The Morris Book, Part 1: A History of Morris Dancing, With a Description of Eleven Dances as Performed by the Morris-Men of EnglandSharp, Cecil J. (Cecil James)
History
The Morris Book, Part 1: A History of Morris Dancing, With a Description of Eleven Dances as Performed by the Morris-Men of England
Sharp, Cecil J. (Cecil James)
Morris dance
In the case of Mr. Kimber, leader of the Headington men (plate opp. p.
22), the dress, it will be noticed, was simpler. A white sweater took the
place of the pleated shirt; ribbons of red, white and blue were crossed
upon the chest; the trousers were of white flannel.
Some notes on the bells and on the manner of fixing them will be found
under the heading "Bells."
The fool's dress would seem to be designed to-day, as in the olden time,
upon no particular plan, but to follow the fancy of the individual
wearer. The Bidford man, whom we saw at his really funny antics, had a
fox's mask for headgear, the muzzle lying on the man's forehead, the
brush hanging down his back. His face was raddled like a clown's; he had
a vest of cowhide, with red sleeves; stockings and breeches much like the
dancers', and he wore his bells, not on a shin-pad like them, but in a
row all round the boot-top. He carried a bladder on the end of a stick,
and with it he freely whacked the hobby-horse man and occasionally
members of the audience.
The hobby-horse man of the same company was dressed like a jockey; and,
while the dancers had a rest, he and the fool carried on innumerable
capers, sometimes backing in amongst the audience, occasionally
overturning a few, and now and then chasing any maid that could be
started on the run. If this pair be typical of the olden time, we can
answer for it that their fun was uproarious and perfectly wholesome.
BELLS.
To the wearing of bells, stitched upon thongs and tied to the shin, there
would seem to be no exception amongst the Morris-folk, even from the
earliest times. The celebrated Kemp, who danced the Morris all the way
from London to Norwich in 1599, and whose picture we reproduce, wore his
bells in the traditional manner.
The records show that, even in recent times, both treble and tenor bells
were worn, each carried by the opposite files of dancers. There are
accounts also of bells with four different tones. But nowadays certainly
the rule is that bells all of a kind are worn by all the dancers--latten
bells, if that be still the correct name for the kind of bell to be found
upon the harness that children use when they play at horses. The shin-pad
that carries the bells varies to some extent in the details of its
construction; the number of bells also varies. Sometimes the vertical
strips and lateral ties of the pad are of ribbon or braid; maybe oftener
of leather. Sometimes the bells are stitched upon the lateral ties, top
and bottom; it is more usual, however, to fasten them on the
perpendicular strips. The whole bell-pad is some seven inches square, and
is worn midway between knee and ankle. Kimber, as will be seen (plate
opposite), wears twelve bells on each leg, in three perpendicular rows of
four each.
HANDKERCHIEFS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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