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.