“And Marian’s nose looks rede and raw.”
[90] “It appears that this, as well as other games, was made a parish concern.”
[91] “Probably gilt leather, the pliability of which was particularly accommodated to the motion of the dancers.”
[92] “A sort of coarse linen.”
[93] “Probably a Moor’s coat; the word Morion is sometimes used to express a Moor.—The morris dance is by some supposed to have been originally derived from Moorish-dance. Black buckram appears to have been much used for the dresses of the ancient mummers. One of the figures in Mr. Tollet’s window is supposed to be a morisco.”
[94] “Disard is an old word for a fool.”
[95] In Ben Jonson’s Masque of the Metamorphosed Gipsies, presented to King James in 1621 (the very date, by the way, which appears on Mr. Tollet’s window), we have the following dialogue between Cockret and Clod:
“Coc. Oh the lord! what be these? . . .
Clo. They should be morris-dancers by their gingle, but they have no napkins.
Coc. No, nor a hobby-horse.