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Morris-Dancers

Says Dr. Johnson: “the Morris-Dance, in which bells are jingled, or staves or swords clashed, was learned by the Moors, and was probably a kind of Pyrrhic, or military dance. “Morisco,” says Blount (Span.), a Moor; also a dance, so called, wherein there were usually five men, and a boy dressed in a girl’s habit, whom they called the Maid Marrion, or perhaps Morian, from the Italian Morione, a head-piece, because her head was wont to be gaily trimmed up. Common people called it a Morris-Dance.” Such are the statements made at the commencement of a chapter on this subject in “Brand’s Popular Antiquities.”

It is generally agreed that the Morris-Dance was introduced into this country in the sixteenth century. In the earlier English allusions it is called Morisco, a Moor, and this indicates its origin from Spain. It was popular in France before it was appreciated amongst our countrymen; some antiquaries assert that it came to England from our Gallic neighbours, or even from the Flemings, while others state that when John of Gaunt returned from Spain he was the means of making it known here, but we think there is little truth in the statement.

Our countrymen soon united the Morris-Dance with the favourite pageant dance of Robin-hood. We discover many traces of the two dances in sacred as well as profane places. In old churchwarden’s accounts we sometimes find items bearing on this theme. The following entries are drawn from the “Churchwardens’ and Chamberlains’ Books of Kingston-upon-Thames:” —

It is stated that in 1536-37, amongst other clothes belonging to the play of Robin Hood, left in the keeping of the churchwardens, were “a fryer’s coat of russet, with a kyrtle of worsted welted with red cloth, a mowren’s cote of buckram, and 4 Morres daunsars cote of white fustain spangelyed, and two gryne saten cotes, and a dysardd’s cote of cotton, and 6 payre of garters with bells.”

Some curious payments appear in the churchwardens’ accounts of St. Mary’s parish, Reading, and are quoted by Coates, the historian of the town. Under the year 1557, items as follow appear: —

The following is a curious note drawn from the original accounts of St. Giles’, Cripplegate, London: —

“1571. Item, paide in charges by the appointment of the parisshoners, for the settinge forth of a gyaunt morris-dainsers, with vj calyvers and iij boies on horseback, to go in the watche befoore the Lade Maiore uppon Midsomer even, as may appeare by particulars for the furnishinge of same, vj. li. ixs. ixd.”

We learn from the churchwardens’ accounts of Great Marlow that dresses for the Morris-dance were lent out to the neighbouring parishes down to 1629. Some interesting pictures illustrating the usages of bygone ages include the Morris-dance, and gives us a good idea of the costumes of those taking part in it. A painted window at Betley, Staffordshire, has frequently formed the subject of an illustration, and we give one of it.

Here is shown in a spirited style a set of Morris-dancers. It is described in Steven’s “Shakespeare” (Henry IV., Part I.) There are eleven pictures and a Maypole. The characters are as follow: – 1, Robin Hood; 2, Maid Marion; 3, Friar Tuck; 4, 6, 7, 10, and 11, Morris-dancers; 5, the hobby-horse; 8, the Maypole; 9, the piper; and 12, the fool. Figures 10 and 11 have long streamers to the sleeves, and all the dancers have bells, either at the ankles, wrists, or knees. Tollett, the owner of the window, believed it dated back to the time of Henry VIII., c. 1535. Douce thinks it belongs to the reign of Edward IV., and other authorities share his opinion. It is thought that the figures of the English friar, Maypole, and hobby-horse have been added at a later period.

Towards the close of the reign of James I., Vickenboom painted a picture, Richmond Palace, and in it a company of Morris-dancers form an attractive feature. The original painting includes seven figures, consisting of a fool, hobby-horse, piper, Maid Marion, and three dancers. We give an illustration of the first four characters and one of the dancers, from a drawing by Douce, produced from a tracing made by Grose. The bells on the dancer and the fool are clearly shown.

We also present a picture of a Whitsun Morris-dance. In the olden time, at Whitsuntide, this diversion was extremely popular.

Many allusions to the Morris-dancers occur in the writings of Elizabethan authors. Shakespeare, for example, in Henry V., refers to it thus: —

 
“And let us doit with no show of fear;
No! with no more than if we heard that England
Were busied with a Whitsun Morris-dance.”
 

In All’s Well that Ends Well, he speaks of the fitness of a “Morris-dance for May-day.” We might cull many quotations from the poets, but we will only make one more and it is from Herrick’s “Hesperides,” describing the blessings of the country: —

 
“Thy Wakes, thy Quintals, here thou hast
Thy maypoles, too, with garlands grac’d
Thy Morris-dance, thy Whitsun-ale;
Thy shearing flat, which never fail.”
 

In later times the Morris-dance was frequently introduced on the stage.

As might be expected, the Puritans strongly condemned this form of pleasure. Richard Baxter, in his “Divine Appointment of the Lord’s Day,” gives us a vivid picture of Sunday in a pleasure-loving time. “I have lived in my youth,” says Baxter, “in many places where sometimes shows of uncouth spectacles have been their sports at certain seasons of the year, and sometimes morrice-dancings, and sometimes stage plays and sometimes wakes and revels… And when the people by the book [of Sports] were allowed to play and dance out of public service-time, they could hardly break off their sports that many a time the reader was fain to stay till the piper and players would give over; and sometimes the morrice-dancers would come into the church in all their linen, and scarfs, and antic dresses, with morrice-bells jingling at their legs. And as soon as common prayer was read did haste out presently to their play again.” Stubbes, in his “Anatomie of Abuses” (1585), writes in a similar strain.

The pleasure-loving Stuarts encouraged Sunday sports, and James I., in his Declaration of May 24th 1618, directed that the people should not be debarred from having May-games, Whitsun-ales, and Morris-dances, and the setting up of May poles.

During the Commonwealth, dancing round the Maypole and many other popular amusements were stopped, but no sooner had Charles II. come to the throne of the country than the old sports were revived. For a fuller account of this subject the reader would do well to consult Brand’s “Popular Antiquities,” and the late Alfred Burton’s book on “Rush-Bearing,” from both works we have derived information for this chapter.

The Folk-Lore of Midsummer Eve

The old superstitions and customs of Midsummer Eve form a curious chapter in English folk-lore. Formerly this was a period when the imagination ran riot. On Midsummer Day the Church holds its festival in commemoration of the birth of St. John the Baptist, and some of the old customs relate to this saint.

On the eve of Midsummer Day it was a common practice to light bonfires. This custom, which is a remnant of the old Pagan fire-worship, prevailed in various parts of the country, but perhaps lingered the longest in Cornwall. We gather from Borlase’s “Antiquities of Cornwall,” published in 1754, that at the Midsummer bonfires, the Cornish people attended with lighted torches, tarred and pitched at the end, and made their perambulations round the fires, afterwards going from village to village carrying their torches before them. He regarded the usage as a survival of Druidical superstitions. In the same county it was a practice on St. Stephen’s Down, near Launceston, to erect a tall pole with a bush fixed at the top of it, and round the pole to heap fuel. After the fire was lit, parties of wrestlers contested for prizes specially provided for the festival. According to an old tradition, an evil spirit once appeared in the form of a black dog, and since that time the wrestlers have never been able to meet on Midsummer Eve without being seriously injured in the sport.

About Penzance, not only did the fisher-folk and their friends dance about the blazing fire, but sang songs composed for the joyous time. We give a couple of verses from one of these songs: —

 
“As I walked out to yonder green
One evening so fair,
All where the fair maids may be seen,
Playing at the bonfire.
 
 
Where larks and linnets sing so sweet,
To cheer each lively swain,
Let each prove true unto her lover,
And so farewell the plain.”
 

Mr. William Bottrell, one of the most painstaking writers on Cornish folk-lore, in an article written in 1873, asserts that not a few old people living in remote and primitive districts, “believe that dancing in a ring over the embers, around a bonfire, or leaping (singly) through its flames, is calculated to insure good luck to the performers, and serve as a protection from witchcraft and other malign influences during the ensuing year.” Mr. Bottrell laments the decay of these pleasing old Midsummer observances. He tells us that within “the memory of many who would not like to be called old, or even aged, on a Midsummer’s eve, long before sunset, groups of girls – both gentle and simple – of from ten to twenty years of age, neatly dressed and decked with garlands, wreaths, or chaplets of flowers, would be seen dancing in the streets.”

Some of the ancient Midsummer rites are still observed in Ireland. We have from an eyewitness some interesting items on the subject. People assemble and dance round fires, the children jump through the flames, and in former times coals were carried into corn fields to prevent blight. The peasants are not, of course, aware that the ceremony is a remnant of the worship of Baal. It is the opinion of not a few that the famous round towers of Ireland were intended for signal fires in connection with this worship.

In the pleasant pages of T. Crofton Croker’s “Researches in the South of Ireland,” are particulars of a custom, observed on the eve of St. John’s Day, of dressing up a broomstick as a figure, and carrying it about in the twilight from one cabin to the other, and suddenly pushing it in at the door, a proceeding which causes both surprise and merriment. The figure is known as Bredogue.

The superstitious inhabitants of the Isle of Man formerly, on Midsummer Eve, lighted fires to the windward side of fields, so that the smoke might pass over the corn. The cattle were folded, and around the animals was carried blazing grass or furze, as a preventative against the influence of witches. Many other strange practices and beliefs prevailed.

In Wales, in the earlier years of the present century, it was customary to fix sprigs of the plant called St. John’s wort over the doors of the cottages, and sometimes over the windows, in order to purify the houses and drive away all fiends and evil spirits. It was the common custom in England in the olden time for people to repair to the woods, break branches from the trees, and carry them to their homes with much delight, and place them over their doors. The ceremony, it is said, was to make good the Scripture prophecy respecting the Baptist, that many should rejoice at his birth.

Midsummer Eve has ever been famous as a time suitable for love divinations, and surely a few notes on love-lore cannot fail to find favour with our fair readers. In a popular story issued at the commencement of this century, from the polished pen of Hannah More, the heroine of the tale says that she would never go to bed on this night without first sticking up in her room the common plant called “Orpine,” or, more generally, “Midsummer Men,” as the bending of the leaves to the right or the left indicate to her if her lover was true or false. The following charming lines refer to the ceremony, and are translated from the German poet, and given in Chambers’s “Book of Days,” so we may infer that the same superstition prevails in that country: —

 
“The young maid stole through the cottage door,
And blushed as she sought the plant of power:
‘Thou silver glow-worm, oh, lend me thy light,
I must gather the mystic St. John’s wort to-night —
The wonderful herb, whose leaf will decide
If the coming year shall make me a bride.’
And the glow-worm came
With its silvery flame,
And sparkled and shone
Through the night of St. John.
 
 
“And soon as the young maid her love-knot tied,
With noiseless tread,
To her chamber she sped,
Where the sceptral moon her white beams shed:
‘Bloom here, bloom here, thou plant of power,
To deck the young bride in her bridal hour!’
But it droop’d its head, that plant of power,
And died the mute death of the voiceless flower;
And a wither’d wreath on the ground it lay,
More meet for a burial than a bridal day.
And when a year was passed away,
All pale on her bier the young maid lay;
And the glow-worm came
With its silvery flame,
And sparkled and shone
Through the night of St. John,
And they closed the cold grave o’er the maid’s cold clay.”
 

We gather from Thorpe’s “Northern Mythology,” that in Sweden it was the practice to place under the head of a youth or maiden nine kinds of flowers, with a full belief that they would dream of their sweethearts.

In England, in past times, the moss-rose was plucked with considerable ceremony on this eve for love divinations. Says the writer of a poem entitled “The Cottage Girl”: —

 
“The moss-rose that, at fall of dew,
Ere eve its duskier curtain drew,
Was freshly gathered from its stem,
She values as the ruby gem;
And, guarded from the piercing air,
With all an anxious lover’s care,
She bids it, for her shepherd’s sake,
Await the New Year’s frolic wake:
When faded in its altered hue,
She reads – the rustic is untrue!
But if its leaves the crimson paint,
Her sick’ning hopes no longer faint;
The rose upon her bosom worn,
She meets him at the peep of morn,
And lo! her lips with kisses prest,
He plucks it from her panting breast.”
 

“On the continent,” says Dyer, in his “Folk-Lore of Plants,” “the rose is still thought to possess mystic virtues in love matters, as in Thuringia, where the girls foretell their future by means of rose leaves.” It appears from a contributor to Chambers’s “Book of Days,” that there was brought some time ago under the notice of the Society of Antiquarians a curious little ring, which had been found in a ploughed field near Cawood, Yorkshire. It was inferred from its style and inscription to belong to the fifteenth century. The device consisted of two orpine plants joined by a true-love knot, with this motto above: Ma fiancée velt, i. e., “My sweetheart is willing or desirous.” We are told that the stalks of the plants were bent to each other, in token that the parties represented by them were to come together in marriage. The motto under the ring was Joye l’amour feu. It is supposed that it was originally made for some lover to give to his mistress on Midsummer Eve, as the orpine plant is connected with that time. The dumb cake is another item of Midsummer folk-lore: —

 
“Two make it,
Two bake it,
Two break it;”
 

a third put it under their pillows, and this was all done without a word being spoken. If this was faithfully carried out it was believed that the diviners would dream of the men they loved.

Sowing hempseed on this eve was once a general custom. We have noted particulars of the ceremony as carried out at Ashbourne, Derbyshire. At this village, when a young maiden wished to discover who would be her future husband, she repaired to the churchyard, and as the clock struck the witching hour of midnight, she commenced running round the church, continually repeating the following lines: —

 
“I sow hempseed, hempseed I sow;
He that loves me best
Come after me and mow.”
 

After going round the church a dozen times without stopping, her lover was said to appear and follow her. The closing scene of this spell is well described in a poem by W. T. Moncrieff: —

 
“Ah! a step. Some one follows. Oh, dare I look back?
Should the omen be adverse, how would my heart writhe.
Love, brace up my sinews! Who treads on my track?
’Tis he, ’tis the loved one; he comes with the scythe,
He mows what I’ve sown; bound, my heart, and be blithe.
On Midsummer Eve the glad omen is won,
Then hail to thy mystical virgil, St. John.”
 

From the charms of love let us briefly turn to a superstition relating to death. At one time it was believed, and in some country districts the superstition may yet linger, that anyone fasting during the evening, and then sitting at midnight in the church porch, would see the spirits of those destined to die that year come and knock at the church door. The ghosts were supposed to come in the same succession as the persons were doomed to pass away.

A pleasing old custom long survived in Craven, Yorkshire, and other parts of the North of England, of new settlers in the town or village, on the first Midsummer Eve after their arrival, to set out before their doors a plentiful repast of cold beef, bread, cheese, and ale. We are told that neighbours who wished to cultivate their acquaintance sat down and partook of their hospitality, and thus “eat and drunk themselves into intimacy.” Hone’s “Every Day Book” has a note of this custom being observed at Ripon. “It was a popular superstition,” wrote Grose, “that if any unmarried woman fasted on Midsummer Eve, and at midnight laid a clean cloth with bread, cheese, and ale, and then sat down as if going to eat, the street door being left open, the person whom she was afterwards to marry would come into the room and drink to her, bowing; and after filling a glass would leave the table, and, making another bow, retire.”

Harvest Home

Among the old-world customs connected with the times and seasons, that of celebrating the ingathering of the harvest with a rustic festival has survived many which have either passed away, and almost out of memory, or have come to have only a partial and precarious hold upon the minds of the present generation. The rush-cart maintains a feeble struggle for existence in a few northern localities, but each year shows diminished vigour; the May-day festival of the chimney-sweepers has become obsolete, and the dance round the May-pole an open-air ballet; and many old observances connected with the Christmas season which were formerly common to all England are now kept up only in these northern counties, where the flavour of antiquity seems to be much more highly appreciated than in the south. But the harvest home festival holds its ground with equal persistency in both portions of the kingdom, and has of late years been invested with additional glories, sometimes with a superabundance of them which threatens a reaction. There were some features of the older celebrations of the ingathering of the fruits of the earth, however, which, from various causes, have fallen into disuse, and which many of us would gladly, if it were possible, see restored.

We could welcome, for instance, the songs into which the joyous feelings of the harvesters broke forth in the old times as the last load of grain was carried off the field, and when the lads and lasses, with the older rustics, had partaken of a good supper in the farmer’s kitchen, and afterwards danced to the music of the fiddle or pipes in the barn. There are many references to the feasting and singing and dancing customs of this season in the poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Tusser tells us that: —

 
“In harvest time, harvest folk, servants and all,
Should make all together, good cheer in the hall,
And fill the black bowl, so blithe to their song,
And let them be merry, all harvest time long.”
 

Peele, in his “Old Wives’ Tales,” makes his harvesters sing: —

 
“Lo, here we come a-reaping, a-reaping,
To reap our harvest fruit;
And thus we pass the year so long,
And never be we mute.”
 

Stevenson, in his “Twelve Months,” says, “In August the furmety pot welcomes home the harvest cart, and the garland of flowers crowns the captain of the reapers. The battle of the field is now stoutly fought. The pipe and the tabor are now busily set a-work, and the lad and the lass will have no lead in their heels. Oh, ’tis a merry time, wherein honest neighbours make good cheer, and God is glorified in his blessings on the earth.” Tusser’s verse reminds us of another feature of these old celebrations of which little trace remains at the present day, that is, the temporary suspension of all social inequality between employer and employed. There would be less reason to regret this change, however, if, in place of the temporary obliviousness of class distinctions, we could see more genial intercourse all through the year.

The clergy seem to have been less in evidence at the harvest rejoicings of those days than at present. There was a tithe question even two centuries ago, for Dryden, in his King Arthur, makes his festive rustics sing: —

 
“We’ve cheated the parson, we’ll cheat him again,
For why should the blockhead have one in ten?
One in ten! one in ten!
For staying while dinner is cold and hot,
And pudding and dumpling are burnt to the pot!
Burnt to pot! burnt to pot!
We’ll drink off our liquor while we can stand.
And hey for the honour of England!
Old England! Old England!”
 

There is some comfort for the loss of the singing and dancing customs of the old times in that the fact the heavy drinking of the period has also become a thing of the past, and perhaps also in the reflections arising from the misuse of music of which some curious illustrations have been preserved by Mr. Surtees. The historian mentions, in his “History of Durham,” having read a report of the trial of one Spearman, for having made a forcible entry into a field at Birtley, and mowed and carried away the crop, a piper playing on the top of the loaded waggon for the purpose of making the predatory harvesters work the faster, so as to get away before their roguish industry could be interrupted. It may be noted in passing that a similar use of music is shown in the following entry in the parish accounts of Gateshead, under the date of 1633: – “To workmen for making the streets even at the King’s coming, 18s. 4d.: and paid to the piper for playing to the menders of the highway, five several days, 3s. 4d.”

Many local variations exist in the customs associated with the harvest home festivities observed in different parts of the country, especially in the north, where all old customs and observances, like the provincial dialects, have lingered longest, and still linger when they have died out and been forgotten in the south. In Cleveland, it is, or used to be, the custom, on forking the last sheaf on the wagon, for the harvesters to shout in chorus: —

 
“Weel bun and better shorn,
Is Master – ’s corn;
We hev her, we hev her,
As fast as a feather.
Hip, hip, hurrah!”
 

A similar custom exists in Northumberland, where it is called “shouting a kirn.” It consists in a simultaneous shout from the whole of the people present. In some localities the shout is preceded by a rhyme suitable to the occasion, recited by the clearest-voiced persons among those assembled. Mr. James Hardy gives the following as a specimen: —

 
“Blessed be the day our Saviour was born,
For Master – ’s corn’s all well shorn;
And we will have a good supper to-night,
And a drinking of ale, and a kirn! a kirn!”
 

All unite in a simultaneous shout at the close, and he who does not participate in the ringing cheer is liable to have his ears pulled. In Glendale, an abbreviated version of the rhyme is used, with a variation, as follows: —

 
“The master’s corn is ripe and shorn,
We bless the day that he was born,
Shouting a kirn! a kirn!”
 

Are these customs observed at the present day? This is an age of change. We have used the present tense in the foregoing references, but it is in the past tense that we read in Chambers’s “Book of Days,” that, “In the North of England, the reapers were accustomed to leave a good handful of grain uncut; they laid it down flat, and covered it over; when the field was done, the bonniest lass was entrusted with the pleasing duty of cutting the final handful, which was presently dressed up with various sewings, tyings, and trimmings like a doll, and hailed as a Corn Baby or Kirn Dolly. It was carried home in triumph with music of fiddles and bagpipes, set up conspicuously at night during supper, and usually preserved in the farmer’s parlour for the remainder of the year. The fair maiden who cut this handful of grain was called the Har’st Queen.” A similar custom prevailed, with local variations, in Shropshire, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Devonshire, and other parts of England. In Lincolnshire, and some other counties, handbells were rung by those riding on the last load, and the following rhyme sung: —

 
“The boughs do shake and the bells do ring,
So merrily comes in our harvest in,
Our harvest in, our harvest in!
Hurrah!”
 

Writers on local customs formerly observed in different parts of the country, have preserved the memory of a curious one connected with the last handful of wheat. In some parts the reapers threw their sickles at the reserved handful, and he who succeeded in cutting it down shouted, “I have her!” “What have you?” the others cried out. “A mare!” he replied. “What will you do with her?” was then asked. “Send her to – ,” naming some neighbouring farmer whose harvest work was not completed. This rustic pleasantry was called “crying the mare.” The rejoicings attendant on the bringing in of the last load of corn are thus described in the “Book of Days”: – “The waggon containing it was called the hock cart; it was surmounted by a figure formed out of a sheaf, with gay dressings, intended to represent the goddess Ceres. In front men played merry tunes on the pipe and tabor, and the reapers tripped around in a hand-in-hand ring, singing appropriate songs, or simply by shouts and cries giving vent to the excitement of the day. In some districts they sang or shouted as follows: —

 
“Harvest home, harvest home!
We ploughed, we have sowed,
We have reaped, we have moved,
We have brought home every load.
Hip, hip, hip, harvest home!”
 

In some parts the figure on the waggon, instead of an effigy, was the prettiest of the girl-reapers, decked with summer flowers, and hailed as the Harvest Queen. Bloomfield, in one of his Suffolk ballads, thus preserves the memory of this custom: —

 
“Home came the jovial Hockey load,
Last of the whole year’s crop;
And Grace among the green boughs rode,
Right plump upon the top.”
 

These and many other harvest-home customs undoubtedly had their origin in heathen times, in common with those associated with the New Year, the Epiphany, May Day, and many other festivals.

Not the least important part of the harvest home observances was the supper which closed them, and which took place in the kitchen of the farmhouse or in the barn, the master and mistress presiding. The fare on these occasions was substantial and plentiful, and good home-brewed ale was poured out abundantly – we are afraid too much so. The harvest home supper of the sixteenth century, as graphically portrayed by Herrick, included: —

 
“Foundation of your feast, fat beef,
With upper stories, mutton, veal,
And bacon, which makes full the meal;
With several dishes standing by,
As here a custard, there a pie,
And here all-tempting frumentie.
And for to make the merry cheer,
If smirking wine be wanting here,
There’s that which drowns all care, stout beer.”
 

Instead of a formal vote of thanks to the givers of the feast, the prevailing feeling was expressed in a song, one version of which runs as follows: —

 
“Here’s health to our master,
The load of the feast;
God bless his endeavours,
And send him increase.
May prosper his crops, boys,
And we reap next year;
Here’s our master’s good health, boys,
Come, drink off your beer!
 
 
Now harvest is ended,
And supper is past;
Here’s to our mistress’s health, boys,
Come, drink a full glass.
For she’s a good woman,
Provides us good cheer;
Here’s our mistress’s good health, boys.
Come, drink off your beer!”
 

Over the greater part of England a harvest-thanksgivings service has, at the present day, taken the place of the festive observances of former times. It would be useless to regret the passing away of the old customs, even if there was much more reason for such a feeling; for change is an inevitable condition of existence, and we can no more recall the old things which have passed away than we can replace last year’s snow on the wolds. Even the harvest-thanksgiving service, with its accompanying cereal and horticultural decorations of church and chapel, seems destined to a change. The decorations are too often overdone. We have seen in some churches piles of fruit and vegetables that would furnish a shop, in addition to sheaves of corn and stacks of quartern loaves. In some instances, a more deplorable display has been made in the shape of a model of a farmyard, thus turning the place of worship into a show. Sometimes, too, the sermon has no reference to the harvest. Sometimes, again, the service is held before the harvest has been gathered in; or thanks are offered for an abundant harvest when it has notoriously been deficient. Perhaps the need of a collection at this particular time may account for these discrepancies. Such mistakes are easily avoided, however, and no fault can reasonably be found with these celebrations when religious zeal is kept within the bounds of discretion.