Thus we were faced with a sudden demand and very limited means wherewith to meet it. In these circumstances we naturally bethought ourselves of possible expedients. To us it seemed practicable to meet it only in one way--through the writing of a book on Morris dancing, by the help of which even those who had never seen the dances performed might be enabled to learn them, and so pass them on. The result of our endeavours must declare itself in the efforts of others to make use of this little handbook. That there is a demand for it is very sure: whether we have succeeded in putting together an intelligible and a workable manual of dances--notoriously a very hard thing to do--will be told presently in the tally of practising Morris-dancers in England--and Japan. We have aimed at simplicity, brevity and clearness in the description. As to the extent of the demand and its constant tendency to increase, so far, there can be no doubt. As to the permanence of the demand, as to whether the Morris dance is likely to become again, as once it was, a feature of our national life, one can only surmise. For ourselves, we believe absolutely in the permanence of this revival, and that these astounding results of our efforts hitherto are evidence, not of a fleeting phase or vogue but of no less than that we have restored to our own people a rightful inheritance, a means and method of self-expression in movement, native and sincere, such as is offered by no other form of dancing known to us. The outstanding feature of all our English institutions is their continuity: to have continuity you must have age and a hallowed tradition: these we have in everything national, save only in our songs and dances. These, although we are anything but an imitative race, we have imported from un-English lands, with the inevitable result that in dance and music we express everybody but ourselves. We shall go on doing so until the treasure-house of our Folk-music and dances--now for several generations mysteriously closed to us--shall be re-opened. In this handbook we have tried to do something towards restoring that forsaken repository to its rightful pre-eminence. HISTORICAL. We claim for this sketch no completeness: we are chiefly concerned with the Morris as a lapsed yet living art, calling, as we hold, for revival; we look to the Morris-men, not primarily as subject-matter for the industrious archæologist, but as heralds to the sweetening of the town life of England and the re-peopling of her forsaken countryside. We have nevertheless taken some trouble in our search for all that is interesting and genuine as concerns the Morris, in the literature of our own country, and others. For the benefit of those inclined to follow the subject farther in its historical aspect than it is herein treated, we have appended a list of books in which we have found items of interest.