“In the afternoon when they were got within a few miles of Gloucester at a genteel house near the end of the village they saw almost the whole parish assembled in the Court to see a set of Morrice dancers who (this holiday time), dressed up in bells and ribbands, were performing for the entertainment of the family of some company that had dined there.”
“Those who are acquainted with this sort of Morrice dance (which is still practised in several parts of England) must know that they are usually attended with one character called the Tom fool, who like the clown in the pantomime seems to be a burlesque upon all the rest. His fool’s cap has a fox’s tail depending like a ramillie whip: and instead of the small bells which the others wear on their legs he has a great sheep-bell hung on his back side. Whilst the company therefore were all attention to the preacher this buffoon contrived to slip the fool’s cap upon Tugwell’s head, and to fix the sheep’s bell to his rump. Which Jerry no sooner perceived than his choler arose, and spitting into his hands and clenching his fists he gave the Tom fool a swinging blow in the face. Tugwell pursued with the sheep-bell at his tail. Ended the preaching.”
At Abingdon-on-Thames the date on the regalia of the Morris dances still in existence is 1700, and the Bampton Morris “side” claims an unbroken tradition, so that in these places at any rate we are in touch with the dance as it has come to us from the days when it was an inherent part of country life, and it is from these and other isolated “sides” and individuals that the steps, figures, and tunes have been taken down at the present day. A complete reconstruction of the dance is of course impossible, so is an exact lesson of the way in which it should be danced, but with the general descriptions and the remaining dancers enough can be ascertained to justify the contention that England has a real folk-dance of her own which compares very favourably with that of other nations.
[Illustration: Morris Dance and Music from the _Orchesographie_ of Thoinot-Arbeau]
Before the revival of Morris dancing in 1905, there was only one description of the steps and evolutions of the dance, and that was in _Orchesographie et Traicte en Forme de Dialogue_, by Thoinot-Arbeau, published in 1588.