Giok - there used to be a Morris dancer's costume in the museum in Perth (that's the Scottish Perth, too!) apparently the 'Worshipful Company of Glovers' had a Morris side there. It's green and covered with more bells than you could shake a stick at, to coin a phrase. I've never believed the 'Moorish' explanation myself, the alternate theory is that, in Tudor times, 'quaint rustic customs' like the display dances associated with spring, were brought into the towns as entertainment for the masses. In some places, people tried to show off their education by printing the posters in Latin, and a bad Latin translation of 'dances and customs' would be 'chorae moresque'. Badly translated back into even worse English, that gives 'Morris Dances'. Obvious, eh? Even better, though, is Dead Horse's explanation - that seems to just about cover it all.

Andrew