Amazing statement Jack, can you clarify this? There are photographs and contemporary reports on the practice going back into the 19th century …

Oh come, come. You're not seriously suggesting that the Revival practise of black-faced Border Morris is anything other than a modern re-creation of something once practised but long died out are you? Next you'll be suggesting that a bunch of us folkies singing the old songs down the pub are keeping the tradition alive...

Even the WIKI entry makes it clear that the practise was revived in 1960s with John Kirkpatrick 'creating a new Shropshire tradition in 1975' with the Shropshire Bedlams.

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If Jack is right which he patently isn't (I'd rather believe someone who has done the research!) then there is no reason at all to link border morris to minstrelsy.

You're mistaking me with someone else, Steve - I've never said it has, & much less do I care if it was - that's a historic & folkloric concern that has nothing to do with the modern practise of black-faced morris dancing which has only really proliferated in recent times (i.e. more recently than the 1970s). That said, the term 'niggering' was used by traditional exponents of the practise in the 19th century, but I dare say the political consciousness of your average Victorian rural labourer wasn't exactly raised.

My main objection is that revival morris-persons think it's justiable to black-up in the name of a tradition that died the death long ago. By re-creating it, no matter how faithfully, they do not represent it, nor are they keeping it alive - what they are doing is a revivalist hobby, not genuine folkloric practise. Blacking-up for purposes of hobbyism is dodgy to say the least, especially when excused on lines of tradition and history - neither of which apply here.

The Revival is not The Tradition; Modern Folky Practises are not historic ones. Furthermore, a Hornby 00 Flying Scotsman is not a real train (however authentic in its detail) neither will the government be sending members of the English Civil War Society to serve in Iraq any time soon.