of spring to the earth. Both these characters
also occur separately in some places, the King being called Mayor,
a Lord of Misrule, a very curious survival of the Mock King of
Saturnalian revels, who after a short reign of feasting and festivity
is sacrificed that a new king may reign in his stead. One very old man
whom I met, and who shall remain unnamed and unlocated, boasted to me
that he had been this Mayor of the Morris nine times. The qualification
for this honour, I learned elsewhere in the town, was to have been
locked up three times in one year for being drunk and three times in
one year for beating your wife! In emphasising the religious origin of
these dances it is well to bear in mind that the religion they express
is not precisely that of the orderly Church and Chapel-going folk of
to-day, and that no sort of gloom or depression was allowed to mar the
joy of the ceremonial, even when the end of the principal actor was
known to be execution at the point of the sword. As Dr Frazer remarks,
“in these circumstances it was natural that the principal actor should
be recruited from the gaol more often than from the green-room.”
The Queen was also called the Moll, Maid Marian, the Lady of the
Lamb, Bessie, and The Lady of the May, and was a man, generally a
smooth-faced youth, who was dressed as and represented a woman.
A very important character was the Fool, Tom Fool, Dysard, Squire, or
Rodney, identical with the jongleur or joculator. He was often the
best dancer, did special feats to amuse the crowd, and with a cow’s
tail and bladder attached to the ends of a stick kept the crowd from
encroaching on the dancers. The Fool survived in Lancashire as “owd
Sooty face,” “Dirty Bet,” and “owd Molly Coddle” as late as 1891.
The Hobby-Horse was a great feature of the dance in early days.
Its wild capering and frolicking around added much to the general
amusement. Mr Cecil Sharp says that he has not met with a traditional
dancer who remembers a hobby-horse being part of the Morris side, but
there are numerous allusions to it in writing.
In “Cobbe’s Prophecies, his Signs and Tokens, his Madrigalls, Questions
and Answers” (1614), the following occurs:—
“And fine Maide Marian with her smoile,
Shew’d how a rascall plaide the roile:
But, when the Hobby-Horse did wihy,
Then all the wenches gave a tihy.”
Robin Hood and Friar Tuck also appear occasionally in historic
accounts, but I have never heard of either character as part of the
“sides” now existing.
The musician, once a player on pipe and tabor, later on the fiddle, and
to-day sometimes on the concertina, was of course indispensable, and I
was told at Headington of one old fiddler for that “side,” who played
until he was so old that he had to be carried from place to place and
deposited on the roadside when the dancers halted for the dance, and
I heard of another who rode a donkey when too old to accompany the
dancers on foot.
The Treasurer who carried the collecting box is also important. Most
“sides” of Morris men had a “sword-bearer,” who carried round a
gaily decorated sword on which was impaled a cake, specially made for
the occasion by some lady who undertook the duty year by year, though
of late (as at Bampton) the cake is just an ordinary shop-made one. A
small knife is stuck in the cake, and the sword-bearer hands it round
to the spectators, who each ceremonially take a piece. The “treasurer”
follows with a box into which one is expected to put a donation to
compensate the dancers “for their trouble.”
[Illustration: Whit-Monday at Bampton-in-the-Bush, Oxon.]
The effect of the ceremony is quite extraordinary. To go from the
London of to-day to a quiet village and take part in this old ritual
is to know the link which binds the ornate Catholic ritual of to-day
to the most primitive ritual evolved by the folk to express the
truths of incarnation, of sacrifice, of death, and of resurrection.
To go from Kirtlington, where in the traditional tales of the oldest
inhabitants there are still traces of the human sacrifice, and later
of a lamb sacrificed as a substitute, and to go on to Bampton, where
the cake alone typifies the ancient sacrificial rite, is to realise the
power inherent in the human race to lay aside in each generation some
cruelty, some horror, and to rise by slow degrees into a higher state
of evolution. The study of folk-dance and of the legend and ceremonial
which surround it opens up a great field of interest to all who would
learn the secrets of human development.
VI. THE SWORD DANCE
The Sword dance is still performed in the North of England,
generally at Christmas time and on Plough Monday, 6th of January.
It was originally part of a pageant or Mummers’ play in which the
ever-recurring drama of death and resurrection was acted in various
forms.
Mr Sharp says that traces of it have been found in two southern English
counties. Mr Carey found a dance called “Over the Sticks” in Sussex,
but it has more of the characteristics of the Scotch sword dance, in
which the swords are placed on the ground and the dancer shows his
skill by dancing elaborate steps over and between the swords. Sometimes
in the Midlands a similar dance is found in which long Churchwarden
pipes take the place of the sticks. The sword dances of Northern
England are quite different, and are allied to those found in many
European countries. These show traces of ancient ceremonial worship and
the slaying of the sacrificial victim, and are more in the nature of
drama than dance.
In _Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda_, by Leopold von Schroeder (1908),
there are some very interesting suggestions as to the meaning of these
ceremonial sword dances, one of which, referring to the sword dance
of Yorkshire called the Giants’ dance, runs as follows (p. 118):—“The
leading feature of the dance, which was performed by masked peasants,
was that two swords were swung around and on to the neck of a boy
without hurting him. The circumstance is of great importance that the
leading giant was called Woden and his wife Frigg. This shows us the
mythological significance of the dance, clearly and without doubt.
Whilst we here see Woden stepping forth as a great dancer, as the
chief of a troop of giant dancers, we get a new and important feature
in the representation of the god which makes him still more like the
wild dancer Rudra-Shiva, a feature of which we hear nothing from other
accounts of Wodan-Odin, and yet which is undoubtedly old and real. We
must picture to ourselves here not the great heavenly god of the Edda,
but rather the still far more primitive though already powerful spirit
of the wind, of the soul, and of fruitfulness, from which the great god
Woden has developed. Perhaps, too, we may see in the boy round whose
neck the sword was swung harmlessly, the new-born, youthful spirit
of fruitfulness: whom the swords shall symbolically protect, whose
growth and thriving the sword dance, as a magical enchantment bearing
fruitfulness, was in all probability intended to promote. In the same
way the Curetes held the sword dance round the young Zeus, and the
Corybantes round the infant Dionysos, in order to protect him. In my
opinion it was also to promote his growth.”
One is not so dependent on present-day dancers for a description of
the sword dances as one is for that of the Morris dances, for certain
records have survived. Olaus Magnus, in his _History of the Northern
Nations_, thus describes the sword dance as practised by the Swedes
and Goths:—“First with their swords sheathed and erect in their hands
they dance in a triple round. Then with their drawn swords held erect
as before, afterwards extending them from hand to hand, they lay hold
of each other’s hilt and point while they are wheeling more moderately
round, and changing their order, throw themselves into the figure of a
hexagon which they call a rose. But presently, raising and drawing back
their swords they undo that figure to form (with them) a four-square
rose that may rebound over the head of each. At last they dance rapidly
backwards, and vehemently rattling the sides of their swords together
conclude the sport. Pipes or songs (sometimes both) direct the measure,
which at first is slow, but increasing afterwards becomes a very quick
one towards the conclusion.”
He calls this a kind of Gymnastic Rite in which the ignorant were
successively instructed by those who were skilled in it.
[Illustration: _Photo by J. H. Graham_
“The Lock”; Characteristic of Sword Dances]
The first sword dance I saw performed was the Earsdon, which was
accompanied by the small pipes. It looks very complicated, and is more
interesting from an antiquarian point of view than from that of a
dance. The performers keep huddled up together, and it is difficult for
a spectator to see much of what is going on. The second one I saw was
at Flamborough, and it was danced by eight fishermen who have learnt
it traditionally for longer than anyone living to-day can tell. This
is a much more attractive dance, with more variety in the figures,
and is almost identical with the description given by Olaus Magnus.
Eventually I had two of the fishermen up to London, and they taught
the dance to eight young men, who have in their turn passed it on to
a great many others. Mr Fuller Maitland has published the Sword Dance
Song of Kirkby Malzeard in _English County Songs_, with the music. He
considers that the tune of the Prologue has much of the Morris dance
character, and that it was probably used for the actual dancing. The
song describes each of the dancers, who comes out from among the rest
as he is described by the singer. Old Thomas Wood of Kirkby Malzeard
told Mr Bower, who took down the tune, that he would have nothing to do
with the present Christmas sword dancers, or Moowers, “who have never
had the full of it, and don’t dress properly nor do it in any form,
being a bad, idle company.” They were originally taught by him, to make
up his numbers at the Ripon Millenary Festival.
Mr Sharp has collected seven sword dances, including those of Earsdon,
Flamborough, and Kirkby Malzeard, but probably none are danced as they
were in the old days before more modern amusements took the place of
the old folk festivals.
The sword dance, like the Morris, was essentially a man’s dance, and
whereas many of the Morris dances are quite suitable for women, the
sword dance should be kept strictly as a man’s dance.
VII. THE FURRY DANCE
The Furry dance comes under the heading of a genuine folk-dance and is
part of an old ritual of May Day. Mrs Lily Grove gives the following
account of it:—
“The Fadé or Furry dance takes place in the parish of Helston, on Furry
Day, May 8th, which to dwellers in those parts is like Christmas Day to
most English people.”
Fadé is an old Cornish word meaning “to go,” and is often corrupted
into faddy, while furry is by some authorities derived from the Cornish
fuer, signifying fair or merry-making. Mr Quin, in the _Royal Cornwall
Gazette_ of May 13th, 1864, gives the following description of the
dance:—
“There were forty-one couples. They just trip it on in couples hand
in hand, during the first part of the Furry dance tune forming a long
string, the gentleman leading his partner with his right hand: second
part of the tune, the first gentleman turns with both hands, the lady
behind him and her partner turns the same way with the first lady, then
each gentleman in the same manner with his own partner; then trip as
before, each part of the tune being repeated. The other couples pair
and turn the same way and at the same time. The movement is elegant.
The party proceed up one side of the street and down the other, passing
through all the houses they choose.”
This dance is very like the spring dance of other countries, where it
was customary to stop before every door to give a blessing and ask for
contributions. Any house omitted was considered unlucky. Men and women
both take part in this dance, and the alternate processional and figure
dancing shows that it is probably of the same nature as the Tideswell
processional dance. It is in this respect also like the “Lancashire
Morris processional,” “Long Morris,” and the tune of the Furry dance is
like the tune of “Long Morris.”
_Goosey Dancing._—There is also the Cornish “Goosey Dancing,” which is
danced by boys and girls, and which has much in common with Saturnalian
revels. It is danced at Christmas time for a week, ending on Plough
Monday.
The word “goosey” probably comes from “guised,” for it is customary
to dress up for the festivities and for the boys and girls to change
dresses. This is a very usual feature of Saturnalian revels, and
much shocked the Puritans, as it is contrary to the express law of
Deuteronomy.
_The Gienys Dance._—In the Isle of Man, on January 6th, the Gienys
Dance is held, and the mainstyr or master of the ceremony appoints
every man his tegad or valentine for the year.
_The Abbot’s Bromley Horn Dance._—Mr Sharp has included this in his
book of Sword Dances. The dancers have stags’ horns attached to their
heads, but there is no very distinctive step.
VIII. THE COUNTRY DANCE
A few country dances are still remembered by old people living in
villages, but, unlike the Morris dances, by far the greater number of
country dances are recorded both as to steps and figures, so that they
do not come under the same heading as the strictly traditional dance.
The supposition that “country-dance” is a corruption of “contre-danse,”
and that it came to England from France, is not correct. It was in
fact, as in name, a country dance, danced by country folk in barn and
ale-house and on village greens. It travelled to France, and was called
there the “Contre-danse.” Later these dances were adopted by the upper
classes and even penetrated into Court circles. At this time they were
at their best, and many were danced in the round form, but gradually
this form became obsolete, until in the middle of the eighteenth
century only the dances “longways for as many as will” were danced.
In Grove’s _Dictionary of Music_ Mr Kidson gives an account of a dance
called “Mall Peatly, the new way,” which he has seen danced in a
cottage on a Yorkshire moor. “You are to hit your right elbows together
and then your left, and turn with your left hands behind and your right
hands before, and turn twice round and then your left elbows together,
and turn as before and so to the next.” Mr Cecil Sharp has collected
a number of country dances still danced by country folk, and Mr Clive
Carey has also collected country dances, principally in Sussex. But
the great mine of wealth wherein are the greatest numbers of these
beautiful, old-fashioned dances is _Playford’s Dancing Master_.
The first edition of this collection is entitled “The English Dancing
Master: or Plain and Easie Rules for the Dancing of Country Dances,
with the tune to each dance (104 pages of music). Printed by Thomas
Harper, and are to be sold by John Playford at his shop in the Inner
Temple neere the Church doore.” The date is 1651, but it was entered at
Stationers’ Hall on the 7th of November, 1650.
The next is “The Dancing Master, ... second edition, enlarged and
corrected from many grosse errors which were in the former edition.”
This was printed by John Playford in 1652 (112 pages of Music). The
two next editions, those of 1657 and 1665, each contain 132 Country
Dances, and are counted by Playford as one edition. To both were added
the tunes of the most usual French Dances, and also other new and
pleasant English Tunes for the Treble Violin. (The tunes for the Violin
were afterwards printed separately as “Apollo’s Banquet,” and are not
included in any other edition of the _Dancing Master_.) The date of
the fourth edition is 1670 (155 pages of Music). The fifth edition,
1675 (160 pages of Music). The sixth edition, from advertisements in
Playford’s other publications, appears to have been printed in 1680.
The seventh edition bears the date 1686 (208 pages), but to this “an
additional sheet,” containing thirty-two tunes, was first added, then
“a new additional sheet of twelve pages,” and lastly “a new addition of
six more.” The eighth edition was printed by E. Jones for H. Playford,
and great changes made in the airs. It has 220 pages, date 1690. The
ninth edition, 196 pages, date 1695. The second part of the _Dancing
Master_, 24 pages, date 1696. The tenth edition, 215 pages, date
1698, also the second edition of the second part, ending on page 48
(irregularly paged), 1698. The eleventh edition, 312 pages, date 1701.
The twelfth edition, 354 pages, date 1703.
A sixteenth and a seventeenth edition, which, however, are identical,
are in the Bodleian Library.
The directions for the dance were written under each, but only the
figures are given, but no steps. The following directions for one of
the dances, “All in a Garden Green,” will give an idea of the curious
phraseology of the book:—
ALL IN A GARDEN GREEN. Longways for six.
Lead up all a D. forwards and back, set and turn S. [·_]; that again
[:_].
First man shake his own Wo. by the hand, then the 2, then the 3, by one
hand, then by the other, kisses her twice and turn her [·_], shake her
by the hand, then the 2, then your own by one hand, then by the other,
kiss her twice and turn her [:_].
Sides all, set and turn S. [·_]; that again [:_]. This as before, the
We. doing it [:_].
Arms all, set and turn S. [·_]; that again [:_]. This as before, the
men doing it [:_].
_A Table explaining the characters which are set down in the Rules for
Dancing_
D. Is for double. A double is four steps forward
and backward, closing both feet.
S. Is for a single. A single is two steps, closing
both feet.
Wo. Stands for Woman.
We. Stands for Women.
Cu. Stands for Couple.
Co. Stands for Contrary.
2. Stands for Second.
3. Stands for Third.
4. Stands for Fourth.
[·_] This is for a strain play’d once.
[:_] This is for a strain play’d twice.
These two characters expresse the figures
of the dance,
☉ This stands for the Man.
☽ This stands for the Woman.
In 1904 Miss Nellie Chaplin gave a performance of dances including
the “Pavane,” “Galliard,” “Allemande,” “Courante,” “Sarabande,” and
“Chacone,” and in 1906 led, through her study of old instruments
and old music, to an interest in other ancient dances, and with the
help of an expert in dancing she deciphered several of the dances
from _Playford’s Dancing Master_, harmonised the tunes, added the
appropriate steps from her collaborator’s knowledge of dancing, and
began to give public performances of the dances in London and different
parts of the country. No one who has ever seen these pupils of hers,
with their beautiful, old-fashioned dresses, dancing the old-world
dances accompanied by a string quartette and oboe, will ever forget
the charm of the performance. Miss Chaplin chose some of the most
complicated of the dances for revival, and has made the dancing of them
a real art. Some years later, Mr Cecil Sharp published a number of
Playford’s tunes and dances which were performed by the young ladies
of the South-Western Polytechnic, generally as illustrations of his
lectures on folk-dancing. They are now given by the Folk-Dance Society
at their performances. His method of giving the dances is different
from Miss Chaplin’s, because his pupils, unlike hers, do not use any
steps, but only give the figures with a walking or running step, which
is the same in all the dances. Which method is best is purely a matter
of taste.
Through Miss Chaplin, the Folk-Dance Society, and the Espérance Guild,
the country dances are now once more danced by numbers of people all
over the country, and it is to be hoped that they will never again
recede between the covers of a dancing-master’s book.
The country dance tunes are often ballad tunes.
The tunes played to-day by country fiddlers are often found in early
books of opera and printed collections of airs.
For instance, the tune of Tink-a-Tink, a country dance collected by Mr
Sharp and published in Set II. of _Country Dance Tunes, collected from
Traditional Sources_, is a song in the Opera “Bluebeard,” by Michael
Kelly, published in 1799.
“The Butterfly” in Set I. of the same series is apparently a
remembrance of the once popular “I’d be a Butterfly,” the words and
melody by Thomas Haynes Bayly. It is included in many books of airs.
The tunes did not always gain by passing through the hands of the
village musician.
IX. THE PRESENT-DAY REVIVAL OF THE FOLK-DANCE
Twenty years ago the folk-dance had almost entirely disappeared, and
the first definite effort made to reawaken it was that made by Mr
D’Arcy Ferrers, who in 1886 revived the Morris dance in Bidford-on-Avon
and round about that neighbourhood. This created great interest at the
time, an interest which has since never wholly died out, though but for
Mr D’Arcy Ferrers it is probable that the dances of that neighbourhood
would have completely disappeared. At that time the traditional “side”
had been disbanded, and Mr Ferrers reconstituted the dances from the
little that remained in the memories of one or two old men.
He also taught them the tune of Arbeau’s Morris dance which they used
as “Morris Off,” and to which they invented a dance which is quite in
keeping with other traditional dances.
Later, in 1906, Lady Isabel Margesson interested herself in the
dancers, and invited Mr Cecil Sharp and Mr H. C. MacIlwaine to
Foxlydiat House, Redditch, where they took down the tunes and dances
which were published in their first _Morris Book_. Later Miss Florence
Warren went there to teach both these dances and others which had been
collected in the meantime. The Bidford dances were also collected by
Mr John Graham and published in _The Morris Dances of Shakspeare’s
Country_. In a recent edition of his _Morris Book_, Mr Cecil Sharp has
omitted these Bidford dances, or retaken them from the Ilmington men,
from whom they are believed to have originally been learnt.
But a more important revival took place in 1899, when Mr Percy Manning
revived the Headington “Side,” for in this case most of the dancers
belonged to the traditional “Side.” An entertainment was given at
the Corn Exchange in Oxford, and the following interesting account
of it appeared in the local papers:—“When the men danced in unison
to the strains of a somewhat primitive fiddler quite a pretty effect
was produced, whilst to the onlooker the spectacle was at once a
convincing proof of its antiquity, so grotesque were the actions and
gestures of the performers. The dance partakes somewhat of the nature
of a hornpipe: there is a good deal of action in it, and it cannot be
accused of too much sedateness or gravity. The troupe in each dance
were accompanied by a fool, generally known as the Squire, who wore
a diversified dress, consisting of a silk hat, decked with coloured
ribbons, a white smock, and breeches, and one white and one brown
stocking. He carried a stick with a bladder and a cow’s tail at either
end and frequently applied the stick to the back of the dancers.”
The dances given at this revival were “The Blue-eyed Stranger,”
“Constant Billy,” “Country Gardens,” “Rigs o’ Marlow,” “How d’ye do,
Sir?” “Bean-setting,” “Haste to the Wedding,” “Rodney,” “Trunk Hose,”
and “Draw Back.”
It was during this revival at Headington that Mr Cecil Sharp first took
down the tunes of the Morris dances which he afterwards gave to me in
1905. But this revised “side” of Morris men did not survive very long,
and in 1905 or before had again given in and no longer danced down “The
High” at Whitsuntide as in the old days.
But it was in 1905 that the real and, as I believe, permanent revival
of the folk-dance first took place, and it happened in this way.
For many years the Working Girls’ Club, of which I am the honorary
secretary, had devoted much time to learning national dances, and had
already learnt the Scotch dances direct from two Scotchmen and the
Irish dances from an Irish lady, so that we were quite ready to learn
the English dances in the same way. Mr Cecil Sharp told me about the
Headington Morris dancers, and gave me Mr William Kimber’s address.
I went to Headington and arranged for him and his cousin to come to
London to teach the members of my Club. That first evening was a
revelation to me, for I had never seen these London girls, with their
natural aptitude for dancing in any form, quite so eager or so quick
to learn. In two evenings they had mastered about four Morris dances,
and were told by the instructors that they had got the dances quite
perfectly.
The following account of that evening is taken from the first book of
instructions by Mr Sharp and Mr MacIlwaine—
“The result of their coming far out-ran our fondest anticipations.
The Morris, like the magic beanstalk, seemed to outwit the laws of
nature: we saw it in the heart of London rise up from its long sleep
before our very eyes. In connection with this affair, the mention of
that well-beloved fable is appropriate and irresistible. The first
dance that was set before these Londoners—upon this occasion which we
enthusiasts make bold to call historic—was Bean-setting. It represents
the setting of the seed in spring-time. Of course the music, its lilt
and the steps that their forefathers had footed to it in the olden
time, were as little known to these, the London born, as the tongue
and ceremonial of old Peru. As little known, yet not strange at all;
it was a summons never heard until now, yet instantly obeyed: because,
though unfamiliar and unforeseen, it was of England, and came, even
though it was centuries upon the way, to kinsfolk. Let the precisian
explain it as he may, that is our way of accounting for an experience
both fruitful and astounding. Within half-an-hour of the coming of
these Morris men we saw the Bean-setting—its thumping and clashing
of staves, its intricate figures and steps hitherto unknown—in full
swing upon a London floor. And upon the delighted but somewhat dazed
confession of the instructor, we saw it perfect in execution to the
least particular. It was even so with the other dances; to see them
shown was to see them learned.”
That first evening’s Morris dancing was the beginning of many happy
hours of practice culminating in a demonstration of the dances and
songs at a Christmas party held in the rooms of the Passmore Edwards’
Settlement in 1905. The revival of the folk-dance, which was at
once realised as genuine by many who were there, resulted in a more
public performance in 1906, and from that date until the present day
a series of Concerts has been given in London and within a radius
of thirty miles around, and as far north as Yorkshire and south as
Sussex. Besides this, the dancers were almost at once invited to teach
the dances, and at the present time have taught in every county,
and in villages, towns, schools, clubs, factories, and educational
institutions from one end of England to the other. In 1909 the Board
of Education sanctioned the dances being used as part of the course of
physical exercises and organised play, but until after that sanction
the members of the Espérance Club were the only teachers who had
learnt their dances direct from the country dancers. The girls soon
taught their men friends, and to-day as well as the girls we have
several “Sides” of men who both teach and give displays of the dances.
Since the visit of the first two Headington men, I have had over twenty
dancers up to London, from Headington, Abingdon, Oddington, Yardley
Gobion, Northampton, Lancashire, Warwickshire, Yorkshire, and other
places, all of whom have contributed something to our direct knowledge
of the dances still to be found in the country; and with Mr Clive Carey
and others I have visited different centres of dancing with a view to
bringing the dancers to London to teach, collecting all I could about
old customs surviving around the dances and getting acquainted with
the dancers. I have also sent some of our club members to the country
with the same end in view. There is, therefore, at the present time a
very strong link between the traditional dancers in the country and
the young people in London who are busy practising and passing on the
dances, and there is no longer any fear now that the dances will die
out completely and be lost to the coming generations.
At first all we had to depend on when teaching the dance was the
memory of our working girls who had first learnt the dances, and
the manuscript of the music which Mr Sharp had taken down from the
men who taught us. Thus it became necessary to make the record more
permanent and to leave some guide to the dances with those whom we
taught. Mr Sharp and Mr MacIlwaine, with the help of Miss Florence
Warren, who danced again and again while the actual steps were being
recorded, then published a book of tunes and instructions for the
dances, and these have been followed by three more sets of the dances.
Mr John Graham published two volumes very shortly after, and Mr Clive
Carey, Mr Geoffrey Toye, and I followed with two volumes of tunes and
instructions. We are all still engaged both in searching for dances,
teaching them, and recording them for future use, and though probably
the best and most characteristic dances are now duly recorded, still
one is never sure where the work is really ended, and we shall always
be glad to hear from any readers of fresh dances, which we shall be
glad to investigate and, if genuine, record for future use.
In 1907 Mr Cecil Sharp and I disagreed over the constitution of a
committee, and from that date have worked on entirely separate lines. I
have kept very carefully to the traditional lines, making a great point
of having those whom I send out to teach taught by country dancers
without the intervention of professional dance instructors, so that
to-day, after eight years’ practice, I believe they are dancing as much
like the original dancers as is possible.
After the recognition of the traditional dances by the Board of
Education, Mr Sharp started a school of teachers at the London
South-Western Polytechnic, and the teachers sent out from there have
also taught in different parts of the country. As lately as 1911 these
young ladies from the Polytechnic have formed the nucleus of the
Folk-Dance Society, with Mr Sharp as Director, while the Espérance
Club, as the Espérance Guild of Morris Dancers, also continues its work.
In 1910 I organised a vacation School at Littlehampton in Sussex, when
sixty teachers from County Council Schools in different parts of the
country met to learn the folk-dances, and later that year I transferred
the School, with Miss Florence Warren and Mr Clive Carey as instructors
in dance and song, at the request of the Governors of the Memorial
Theatre at Stratford-on-Avon to that place, and about two hundred
availed themselves of the opportunity of learning the songs and dances.
At this point, owing to Mr Sharp’s criticism of our methods, it was
decided to hold a conference to discuss points of difference with
a view to making the work at Stratford-on-Avon both national and
permanent. In view of this conference, I resigned my position as
hon. secretary of the Folk-Dance School at Stratford-on-Avon. But no
conference was held, and Mr Sharp was appointed Director of the School.
The School organised by the Espérance Guild was taken back to
Littlehampton, and is held there every Easter.
A belated conference was held two years later, with no practical
results.
It is hoped that in future some National Centre will be formed which
will bring together all those interested in the collection and
perpetuation of our English folk-dances, so that nothing of this
National treasure be lost to future generations.
X. CONCLUSIONS
In the foregoing pages we have seen how in primitive times dancing
was inextricably interwoven with all religious ceremonial, even when
that religion took the earlier form of magic and the dancing was part
of a ceremonial to induce the growth of crops or the rising of the
morning sun. We have seen, too, how later the more advanced teaching of
the Greek and Christian religion was partly expressed and symbolised
in dance and rhythmic gesture. We have seen these same dances as
part of the popular festivities of the folk, gathered around May-day
festivals, rude drama, wakes, lamb ales and rush-bearing, and attached
still to the Church as part of the festivals of Christmas, Easter, and
Whitsuntide.
And finally we have recorded the existence of these dances in villages
and country towns in different parts of England at the present day,
their recent revival, and the success which has attended their
reintroduction to the present generation.
It is of the utmost importance that the nature of these dances should
be clearly kept in mind by those who are responsible for their
continuance. Until six years ago they were unrecorded in manuscript
or print, they were only in the memory of the remaining Morris men,
most of them old and quite unlettered, and there was no language in
which to express the steps and evolutions but that invented by these
peasant men. Neither could these cryptic sayings, such as “foot up,”
“half hands,” “hey sides up,” “gipsies,” “half rounds,” etc., etc.,
be interpreted except by a patient watching of the dancers on the few
occasions when they could be got together to give a demonstration.
The following account of an old dancer will give the atmosphere of the
folk-dance and an idea of the way in which the Espérance Guild teachers
have themselves learned the dances. I was speaking in a village at a
“sing song” one evening when a man asked me if I had ever heard of
certain dances and offered to give me the names of the then surviving
dancers. I said “No,” and he gave me the names.
I wrote to one of two brothers who still had the traditional dances and
received the following reply:—
“Honourable and respected Miss,—
“I am the party what has got those dances, I shall be proud to show
them to you, yours to command.”
Eventually I went to see him, spent an afternoon in the bar parlour of
a jolly little inn, and invited him and his brother up to London.
When they began to teach we found they had only one adjective between
them and it was “perpendicular,” and this word had to do duty many
times during the evening. We were told we must “dance perpendicular to
one another,” “perpendicular to the music,” and finally that we had got
the dance “quite perpendicular”!
But I think we got hold of the dance, and that our boys and girls
dance it much better than if they had been taught it by a professional
dancer with technical terms and a settled technique; anyway, they love
the dance, and it is always encored when we give it in public.
What, then, is the natural way for these ever-changing, ever-evolving
dances to be passed on? I unhesitatingly say that they should be learnt
in the first instance from the traditional dancer and passed on in
the same way. The written instructions are only useful as a reminder
of steps and evolutions, and should never be made an unalterable and
fixed standard. For if folk-dancing has been evolving through all these
countless generations, who shall fix the exact moment when evolution
ceased and the steps and evolutions became fixed and unalterable? So
far as I have seen traditional dancers, I have noticed that not only
does every side in every village dance a little differently, but each
man has his own way with the steps, and still further, the same man
may dance differently every time he does the dance. I am behind no one
in the desire that these dances shall be as accurately transcribed
and as carefully taught as possible, and that the general character
and atmosphere shall be preserved, but it is just because of this
desire that I would have the dances as far as possible left to the
interpretation of those who are unhampered by technical knowledge and
unconfined by technical terms and academic restrictions.
In September 1912, I had up to town from Bampton two traditional
dancers who imparted three dances, “The Rose Tree,” “Glorisheers,”
and “The Flowers of Edinburgh,” to a group of working boys and girls.
About two months later these same boys and girls were teaching others
the three dances. Looking on with great interest were six children,
whose average age was eleven, all from elementary schools. These
children had already learnt several of the Headington and Bidford
dances, but had not seen the Bampton dances, the steps of which vary
considerably from those of the two other places. In about an hour, as
I thought it was rather dull for the children, I said, “Let me see if
you can dance ‘The Rose Tree’ while the elder ones have a rest.” The
children were delighted with the suggestion, and to my surprise went
through the dance almost perfectly as to both step and evolution. A few
corrections and two more attempts, and the dance was quite correctly
danced. This being a fact of which this is only one of many proofs,
it is quite evident that a series of demonstrations by those who know
the dance is all that is needed to pass it on to those interested
enough to watch. There seems to be in these traditional dance movements
something natural and inevitable, so that it is more easy to dance them
correctly than to do them wrongly, and I think it is in this spirit
that they should be taught. There is nothing strained and difficult,
nothing artificial or exotic; all is simple, dignified, vigorous, and
joyful.
For this reason I have sometimes regretted that the folk-dance has
become officially recognised as part of the school curriculum, and I
regret too the necessity for books of instructions. I would rather
the dances had remained in the memories of dancers and that the right
atmosphere had been secured only by the verbal telling of folk-tale and
legend. But books seem to be a necessity to-day, and lest again we lose
our national heritage of dance, perhaps it is well that some records
have been made.
Another point that should be emphasised is that there should be as much
interest as possible aroused in the collecting of these dances, and
as much publicity as possible about the places where they are danced,
the time of year when they can be seen, and the dancers who still hold
the tradition. Probably the best dances are already in print; still,
surprises of treasure still undiscovered may await us, and even if
every known dance is already collected and published, nothing but good
will come of this being done again and again by different people at
different times. This will keep the traditional dances from becoming
set and rigid, and will give a delightful air of spontaneity if at
any folk festival, while all dance correctly, each dances a little
differently from the others. Nothing is less to be desired than that
any school or any individual should take possession of this national
treasure; let all who are interested give of their best, whether as
collectors, teachers, organisers, or writers, to the preservation of
our National Folk-Dance.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
In the space of the foregoing book it has been impossible to give more
than a limited account of English Folk-Dance. Students are, therefore,
referred to the following books—
“Dancing.” Badminton Library. By Mrs Lily Grove. 1895.
“Educational Value of Dancing and Pantomime.”
By Dr Stanley Hall, Clarke University, Worcester, Mass.
“Illustrations of Shakespeare and of Ancient Manners.”
2 vols. London, 1807. By Francis Douce. 1807.
“The Witch of Edmonton.” By divers well estimed Poets,
W. Rowley, T. Dekker, J. Ford, etc. 1658.
“History, Natural and Experimental, of Life and Death.”
Lord Bacon. 1638.
“Every Man out of His Humour.” Ben Jonson. Act II. Sc. i.
1600.
“The Gypsies Metamorphosed.” Gifford’s Edition,
reprinted by Lt.-Col. Cunningham. 1875. Vol. II.
“Women Pleased.” J. Fletcher.
“Survey of London.” By Strype. 1791.
“Orchesographie. Et Traicte en Forme de Dialogue.
Par lequel toutes personnes peuvent facilement
apprendre et pratiquer l’honneste exercice des
dances.” Par Thoinot-Arbeau (_i.e._ Jean Tabourot)
demeurant-a-Langres. (22nd Nov., 1588.)
“The Vow Breaker, or Fair Maid of Clifton.”
William Sampson. 1636.
“Old Meg of Herefordshire for a Mayd Marian, and
Hereford towne for a Morris-dance; or twelve Morris
dancers in Herefordshire of 1200 years old.” 1609.
“Survey of London,” 1598, p. 72. Stowe.
“Antiquites Vulgares.” Bourne. 1725.
“Natural History of Cornwall.” Borlase. 1758.
“The British Bibliographer.” Vol. IV.
“Popular Antiquities.” Brand. The early and the later editions.
“English County Songs.” Collected by Lucy E. Broadwood
and J. A. Fuller Maitland. 1893.
“Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda.”
By Leopold Von Schroeder. 1908.
“Old English Sports, Pastimes, and Customs.”
By Rev. P. H. Ditchfield. (Methuen, 1891.)
“Festivals, Games, and Amusements, Ancient and Modern.”
By Horatio Smith. (Colburn & Bentley, 1831.)
“A Picture of the Manners, Customs, Sports and
Pastimes of the Inhabitants of England, from the
arrival of the Saxons down to the Eighteenth
Century.” By J. Aspen. (J. Harris, St. Paul’s
Churchyard, 1825.)
“Book of Days.” In 2 vols. Chambers. (W. & R. Chambers,
London, 1863.)
“The Mediaeval Stage.” In 2 vols. Chambers. 1903.
“Glig-Gamena, Angel-Deod, or The Sports and Pastimes
of the People of England.” By J. Strutt. (London, 1801.)
“Old Country Life.” By S. Baring-Gould. (Methuen, 1890.)
“Shropshire Folk-Lore.” Edited by C. S. Burne,
from the collections of Georgina Jackson.
(Trübner, 57 Ludgate Hill, 1883.)
“Rush-Bearing.” An Account of Old Customs. By Alfred Burton.
(Brook & Chrystal, Manchester, 1891.)
“Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair.” By H. Morley.
(Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly, 1880.)
“Popular Music of the Olden Times.” 2 vols.
By William Chappell, F.S.A. (London, 1855-59.)
“Lancashire Legends, Sports, etc.” By J. Harland and T. Wilkinson.
(J. Heywood, London, 1882.)
“Household Tales and Traditional Remains.”
By S. O. Addy. (D. Nutt, Strand, 1895.)
“British Goblins—Folk-Lore.” By Wirt Sikes.
(Sampson Low, Marston, 1880.)
“Manners, Customs, and Observances.” By Leopold Wagner.
(W. Heinemann, London, 1894.)
“Hone’s Year Book.” See vols. I., II., and IV.
(T. Tegg, 73 Cheapside, 1832.)
“Brand’s Popular Antiquities of Great Britain.”
By W. Carew Hazlitt.
(J. Russel Smith, 36 Soho Square, 1870.)
“Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-Lore.”
By C. Hardwick. (Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1872.)
“The Gentleman’s Magazine Library.” Edited by G. L. Gomme.
(See vol. on Manners and Customs, also vol. on
Popular Superstitions.) (Elliot Stock, Paternoster Row, 1883.)
“The Study of Folk Song.” By Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco.
(G. Redway, York Street, 1886.)
“Folk-Lore.” Mr Percy Manning’s contributions to this Journal.
“Dictionary of Music and Musicians.” 4 vols.
Edited by Sir George Grove.
“The Pirate.” Sir Walter Scott.
“Nine Days’ Wonder performed on a Journey from London to Norwich.”
Kemp. 1600. (Arber, _English Garner_, II., 1903.)
“Shakespeare and his Times.” 2 vols. Dr Nathan Drake.
London, 1817.
“The Environs of London.” 4 vols. Daniel Lyson. 1792-96.
“Shakespeare and Music.” Edward W. Naylor, M.A., Mus. Bac.
London, 1896.
“Lancashire and Cheshire Morris Dances.” By John Graham.
“Shakespeare Morris Dances.” By John Graham.
“The Morris Book.” 3 vols. By Cecil Sharp and H. C. MacIlwaine.
“The Morris Book.” 1 vol. By Cecil Sharp.
“Sword Dances of Northern England.” By Cecil Sharp.
“Espérance Morris Book.” 2 vols. Edited by Mary Neal.
“Dances of the Olden Time.” A. Moffat and Frank Kidson.
INDEX
Addison’s allusions to folk-song, 3, 80
Aird, James, his _Selection_ (1788), 29
Ballad, the narrative, 53
Ballad sheets and song garlands, 79
Ballad printers, 80
Baring-Gould, Rev. S., 43
Barrett, Dr W. A., 43, 44
“Basket of Oysters,” 29, 30
Bewick, Thomas, 61, 84
Bibliography of folk-song and folk-music, 86
“Bonny Labouring Boy,” 23
Boughton, Mr Rutland, 47
Broadwood, Rev. John, 41
Broadwood, Miss Lucy E., 43, 44, 75
Bunting, Edward, _Ancient Music of Ireland_, 33
Bussell, Mr F. W., 44
Cante-fable, the, 15
Carols, 23, 74, 113
Chanty, the sea, 72
Chaplin’s, Miss Nellie, revival of ancient dances, 157
Chappell, William, 41
Churchwardens’ accounts, 112, 136
“Cock o’ the North,” 31, 32
Country dance, the, 152
Cox, Captain, his collection of ballads, 80
Dance rhythm, 111
Dibdin, Charles, 61
Dickens, Charles, his _Nurse’s Story_, 18
Dress, 136
Drinking songs, 62
Elizabethan Morris dancing, 119
Engel, Carl, _Study of National Music_, 22
Espérance Working Girls’ Club, revival of Morris dancing in, 161
Execution ballads, 66
Extra characters, 141
Ferrers’, Mr D’Arcy, revival of Morris dancing, 158
Folk-dance, definition of, 97
Folk-music and folk-song, changes in, 25
construction of, 19
conventional passages in, 34
Folk-song, definition of, 10
different classes of, 52
difficulty of localizing, 39
diffusion of, 37
Indian, 12
movement for collecting, 40
Society, its origin and members, 45
suggested origin of, 11
the noting of, 47
Fool, the, 142
Fraser, Mrs Kennedy, 74
French songs, their popularity in England, 6
Furry dance, 150
Gardiner, Mr H. Balfour, 47
Gilchrist, Miss A. G., 22, 46
Goosey dancing, 151
Grainger, Mr Percy, 46
“Greensleeves,” 5, 27, 28
Grove’s _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_, 22
Hebrides, songs of the, 74
Highwayman songs, 64
Hobby-horse, the, 143
Hone’s, William, _Ancient Mysteries_, 76
Humorous songs, 62
Hunting and sporting songs, 70
Jacobs’, Mr, _English Fairy Tales_, 15
“Joan’s Placket is torn,” 32
Labour, songs of, 71
Lancashire Morris dance, words of, 135
Laneham’s “Letter,” 80
Legge, Mr Robin H., 74
Love songs, 57
Manning’s, Mr Percy, revival of Morris dancing, 160
Mason, Miss A. H., 43
Mayor of the Morris, 142
Modern dancers’ dress, 139
Modes, the ecclesiastical, 19
Moore, Thomas, _Irish Melodies_, 29
Morris dances, list of, 128
Morris dances, where found, 130
Morris dancing, books on, 125
Morris dancing in later times, 122
“Morris,” derivation of word, 99
Mummers’ play, 99
Musical instruments, 132
_Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda_, 146
Mystic songs, 57
“One Moonlight Night,” 22
Orange, the story of, 17
“Paddy the Weaver,” 29
Pastoral songs, 60
Percy’s, Bishop, _Reliques of Ancient Poetry_, 47
Pictures of Morris dancers, 119
Playford’s _Dancing Master_, 153
Poaching songs, 64
Present-day teaching, 170
Pressgang songs, 69
Primitive religious customs, 102, 144
Printers of ballads and garlands, 80
Rhythms, mixed, 49
“Sailor loved a Farmer’s Daughter, A,” 33
Salii, the, 101
Sea chanties, 72
Sea songs, 67
“Shamrock Shore,” 24
Sharp, Mr Cecil J., 15, 47, 75
Sharp’s, Mr Cecil, revival of Morris dancing, 159
Sheppard, Rev. H. F., 44
Singing-games, 77
Soldier songs, 66
_Spectator_ quoted, 3, 80
Stanton, Mrs, 33
Stokoe, Mr John, 42
Stratford-on-Avon, 166
Sword dance, 145
Tolmie, Miss, 74
Treasurer, the, 144
Tunes, 130
Vacation School at Littlehampton, 166
Walton’s _Compleat Angler_, 79
Williams, Dr Vaughan, 47
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=Life in Shakespeare’s England.= A Book of
Elizabethan Prose compiled by J. DOVER
WILSON, M.A. Crown 8vo. With 7 Plates.
3s 6d net.
“Mr Wilson’s selection is that of a scholar; admirably
selected and wonderfully representative of the rich
material drawn upon.... You come not upon passages that
have become worn by familiarity.”
—_The Westminster Gazette_
“As a picture of social England in the sixteenth
century the volume is well worth study. We have read
it through and can vouch that there is not a dull page.“
—_The Journal of Education_
“Each extract describes some facet in the various life
of England at the time. We see the country life, with
its labour, sports, festivals, and superstitions; the
educated life of schools, universities, and travel;
the life of London, and its disorders, temptations,
plagues, and fashions; the life of books and theatres;
the life at court and at home; the life of rogues,
vagabonds, and seamen.” —_The Nation_
=An Anthology of the Poetry of the Age of
Shakespeare.= Chosen and Arranged by W. T.
YOUNG, M.A., Lecturer in English Language and
Literature at the University of London, Goldsmiths’
College. Crown 8vo. 2s 6d net.
“In this attractive volume the thought, temper,
manners, and activities of the period of Shakespeare
are exemplified in selections from contemporary poetry;
and no better guide can be desired on this journey than
Mr W. T. Young.”—_The Schoolmaster_
“Probably no age lends itself so well to the art of
the maker of anthologies as the Elizabethan.... Mr
Young has made the most of his chances; he has given
us besides beautiful bits from Spenser, Shakespeare,
Ben Jonson, and Raleigh, a host of lyrics from Tottel,
from the lesser playwrights, and from writers so little
known as Daniel and Warner. The result is a book that
will be a treasure to every lover of English song.
The method adopted is chronological, and the book is
supplied with a good index and a sensible glossary.”
—_The Literary World_
=Music on the Shakespearian Stage.=
By G. H. COWLING. Crown 8vo.
With Frontispiece and 10 Plates. 4s net.
CONTENTS:—Introduction—Music in
pre-Shakespearian Drama—An Elizabethan Stage
and its Music—Musical Instruments and their
Uses—Incidental Music—Musicians, Singers,
and Songs—Elizabethan Music and its Share in
the Drama—Some Literary Allusions to Music in
Elizabethan Plays—Bibliography—Appendix—Index.
“This is an excellently clear and well-informed essay
on the status and function of the theatre musicians in
Elizabethan times. The author has compressed the fruits
of scholarship and wide observation into commendably
few pages, and at the same time has managed to
construct an unquestionably interesting and informing
narrative.”—_The Musical Standard_
“This ... record of how and when and why musical
compositions were added to dramatic productions
is worthy of a good place in Shakespeare
Bibliography.”—_The Daily Chronicle_
=Byways in British Archæology.= By WALTER
JOHNSON, F.G.S., Author of “Folk-Memory,” etc.
Demy 8vo. With 99 Illustrations, 10s 6d net.
“In these 500 pages Mr Johnson has brought together
a series of essays on archæological subjects, each
of which shows considerable reading and accurate
research.... The amount of information compactly
presented is remarkable, and it may fairly be said
that every reasoning British archæologist ought to
read these pages.... Throughout the volume is well
illustrated.”—_The Athenæum_
=National Life and Character in the Mirror of Early
English Literature.= By EDMUND DALE,
M.A., D.Lit. Royal 8vo. 8s net.
“Each period lives before us in the ‘mirror’ of its
literature; the Englishman of every age speaks in his
own voice; and the narrative, with its countless facts,
quotations, descriptions, marches as agreeably as a
tale.”—_The Morning Post_
“Dr Dale has achieved an attractive and distinguished
bit of work; but lest praise so high should warn off
the general reader, let it be added that it is far
easier to read and much more interesting than many
works of fiction.”—_The Birmingham Post_
Cambridge University Press
C. F. CLAY, Manager: Fetter Lane, London
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