THE SWORD-DANCERS’ SONG AND INTERLUDE.
AS NOW PERFORMED AT CHRISTMAS, IN THE COUNTY OF DURHAM.
[The late Sir Cuthbert Sharp remarks, that ‘It is still the practice during the Christmas holidays for companies of fifteen to perform a sort of play or dance, accompanied by song or music.’ The following version of the song, or interlude, has been transcribed from Sir C. Sharp’s Bishoprick Garland, corrected by collation with a MS. copy recently remitted to the editor by a countryman of Durham. The Devonshire peasants have a version almost identical with this, but laths are used instead of swords, and a few different characters are introduced to suit the locality. The pageant called The Fool Plough, which consists of a number of sword-dancers dragging a plough with music, was anciently observed in the North of England, not only at Christmas time, but also in the beginning of Lent. Wallis thinks that the Sword Dance is the antic dance, or chorus armatus of the Romans. Brand supposes that it is a composition made up of the gleaning of several obsolete customs anciently followed in England and other countries. The Germans still practise the Sword Dance at Christmas and Easter. We once witnessed a Sword Dance in the Eifel mountains, which closely resembled our own, but no interlude, or drama, was performed.]
Enter Dancers, decorated with swords and ribbons; the Captain of the band wearing a cocked hat and a peacock’s feather in it by way of cockade, and the Clown, or ‘Bessy,’ who acts as treasurer, being decorated with a hairy cap and a fox’s brush dependent.
The Captain forms with his sword a circle, around which walks.
The Bessy opens the proceedings by singing—
Good gentlemen all, to our captain take heed,
And hear what he’s got for to sing;
He’s lived among music these forty long year,
And drunk of the elegant [175] spring.
The Captain then proceeds as follows, his song being accompanied by a violin, generally played by the Bessy—
Six actors I have brought
Who were ne’er on a stage before;
But they will do their best,
And they can do no more.
The first that I call in
He is a squire’s son;
He’s like to lose his sweetheart
Because he is too young.