III. MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
In the earliest records of Morris dancing, the pipe and tabor, or whittle and dub, were the musical instruments in use, and the oldest dancers to-day are never tired of lamenting that the pipe and tabor to which they danced in their youth have gone out of fashion.
A Morris dancer in Fleet Street, London, is described in a seventeenth century manuscript in the British Museum (Harleian MS. 3910):
“In Fleet Strete then I heard a shoote: I putt of my hatt, and I made no staye, And when I came unto the roote, Good Lord! I heard a taber play, For so, God save me, a morrys-daunce.”
In the old play of Jacke Drums Entertainment (1601)—
The taber and pipe strike up a morrice. A shoute within. Ed. Oh, a morrice is come, observe our country sports, ’Tis Whitsun-tyde and we must frolick it.
Enter the Morrice.
The Song
“Skip it and trip it, nimbly, nimbly, Tickle it, tickle it lustily, Strike up the taber, for the wenches favour, Tickle it, tickle it lustily.