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—