Talk to a TEMS member for twenty minutes and you’re likely to find out all sorts of things about their past to surprise and intrigue you. Coming from a musical family (his mother played piano, his father was a semi-professional jazz musician and his brother was into heavy rock) it isn’t surprising that Peter Mott developed a feeling for music in his youth. His preference was for folk music, and in his early twenties he became a Morris dancer with Downes Morris. In a multi-media presentation, Peter introduced TEMS members to the colourful world of Morris at a recent meeting in Wimbledon.

‘Morris dancing’, Peter explained, is a broad term for a type of English folk dance that has taken place across England and Wales for a very long time. While there is some commonality of step, styles of Morris vary considerably from the north of England to the south, and each village has its own form of dance, which may be quite different even from the Morris danced in a nearby village. In the south of England, the Cotswold Morris predominates. Dancers within this tradition wear bells, breeches, waistcoats and top hats and usually use multiples of six dancers with handkerchiefs. In the north, wooden clogs are more frequently worn, sticks are used rather than handkerchiefs and bowler hats covered with flowers worn instead of the top hats of the south. Here, dances use multiples of four dancers. Nowadays, says Peter, the traditions have intermingled to some extent in terms of dress and style of dancing, compared to the clear distinctions of the 1800s.

A wide variety of dance-styles come under the general heading of ‘Morris’. These include Cotswold Morris (the tradition Peter himself used to dance), Border Morris (danced in the Welsh border counties), the comparatively little known Molly Dancing (found in East Anglia), North-West Morris (using wooden clogs), Longsword Dancing (a Yorkshire dance which originally used swords but now somewhat less dangerous implements!) and Rapper Dancing (a Northumberland and Lancashire dance which uses double-handled metal ‘swords’ and clog steps). Although people often see Morris dancing as essentially a rural pursuit, it was historically not confined to country areas and was danced in urban areas, churches and the King’s court.

Traditionally Morris tunes were played on the pipe and tabor (a small drum hung from the arm), the English melodeon or concertina (old forms of accordian), the fiddle and the dulcimer. Peter played a video of Billy Bennington playing the Norfolk dulcimer and a CD of William Kimber playing Morris tunes on the English concertina.

Despite its long history, we have very little in the way of written records on Morris dancing (particularly in terms of specific details of dances). The earliest indisputable written record is found in the will of one Alice Wetenhale of Bury St Edmunds dated 1458 in which she declared "I leave to my daughter Catherine . . . three silver cups sculpted with a Morris dance and one lid for them". Perhaps the best records we have from these early days were those kept by the Guilds, partly because a lot of Guild members participated in the Morris. A book engraving dating from 1460 features a central female figure (who may be interpreted as Maid Marion or a May Queen), a jester, a player with a pipe and tabor and a form of hobby horse. One record from 1477 shows that dancers were paid 28 shillings (a very considerable amount in those days) as well as being provided with clothes. Other early references can be found in a stained glass window dating from 1510 and in the plays of William Shakespeare and others.

Between 1511 and 1540, there must have been a lot of Morris dancing going on in England; this is revealed in domestic and state records, non-fiction writing, church, secular, legal and personal records as well as in details of prosecutions. The Puritans in Elizabethan times, Peter explained, violently opposed Morris dancing and banned it as the work of the devil. Fifty years later, more prosecutions were in evidence (mainly, says Peter, a result of Morris dancers getting drunk and being prosecuted either by the clergy or by local authorities).

Records for the 1800s reveal that Morris dancing was very popular (Rapper Dancing in Northumbria, Longsword in Yorkshire, a mixture of Derbyshire Morris and well-dressing in central England and Molly Dancing in East Anglia). By the early 1900s, though, Morris had almost died out in England, with very little of its tradition recorded either on film or on paper.

But for the dedication and interest of Cecil Sharp and a small group of other Victorian collectors, Morris dancing might have executed a graceful disappearance from British soil. Aware of a pressing need to locate and record the dances, Sharp began many collecting journeys and started the English Folk Dance and Song Society. For example, Cecil Sharp journeyed to Yorkshire, recording in fine detail the steps of the dances he came across. Unfortunately for us, his collection in Yorkshire was restricted to the dances in the east of the county and all the dances from the eest were lost. In 1911, he published the Morris Book which provided detailed information on the tunes and dances.

What are the origins of this particularly English form of dance? Theories abound, and Peter discussed a few of these. There is much evidence of pagan links, and this was strongly supported by Cecil Sharp. Other historians attempt to link Morris dancing with the stories of Robin Hood, and others argue that the word ‘Morris’ is a corruption of ‘Moorish’ (there are some similarities with Moorish dancing). Joseph Needham in 1936 suggested that Morris started in Romano Britain in the 9^th century AD, based upon the close fit between ancient kingdoms and distribution of the different Morris traditions in 1800 (e.g. Cotswold Morris being associated with Wessex, Sword Dancing with Danish Mercia, etc). Peter’s own view is that there is no single point of origin, and that Morris is essentially evolutionary, having been handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth and practice.

Times have changed, but it’s good to know that our dance traditions continue. Good places to see Morris dancing include Cecil Sharp House (the home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society) in London and the annual Sidmouth Folk Festival.

Peter had promised a special treat for the ladies at the end of his talk. Yes, he did demonstrate how to do it, but he also played a home video showing various Morris sides in full flow. The finale was the section entitled The Full Morris. It began as a sober, conventional Morris and ended in uproar, laughter and whistles!

Our thanks go to Peter for a very informative and entertaining afternoon.