Morris wasn't the only dance done at Whitsun - in Abbotsbury, Dorset, in my grandmothers' time, there were what Thomas Hardy called 'Club' dances or walks, usually on feast days (Whitsun, Rogation, Easter, that sort of thing, when you could guarantee most of the day off) which was basically a ritual procession round the village to mark the boundaries, and a dance was held in the evening. It started as all women, because the men were all in the fields working. They came along later, so some ritual dances were just for women. I was told that the men do their dances "t'other side of hill", my grandmother was never enlightened as to what they did 't'other side of hill' so she wasn't able to tell me.

This sort of stretched out into Abbotsbury Garland day, where they processed a garland of flowers around the village and then flung it into the sea for a good catch in the year to come. This was followed by the same ritual type dancing until the war years, when it started to wane.

LTS