Shortly after the Llanover discovery, Mr. Sam Jones and I spent a short time in the valleys around Swansea, where we had heard there was something to be found.

We had an amusing experience on the first morning. Having been assured that the publican of a certain small inn in Swansea "knew all about the old dances" we explored the streets until at length we found the hostelry.

We went in, and after ordering something for the good of ourselves as well as the house, asked for the landlord. To our suprise - for we expected to see a typical old South Walian of the country type at least eighty years old - a sprucely groomed gentleman with spats and a waxed moustache came forward, age apparently, about forty.

We put our questions to him without much hope, and a torrent of words came rapidly in reply.

"The old dances? Ah, you've come to the right place; I know all about them." Our spirits rose. "I know all about them. There's nothing nowadays like them; I used to dance 'em, and we're going to revive 'em." We were just on the point of ordering a magnum, when he continued : "In proper style to - the barn dance, the polka, and the good old-fashioned waltz. I know all about them and can tell you anything you want to know."

"Sadly we shook our disillusioned heads and said that that was not quite the thing we wanted : we were after something older. Did he know of any dances for four or eight persons, or anything quite different from the usual. He thought, yes, he did; and proceeded to give us an accurate description of a set of the Lancers. We thanked him and withdrew as quickly as politeness allowed.

At the head of the Clydach valley on the outskirts of Swansea the scent grew warmer; but one of the "possibilities" proved to be over ninety and bed-ridden, and he could do nothing but give us a folk song and show the way partners would hold each other whilst dancing what, apparently, were unknown dances. Confirmation of this way of holding partners was found in other parts of the country, later, from other old people, from whom also a few old steps were obtained.

We also found the grand-daughter of a very old flute player who in his youth used to play for dancing; later he became very religious, and it was with utmost difficulty, she said, that he could be got to talk about dances or be persuaded to play any dance tunes.

The best way, she thought, was to get him to go to the local public house : after a pint or two, if the conversation were carried round to the old dances, he would probably be sufficiently elevated (not being used to it) to pull his flute out and play a few tunes in spite of his religious scruples.

She said he had not touched the flute for some years, but promised to see that he arrived safely at the inn with it in his pocket.

But the scheme miscarried ; his grand-daughter came later in the evening to say that her grandfather had, under her persuasion, been trying his flute, but he could not get one single note out of it as he had now lost every one of his teeth and it was no use bringing him along.

Later the same evening something really interesting happened. After we had spent some little time in the inn, where we managed to get  some information, on returning to the house where we were staying, we found a young fellow awaiting us. He said he had heard from, I believe, the above-mentioned grand-daughter, that we were searching for old dances, and that he knew something. We said "Go ahead and tell us all you know" - and the following remarkable story resulted.

He was, he said, brought up by his grandmother, now dead, who came here from over there (he pointed in the direction of the hills). She was about eighty at the time he was nine, and he said that, on occasion, she would get a few of her old cronies into the house ; they would pull down the blinds, clear the furniture to one side, and proceed to dance. He said he could remember a good deal of what they danced.

I was rather sceptical, particularly when he said he could not remember the tunes they sang but was more or less certain of the movements - for, as a general rule, it is impossible for a traditional dance to come to the memory unless the tune is sung or played.

However, I was prepared to take down what he said.

The dance was for eight - four men and four women - who had stood thus, partners facing each other :

                        M                 M

                        W                W

                        W                W

                        M                 M

A long bow to partners preceded the dance, executed with one hand on the hip and the right hand outstretched in front towards the ground, the right foot forward a little.

The partners held each other with their right hands on their partner's left shoulder and their left hands on their partner's waist (right side) In this position a slow step (which the informant imitated) was danced in position by each couple to a strain of the music; following this the partners loosed hold and whilst the man continued his slow step each woman danced quickly clockwise around her partner with a step (imitated) quite peculiar. Whilst doing this she put one hand on her hip and the other on top of her head. This was repeated counter-clockwise to places. The first slow step was resumed, then the dance round her partner by the woman again, this time with one hand on her hip and the other held up over her head. The slow dance was again resumed and the woman danced with her partner, this time holding her skirts with both hands. The slow dance again resumed, and then all four couples did a kind of quick sideways pousette, outwards and inwards, with a progressive movement which at last brought the dancers to their original places; the four men then progressed slowly to the centre from their corners and back again whilst the women did a circular hey around them - every woman upon meeting another woman in the course of the hey would seize her wrist and do a rapid turn twice round. The partners having reached their original positions, a long bow concluded the dance.

The above is a resume understandable, I hope, to all, of the notes I took on that occasion. My informant said that the men never altered their slow step during the whole of the dance.

Now, is this an authentic dance? The moment I saw the slow step being performed I cried "Solemn leg lifting." You will also find in other respects that the accounts agree. If the Clydach dance is genuine, then undoubtedly it is almost the same dance.

I asked the informant (whose name, unfortunately, I have lost) if he read much. He said, No. He had not heard of the books written by Wirt Sikes. They are not common. If it were a dance made-up with a view to hoaxing us, then there are enough discrepancies in it compared with Wirt Sikes which the composer must have been remarkably cunning to have put in - for any ordinary person would have followed the book more closely. On the other hand there is the point of my informant remembering the dance without the tune; and even though truth is stranger than fiction, yet there are difficulties about accepting the whole story of his grandmother and her cronies in its entirety.

The young man's great-grandfather had been a famous dance fiddler, and I am prepared to fully accept the statement that he had seen old members of the family trying some of the old dances. The most curious feature is that "the men danced nothing but the slow step" - which is quite at variance with what we know of other Welsh dances where, indeed, just the opposite was usual.

The form of dance is new and interesting. I leave the problem to my readers, but have included a dance notation at the end of the book which is founded on it. The "Solemn leg lifting" step described was so "undanceable" (if I may coin a word), that I have replaced this.

It was a remarkable fact that most of the old people in this district who showed any interest always said "Go to Neath : they used to dance there later than anywhere." Mr. Jones and I secured one or two names which were mentioned as men we ought to see if we could find them in Neath.

I was obliged to return to North Wales, but we arranged to visit Neath in the Summer. Unfortunately the coal strike occurred and upset all our plans; then other matters cropped up, and Neath, as far as I am concerned, has never been visited.

I have just seen two names I jotted down in my notebook at the time, and give them here in the hope that someone will try to find these people, if happily they are still alive. The first is "Blind Uncle Ben," Neath ; the second, Wm. Llewelyn, Glyn Neath. I know nothing about them except that their names are in my notebook.

In the following year I was talking with Miss Maud Karpeles of the English Folk Dance Society on the subject, when she said she had been asked to go to the Gower Peninsular, Glamorgan, as there were some traditional dances there. She had promised to let me have particulars of anything she found, and the following account of her visit is included with her permission.

The village she visited on April 19th, 1927, was Port Eynon, and she received a hearty welcome from the small community there. I understand that most of the villagers took part in the dancing.

The first dance was a four-handed reel, the dancers standing in line thus :

               Second W    First M    First W    Second M

  The tune used is rather poor and of little character : it is found in "Welsh Dance Tunes"

The "stepping" during the dance was very indefinite, and it seems probable that the art of "stepping" at Port Eynon has been lost.

Dance Notation

The dance is finished by dancers stepping to opposites.

Miss Williams of Llangeneth, often made a half turn to the right at the end of the hey, and fell back a step or two before re-entering the hey with left shoulder.

Dancers spoke of the heys as "hazing".

The second dance was performed to the same tune and was called "Lumbers", though Mrs.Williams, of Llangeneth, said her father called it "Coosha" dance (Note : not "Cushion"). This was a whole set Longways, progressive.

Mrs. Williams, aged eighty, of Llanhiddrian, used to dance the Cushian dance when a young girl; her description followed closely that which used to appear in most of the dancing books published in England 1750 - 1820.

This is the end of Miss Karpeles's notes.

They are disappointing dances and of little traditional interest. "Lumbers" is a very simple English Longways of a late tradition in which, probably, Welsh steps were incorporated at one time.

As regards the four-handed reel, compare the (Scotch) Reel for four published in a now scarce book by Thomas Wilson in 1811, "Analysis of Country Dancing." Wilson gives the following description :

           First M         First W                     Second W    Second M

"Very energetic," says Wilson.

I include these dances from Port Eynon for the sake of completeness, but they are scarcely worth reviving in their present form.

I have in my possession a page of manuscript headed DAWNS COES BRWSH and dated "Liverpool 1908" I do not know who wrote it, but it is signed "J.G.W."

The tune given as follows :

Croen y Ddafod felen

Pu gwrthy net allan

Pwy sy' n wr a pluy syn wraig

A plwy syn wetw rivan

2as played by Llewelyn Wood at Bala about 1892. One of the dancers is still (i.e. in 1908) living, or was recently - Cwm Owen, Thomas Davies, Cwmchwylfod, Llanderfel, would be able to find him. The dance was performed in pairs, who kept it up for a wonderfully long spell, considering the violence of the exercise. As a dance it is nearly as stupid as the Welsh jig. I don't think it was a dance originally, but a competition in dexterity.

That is all the note consists of. The tune is identical with one in the Welsh Folk Song's journal, vol. 2, p.131, where it is published with the note, "First sung to me by Sir John Morris about fifteen years ago [i.e. 1899]."

There is also a note that at a meeting held the day after a lecture in Manchester, two members sang a form of the above and a different one, and showed two forms of the dance - one from Caernarfon and the other one from Mynnydd Hiraethog - the first "an ordinary Toby dance," the other as above.

The above tune is a variant of the old English Dance tune of "Three Sheepskins," which appears in Walsh's Compleat Country Dancing Master for 1731 and in other old dance books in the following form (the version in WFSS Journal is obviously misprinted) :

I must confess I do not know what is meant by a "Toby" dance, but have an idea that it is dances across two sticks or pipes; such a dance was common at one time in the Hiraethog and is known in other parts of Wales.

I have come across a curious dance in Trawsfynedd, near the ffestioniog Valley, which was done by a man with a long broom, keeping the broom-head always on the ground. Unfortunately the last man who danced it died some years before I heard of it ; but several eye witnesses have at different times explained the dance to me but could not do the steps, which were evidently rather intricate. I think I once read somewhere of a similar dance seen in England in a gipsy encampment.

At the National Eistoddfod held at Holyhead a team of children perform a (modern) dance, but introduced into it some attractive and undoubtedly traditional steps which their teacher had learnt from an old lady in Aglesea : they were different from any known Irish or Scotch steps, and I have always regretted that I did not get an opportunity of carefully noting them down.

Hugh Mellor - 1935