Thanks Hesk that's really interesting!

"You seem a little irritated by opinions or theories unless backed up in some way by what you perceive as fact"

Well, I would ask for evidence - wouldn't you?

" and a few theories, here and there, don't really matter" - Well, I guess that's true - the 'theories that people come up with here' with or with out fag packets or 'lemonade' are what? I dunno - I guess private entertainment and none of my business.

I was aware of the blackfaces of the 20C Border Morris but doesn't it look very much that it's roots are in Music Hall and Blackface Minstrelsy?

Sorry I didn't know of the link to France, the Netherlands and Germany. Although courtly entertainment certainly traveled the world.

"This was one of the points to support his argument that the Morris dance was of Moorish origin" - How's that then?

I have danced with 2 sides and practiced with another. I am fascinated that this old custom has survived for so long - thanks to it's adoption by mostly agricultural working people for hundreds of years.

I cannot begin to count the number of times I have listen to or read what pretends to be a history or origins of The Morris from people who seem to have no respect what so ever for evidence, the nature of a hypothesis or history itself.

That's all really