play, a glance at certain customs, either pagan or semi-pagan in their origin, may help to dispel all suspicion of unfairness. The old morris-dances (Fig. 48), which were associated with the church, were occasionally, as at Whitsuntide, performed within the nave. The wardens were not infrequently entrusted with the “properties” necessary for the performance of the dances. The earlier churchwardens’ accounts contain abundant references to the costumes of the dancers and mummers. The accounts of St Mary’s, Reading, contain entries of this kind so late as A.D. 1556-7[434]. We may perhaps find the immediate exemplars of some of these dances in the fandango of the Moors, especially if, as philologists tell us, the word “morris” is connected with the name of this race[435]. The ultimate origin of the custom, however, lies deeper, and goes back to the turn-over from heathenism. Some of the dances are as essentially British as any legacies which antiquity has bequeathed to us. One example, known as “Bean-setting,” is conjectured to be derived from a primitive ceremonial dance which was once performed in the springtime, when the crops were sown. In fact, dancing, and the revels with which it was accompanied, gave great trouble to the Early Fathers, who had much difficulty in safeguarding the precincts of the church from such intrusions[436]. So recently as the seventeenth century, a writer quoted by Mr Chambers could assert that, in his lifetime, he had seen clergy and singing boys dancing at Easter in the churches of Paris. Here, surely, was a vestige of paganism. And, although one cannot produce apposite parallels from Britain, there are astounding modern survivals of this kind reported from Continental churches, for example, at Seville, and at Echternach, in Luxembourg[437]. The Whit-Tuesday dancing procession at Echternach still takes place annually and attracts a huge crowd of pilgrims. The dancing is a kind of rhythmical leap, and is performed on the way from the Abbey church to the grave of St Willibrord, and then back again. Dancing in churches at Christmas--a different matter from dancing at Easter--was not unknown in England itself in the seventeenth century. John Aubrey says that, in his day, Yorkshire folk danced in the churches at Christmas-tide, singing or crying, “Yole, Yole, Yole[438]!” Philip Stubbes, in 1583, had denounced bitterly the “Devil’s dances” in church. Mention should not be omitted also of the horn dancers of Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire, whose reindeer antlers, dresses, and other properties are preserved in the parish church. There are records of horn-dancing from other places, but the Abbots Bromley performance, which is still continued annually, is most instructive, because it was carefully investigated by Dr J. C. Cox about a dozen years ago. Dr Cox then found persons living who could recollect the accompanying music being played in the church porch, while the dancers executed their steps in the churchyard.