May Day is Friday, and David writes:
I am the foreman of a Morris dance troupe which practices here in Wallingford (where I also happen to live). What is Morris dance? It is a traditional English ritual folk dance, danced with bells strapped to our legs and hankies or sticks carried in our hands. No one knows the exact origins of Morris dancing or how long the tradition has been around. […] Some believe there to be an ancient Celtic or Druidic connection with Morris dancing. Some believe it is associated with (or responsible for) the fertility of people, crops, animals and hops. […]
Each May Day (May 1st), Morris dancers around the world gather before dawn to dance up the sun. It is commonly believed that the sun will not rise, and summer will not arrive, if Morris dancers do not greet the sun each May Day. Given the past few summers we’ve had, we believe that we could use more Morris dancers, or at least Morris dance enthusiasts! So we’d like to invite the neighborhood to join in the fun this year.
So on Friday, May 1, Sound and Fury (dancers dressed in the black utilikilts) will be joined by other local Morris sides to dance the sun up at Gas Works Park. Dancing will begin at around 5:30 am and continue until 6:45 am or so. Anyone is welcome to come and watch, and join in with the singing of May songs and general merriment. Dress warmly! There’s still plenty of time to get to work afterwards!
They practice weekly at Gift of Grace or Gas Works (and retire to the Blue Star), so if you’re interested in joining, check out their web site at http://www.soundandfurymorris.com/.
Any suggestion of ancient Celtic or Druidic connections is baloney, pure rubbish. The word “Morris” comes from “Moorish” (“moresca” in Spanish), i.e., the Moors in Spain, though it’s unclear whether the dances have true “Moorish” (that is, North African Arab) origins (as seems at least partly likely) or are just imitative. But Druids? No. Nobody knows a damn thing about the druids.
… and nobody knows a darn thing about the origins of Morris dancing for sure either! While I kind of doubt any direct Druid influence, I suspect the most significant connection between “Moorish” and Morris dancing is the name.
Of course there are a wide variety of dance styles that can fall under the “morris” label. In Abbots Bromley, for example, their annual horn dance still uses antlers that have been carbon-dated to the 11th century, long before the advent of the moresca.
Now if only somebody had cared to keep detailed written records of folk traditions before 1900, we might know for sure. But then we couldn’t argue about whose guess was better!
I was thinking of you all this morning and missing our May Day dawns at Gasworks!
The heck with Morris dancing. We need our own version of the Ottery Tar Barrels, in which people coat the insides of barrels with tar, light the tar on fire, heft the barrels on their shoulders, and run through the streets. This screams Wallingford to me.
http://www.tarbarrels.co.uk/
Hi
We are a wholesalers of haberdashery in the Northwest and we supply to most morris dancers with Bells, fabric ,ribbon ect
we would be happy to help with any enquiries ?
Kind regards
Barbara