In a six-man team, how about one blue, one red, one green, one black, one yellow and one multicoloured? Let's start a new tradition.

The use of minstrel tunes in trad music has very little to do with disguise. Tunes were appropriated/assimilated from all manner of sources. Here's a good example, 'Buffalo Gals' has long been a traditional tune for 'Flamborough Longsword' under the guise of 'Old Johnny Walker'. I don't remember Flamborough ever using disguise even when they had their original military type uniform in the nineteenth century. A few miles away early twentieth century ploughlads were blacking up at New Year and singing 'We're the N's from the South Ya ha' but I'm certain the idea of using that particular minstrel song simply came to them because they were already blacking up to drag the plough round, and the disguise was very necessary because if the rich people didn't give them the appropriate response their lawns were ploughed up!










Stir, stir!