Backwoodsman (swoons) thank you! :)

Guest ST That quote from the Morris Ring is the most sensible and pertinent post in this whole thread so far. The two traditions are so different in intent and form, yet people seem to confuse them due to globalisation and modern international mixing of styles. The one began as "making mocking fun of n******" and the other is/was about disguise in English rural communities, albeit resurrected long after those times.

My favourite border Morris side is the Witchmen. I'm not totally knowledgeable about their ethos (far from it, I'm just an avid fan and onlooker) but they seem to me to have borrowed much from the Pagan type of style, with amber and black representing magical powers, and their aggressive fist-clenching dancing. Their blacked-up faces are meant (I think) to be sinister and threatening in a delicious way. There is absolutely nothing of the parodying of African-origin people in any of it. If they were blue, green, pink or yellow it just wouldn't be the same.

Need I add that my husband has been hugged by them too, and has loads of pictures of himself surrounded by their grinning blacked-up faces!