It is hoped that in future some National Centre will be formed which will bring together all those interested in the collection and perpetuation of our English folk-dances, so that nothing of this National treasure be lost to future generations.
X. CONCLUSIONS
In the foregoing pages we have seen how in primitive times dancing was inextricably interwoven with all religious ceremonial, even when that religion took the earlier form of magic and the dancing was part of a ceremonial to induce the growth of crops or the rising of the morning sun. We have seen, too, how later the more advanced teaching of the Greek and Christian religion was partly expressed and symbolised in dance and rhythmic gesture. We have seen these same dances as part of the popular festivities of the folk, gathered around May-day festivals, rude drama, wakes, lamb ales and rush-bearing, and attached still to the Church as part of the festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide.
And finally we have recorded the existence of these dances in villages and country towns in different parts of England at the present day, their recent revival, and the success which has attended their reintroduction to the present generation.
It is of the utmost importance that the nature of these dances should be clearly kept in mind by those who are responsible for their continuance. Until six years ago they were unrecorded in manuscript or print, they were only in the memory of the remaining Morris men, most of them old and quite unlettered, and there was no language in which to express the steps and evolutions but that invented by these peasant men. Neither could these cryptic sayings, such as “foot up,” “half hands,” “hey sides up,” “gipsies,” “half rounds,” etc., etc., be interpreted except by a patient watching of the dancers on the few occasions when they could be got together to give a demonstration.
The following account of an old dancer will give the atmosphere of the folk-dance and an idea of the way in which the Espérance Guild teachers have themselves learned the dances. I was speaking in a village at a “sing song” one evening when a man asked me if I had ever heard of certain dances and offered to give me the names of the then surviving dancers. I said “No,” and he gave me the names.
I wrote to one of two brothers who still had the traditional dances and received the following reply:—
“Honourable and respected Miss,—