Morris at Christmas

Subject: RE: Morris at Christmas
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 04:43 PM

Mmmmmm pagan morris......mythago....wierdos!!

Subject: RE: Morris at Christmas
From: RTim
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 03:11 PM

The last post was me - I lost my cookie - Now it's back.

Tim radford

Subject: RE: Morris at Christmas
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 03:09 PM

I would agrue that "Pagan" meant rustic: According to Hutton (and I paraphrase) it meant being of a religion you did not believe in!
Therefore if you were a Catholic - it was Protestant, and vice versa!

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Morris at Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 12:54 PM

The word "pagan" originally just meant "rustic", and got associated with pre-Christian religions because old ways tend to last longer in country districts. Still true today.

Subject: RE: Morris at Christmas
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 11:46 AM

One of the abiding themes of "The Stations of the Sun" by Ronald Hutton is the overwhelming power of the Church, sitting on top of the natural seasons, in shaping so much of the life of rural working people. A power that had existed since (?) and had endlessly been reshaped by the conflicts between the church and the Aristocracy.

It would be amazing if anything pagan had survived at all.

Subject: RE: Morris at Christmas
From: RTim
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 10:10 AM

It all depends upon what "Type"of Morris you are talking about.
Cotswold (South Midlands) Morris was perform at Whitsun - because that was the only time in the year the dancers had time off from farm work (also a quiet farming time) to dance.
Border Morris was performed over the Christmas period, as was Sword Dancing (Long & Rapper).
Molly Dancing was around the old New Year.
Sharp's meeting with Headington only happened because the Headington men, nearly all builders or masons, were frozen out of work, and because the Carol singers were out collecting, they thought it a good idea to dance and to collect. Sharp just happened to be visiting his Mother in law at that time.

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Morris at Christmas
From: Rog Peek
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 09:04 AM

I've got a white Minor 1000 with a red hood, would look great for Christmas dressed up with some green ribbon and some holly.

Rog

Subject: RE: Morris at Christmas
From: Green Man
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 10:54 AM

Greetings,

in 15 years of Murrisin I never found any definitive proof of its pagan origins. I would really have liked to but never did. Having said that there are some really good sides out there that are pagan and proud of it.

If you've never seen the Witchmen then, if you have the opportunity, go see them.

Brilliant.

Subject: RE: Morris at Christmas
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 10:30 AM

Their has been a relentless attempt to connect Morris to "Fertiliy", "Pagan" and "Pre-Christian" practices. Genuine evidence is rare. "The Stations of the Sun" by Ronald Hutton is a genuine attempt to explore written sources rather that what people have been saying to each other for the past 100 odd years.

Collecting money was certainly a 19C priority that had little to do with the detail of the seasons.

Subject: RE: Morris at Christmas
From: pavane
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 10:19 AM

What about all the stuff about it being a spring fertility ritual?

Cecil Sharp (I think, no e) first encountered it at Christmas.

Subject: RE: Morris at Christmas
From: IanC
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 09:11 AM

Pavane

I've no understanding that there's an intellectual consensus that Morris is just a whitsuntide thing. It certainly wouldn't hold much water, historically.

When C Sharpe and others saw the Morris at Whitsun, it was largely because many of the village Morris teams took the Whitsun week off to tour round the local towns and villages. My understanding was that they did this in the late 19th Century (when there was a bad decline in work for the farm labourers) becaus they could earn half a year's wages in a single week doing this.

:-)
Ian

Subject: RE: Morris at Christmas
From: redsnapper
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 09:05 AM

Whoops! Thought you were talking about this sort of thing... sorry!

Subject: RE: Morris at Christmas
From: pavane
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 08:55 AM

I do know the general stuff, having been a Morris dancer and mummer in the past. Just wondered how true the Whitsun tradition really was.

Subject: RE: Morris at Christmas
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 06:46 AM

Try looking up 'Lord of Misrule' (can't do it here, work computer doesn't like Google) - that will give a lot of traditions from Christmasses past, including that of mumming plays and morris dances done during the festivities.

If a group of men is needed to go around the outlying villages to 'mumm' or act out a play, what better than to use a morris group already established and with their own costumes or disguises? These mummers would 'guise up' (that is, disguise themselves) and go and perform for people for food, drink or the odd coin. If none were forthcoming then the group would play some little prank on leaving. That's how 'trick or treat' really started. We perform for you, you give us a treat or we play a trick on you. I daresay that if the group were the morris dancers then the entertainment might concievably be a dance or two as well as a mumming play.

These guisers were active in the darker months of the year, when pranks could be played with impunity, from Hallowe'en through to Candlemass usually, with the biggest opportunity for merrymaking being the 12 Days of Christmas.

I'm not at home, but when I get there, I'll look in my library and see what other possibilities and references I can find.

In the meantime, I can thoroughly recommend a book by Frank Muir, 'Christmas Customs and Traditions', which is brilliant and has almost all you need to know about the season fast approaching.

LTS

Subject: Morris at Christmas
From: pavane
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 02:52 AM

I always understood that Whitsun was the correct season for Morris, and that Headington were dancing out of season when Sharp discovered them.

But here is a reference to Morrice at Christmas from around 1680, in the Bodleian collection:

The Morrice Dancers will be ready
Meat and drink enough to lade ye
And in a fools dress will be little Neddy
To entertain our Christmas Lady

So were the academics wrong all along?

The Shrop-shire VVakes or Hey for Christmas