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Here We Come A-Fossiling

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

John Forrest
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Extract

In the first decades of the twentieth century Cecil Sharp ushered in a revival of ceremonial dance in England through his own teaching of the dances and through published manuals such as The Morris Book and The Sword Dances of Northern England. Sharp's lead was followed almost immediately by a number of collectors. The demand for dance manuals has never slackened, so that now the literature on how to dance the English ceremonial dances is substantial. Publishing manuals on how to perform these dances has had the obviously salutary effect of preserving them for posterity, but it has also had a deleterious effect on the traditions as living, growing, aesthetic phenomena. At the outset I should stress that I am not naively claiming that “folk process” and “oral transmission” are synonymous phrases, nor am I making the simple assertion that folk materials cease to be “folk” when they are written down. The complex relationship between the broadside ballads and the oral singing tradition in England is well known. Certainly no folklorist today should be so romantic as to assert that writing is the curse of the folk classes. However, the evolution of English dancing has undeniably been radically affected by written manuals.

Type
Research Article
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , Spring/Summer 1985 , pp. 27 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1985

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References

NOTES

1. Sharp, Cecil James (Part IV) and Macilwaine, Herbert C. (Parts I-III and Butterworth, George (Part V), The Morris Book, 1st edition, 5 vols. (London: Novello, [1907, 1909, 1910, 1911, and 1913])Google Scholar. Sharp, Cecil James and Macilwaine, Herbert C., The Morris Book, 2nd edition, 3 vols. (London, Novello, [1912, 1919, and 1924])Google Scholar. Sharp, Cecil James, The Sword Dances of Northern England, 3 vols (London: Novello [1911, 1912, and 1913])Google Scholar.

2. In the early years of the revival, Sharp's work was augmented by Mary Neal, Maud Karpeles, John Graham, Kenworthy Schofield, to name only some of the more prominent figures.

3. Bacon, Lionel, A Handbook of Morris Dances (London: Morris Ring, 1974)Google Scholar.

4. Ibid., p. i.

5. Dommett, Roy, “Recent Stick Dances,” unpublished pamphlet, p. 1Google Scholar.

6. Bacon, pp. 130-36 and 293-98.

7. Kirkpatrick, John, “Bordering on the Insane: Confessions of a Shropshire Bedlam”, English Dance and Song 41 (1979), 13Google Scholar. [N.B. This is a different journal from J. E. F. D. S. S.]

8. Sharp, , Morris Book, 2nd ed., I, p. 44Google Scholar.

9. Ibid., p. 46.

10. Ibid.

11. Oxford University Morris Men MS collection.

12. Hamer, Fred B., “The Hinton and Brackley Morris”, Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society 4 (1955), 205–16Google Scholar.

13. Sharp, , Morris Book, 2nd ed., III, p. 88Google Scholar.

14. Roy Dommett MS collection.

15. Cawte, E. C., Helm, Alex, Marriott, R. J., and Peacock, Norman, “A Geographical Index of the Ceremonial Dance in Great Britain”, Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society 9 (1960), 1–41Google Scholar.

16. These are summarized in Bacon, pp. 279-92.

17. Sharp, Morris Book, 2nd ed., IV passim.

18. Bacon, pp. 96-98 and 245-46.

19. Ibid, pp. 4-5, 59-60, and 269-70.

20. Sharp, , Morris Book, 2nd ed., III, p. 84Google Scholar.

21. Bacon, P. 112.

22. Cawte, E. C., “The Morris Dance in Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire”, Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society 9 (1963), p. 208Google Scholar.

23. Cited in Fox-Strangways, A. H. and Karpeles, Maud, Cecil Sharp, 2nd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), p. 76Google Scholar.

24. Ibid, pp. 81-82.