The Queen was also called the Moll, Maid Marian, the Lady of the Lamb, Bessie, and The Lady of the May, and was a man, generally a smooth-faced youth, who was dressed as and represented a woman.
A very important character was the Fool, Tom Fool, Dysard, Squire, or Rodney, identical with the jongleur or joculator. He was often the best dancer, did special feats to amuse the crowd, and with a cow’s tail and bladder attached to the ends of a stick kept the crowd from encroaching on the dancers. The Fool survived in Lancashire as “owd Sooty face,” “Dirty Bet,” and “owd Molly Coddle” as late as 1891.
The Hobby-Horse was a great feature of the dance in early days. Its wild capering and frolicking around added much to the general amusement. Mr Cecil Sharp says that he has not met with a traditional dancer who remembers a hobby-horse being part of the Morris side, but there are numerous allusions to it in writing.
In “Cobbe’s Prophecies, his Signs and Tokens, his Madrigalls, Questions and Answers” (1614), the following occurs:—
“And fine Maide Marian with her smoile, Shew’d how a rascall plaide the roile: But, when the Hobby-Horse did wihy, Then all the wenches gave a tihy.”
Robin Hood and Friar Tuck also appear occasionally in historic accounts, but I have never heard of either character as part of the “sides” now existing.
The musician, once a player on pipe and tabor, later on the fiddle, and to-day sometimes on the concertina, was of course indispensable, and I was told at Headington of one old fiddler for that “side,” who played until he was so old that he had to be carried from place to place and deposited on the roadside when the dancers halted for the dance, and I heard of another who rode a donkey when too old to accompany the dancers on foot.
The Treasurer who carried the collecting box is also important. Most “sides” of Morris men had a “sword-bearer,” who carried round a gaily decorated sword on which was impaled a cake, specially made for the occasion by some lady who undertook the duty year by year, though of late (as at Bampton) the cake is just an ordinary shop-made one. A small knife is stuck in the cake, and the sword-bearer hands it round to the spectators, who each ceremonially take a piece. The “treasurer” follows with a box into which one is expected to put a donation to compensate the dancers “for their trouble.”