Welsh Morris - Introduction

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

Welsh Morris dance has not featured significantly amongst the Morris Dance organisations. This may be because the main traditions, including Welsh Border, are considered as English; Scotland and Wales having their own dance associations. Researchers such as Sharp and Karpeles, found commonly in English Morris archives, also appear in Welsh archives. This century has seen strikingly successful and productive researchers of Welsh Dance and culture such as LoisBlake and W.S.Gwynn Williams. (the main source of this data).

Origins

Religious intolerance near the end of the nineteenth century, lost many dances and tunes. Unfortunately much of the notation of Welsh Morris dances are lost either by dances being forgotten before notation was attempted, or modification of the dance to suit the dancing fashions of the time. Classification of Welsh Morris dances are less precise. A dance is not considered to be Morris or not; rather to be "like" or "possibly" Morris.There is not, however, a Welsh Morris association. Welsh Morris dances are generally considered oddities to the main thrust of Welsh Folk Dances. The collection of Welsh dances is seen as part of the wider Welsh heritage of dress, culture and language. The maintenance of Welsh dance as part of the development of the current Welsh culture is perhaps more passionate than ever.Some Welsh Morris dance is considered to be of English origin. Some dances may have been brought by 'Pipers' from the Staffordshire potteries, bearing uncanny resemblance to the "new" tradition of Lichfield. In Ireland, the Dungeer Mummers who perform a Sword Dance say that ship-wrecked Welshmen taught it to the peopleof Wexford. These swords are used as sticks in Morris to their tune "Rakes of Mallow" (Rigs of Marlowe). They have appeared at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod. Morris dance teams in Wales perform English Morris dance. It is the local ethnic Folk dancers that perform Welsh Morris.

Teams

It is unclear how many teams there were in North Wales as they travelled greatly and they were blacked up. They were seen in the Conway Valley, Vale of Clwyd and Dee Valley. It was a genuine way of earning money for out of work men, supported partly by superstions that were associated with the dancers. Blacking up retained their anonimity. Unlike may English teams, many Welsh teams did not appear to have names, and were put together for the collecting.

It has been the habit of many writers, particularly those of the 19th century, to call any dance they saw work-people executing, which differed from ball-room dancing, by the name of Morris or Morris Dancing.

The name is now used only for a particular kind of ceremonial dance, which, though found in many countries and of a wide variety, yet contains certain important features which seem as fixed and unalterable as the laws of the Medes and Persians.

These are : It is danced by men only, in springtime; the dancers invariably wear a number of small bells on their legs; handkerchiefs, ribbons, or sticks are used in the hand; the dancers are gaily decorated with coloured paper or other material, and are accompanied by certain characters, including a Fool, a Hobby-Horse, and often a Maid Marian or man-woman, and occassionally other characters. Often the faces are blacked. It is, obviously a religious and sacrificial character.

If we see a traditional Morris Dance at the present time in Lancashire, Somerset, Oxford, or the Pyrenees: if we read about Morris dancing in Wales, Belgium, France or Kent, generations ago - we find the above characteristics, or most of them, are invariably present.

Dictionaries usually give the derivation of the name of the dance from the word "Moorish"; and older authorities are almost of one opinion in ascribing to this dance a Moorish origin, usually stating that it was introduced to England by, or in the time of John o' Gaunt, having been learnt from the Moors.

The dancers often blacked their faces, which seemed a additional reason for this attribution of origin : but, post hoc, ego propter hoc, a fallacious reasoning is here, and the dancers were called Moorish because they blacked their faces because they were meant to be Moors.

Tabouret, writing in the 16th century, seems to imply a similar false origin.

It would be quite out of place and indeed impossible in this small book, to attempt to propound in detail any theory of origin: such an inquiry must cover districts scattered over most of Europe.

At some future date I may, perhaps, place before folk-dance enthusiasts the whole evidence and referenvces relating to Morris-dancing and try to deduce from them a certain conclusion; but for the present I would just like to draw your attention to the outline made if one takes the English counties where Morris is found to be the morst prevalent.

Such a line would consist, roughly, of a broad band running from the southern half of Lancashire, through Cheshire to Hereford and Gloucester, and then westward along Somerset and Devon - in short, the counties more or less adjacent to Wales. It is only to be expected, therefore, that in Wales, in spite of the widespread suppression of dancing formerly instituted not by a dictator but by the people themselves and therefore more effective, ther should be traces of Morris-dancing.

And it is so. In almost every village of any size in North Wales there were, until recently, old inhabitants who remembered many years ago dancers who were undoubtedly Morris men.

I have been unable to find any trace of regular dancing taking place later than about 1865. But, although I have spoken to many old people who have seen these dancers, I have been quite unable to find out, with one exception,  the villages and towns where these teams actually came from.

Dancing was held in such disrepute that the explanation of this is, probably, that the men were ashamed or afraid to dance in their own district, and therefore visited places where they were not known.

For instance, Mrs.Williams, of Beddgelert, who, when a little girl lived at the old Pen-y-gwryd Hotel at the top of the Llanberis Pass, remembered seeing for several years in the spring troups of dancers pass on their way to Beddgelert and Portmadoc, presumably; they occasionally stopped opposite the inn and gave a short performance, but Mrs. Williams was unable to give any details except that she remembered the coloured ribbons and bells.

She thought later that they came from Capel Curig. Inquiries in the latter place from the oldest folk available failed to produce the slightest result. Curiously enough, two old inhabitants of Penmachno - a mountain village in an opposite direction - also remembered similar dancers who came they thought, from Capel Curig. It is possible, of course, that they were from Bangor, comoing of necessity through Capel Curig, the only road available on their way.

Old folk in Bangor and the villages around remembered dancers who, they though came from Abergele. At Abergele and at Holywell they were thought to be colliers from Mostyn - due, no doubt, to the fact that, as in old Morris style, their faces were smutted. At Mostyn, one informant I found, said they came from the Vale of Clwyd.

Mr. Pickering of Halkyn, a hale, jolly old fellow, said definately that in his young days Bagillt had a Morris team which visited the surrounding villages. He very roughly described a sort of dance to me in which two lines of men faced each other and "crossed over and the Cadi danced down the middle." He did a few steps for me, but thought they were used in the dance at Halkynbwhen he was young - "mixed dancing, not liked by the old people." He also sang to me the following dance tune, but could not remember whether he had heard it form the Morris Men or from the mixed dancing :

His description followed that of the Rev. Peter Roberts. They were called "May Dancers," and had a Fool and Cadi, and carried a branch of a tree dressed up with ribbons.

Other parts where traces of similar dances were found are Bala, Dolgelly, Portmadoc. The recollections were almost invariably so hazy that no purpose is served by repeating them.

Now it is evident that Morris found in Wales approximates more to the Cheshire and Derbyshire type than the elaborate and difficult dances evolved by the Morris Men of Gloucester and Oxfordshire. It is quite possible that the latter are a comparatively modern development dating from the latter half of the 18th century, or even later, and that in the simpler Cheshire Morris we have, not a deterioration, but an approximation to the early form of the dance.

If this is so, then the Welsh Morris was equally primitive. The few references in English Literature, such as "Old Meg of Herefordshire" and the "Nine Daies Wonder", do not appear to refer to anything so finished and elaborate as the Gloucester Morris of the 19th century.

Hugh Mellor - 1935

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