Not a disaster (I tell myself)

[Pleater]

So I was at a folk festival at the weekend and on the Saturday I got very wet - as a result, on Sunday morning I put on my 8 yards of darkness ankle length kilt which I know needs my careful attention - it gets everybody else's after all.

I arrived, I swaggered off to perform with my morris side, grey top hat with black lace, black 'uniform', except for the various colours of 'tatter' - traditional for Border morris.

Pride cometh before disaster.

I have two holes in it.

It is not a total disaster as the holes are small and I can fix it but it will mean sewing just over 16 yards of ribbon around the edge of it - 32 yards of sewing. I just need to decide if I will use black or purple ribbon.

Anne the Pleater

[OC Richard]

That's so interesting! I had to look up "Border Morris", I'd never heard of it.

I looked over numerous photos of people in top hats (most a lot shorter than the "top hats" people think of here in the US) and ribbons.

Some groups were colourful, others all black. I saw ladies in rather short skirts.

The all-black outfits, the top hats, the black face, and the swinging around of sticks suggested chimney sweeps but I went down the rabbit-hole reading about the origins of it all and it has nothing to do with chimney sweeps. Beyond that, seems that nobody knows for sure the origin of it all (there are competing theories, like in many things being in two main camps, the "splitters" and the "lumpers").

[Pleater]

That's so interesting! I had to look up "Border Morris", I'd never heard of it.

I looked over numerous photos of people in top hats (most a lot shorter than the "top hats" people think of here in the US) and ribbons.

Some groups were colourful, others all black. I saw ladies in rather short skirts.

The all-black outfits, the top hats, the black face, and the swinging around of sticks suggested chimney sweeps but I went down the rabbit-hole reading about the origins of it all and it has nothing to do with chimney sweeps. Beyond that, seems that nobody knows for sure the origin of it all (there are competing theories, like in many things being in two main camps, the "splitters" and the "lumpers").

My thoughts on origins are of poachers - if insufficient money was collected for the dancing in the depths of winter, a spot of poaching on the way home would make up for it.

My grandad was very small and played 'Little Devil Doubt' in a mumming play - another mid winter opportunity for getting a few pennies from a large number of people. He always got home with full pockets.

Anne the Pleater

[OC Richard]

Yes there were laws prohibiting people from poaching while wearing disguises.

(Isn't poaching by definition already illegal?)

The "lumpers" maintain that Morris Dancing goes back to an old Spanish dance originally reenacting battles between Moors and Christians which later spread across various Western European countries.

The "splitters" maintain it originated in England and is unrelated to similar similarly-named blackface dances in other countries.

[Pleater]

One of the sides I play for is called Anonymous Morris - there is a website and various recordings from folk festivals are around.
One dance is called Smuggling, which is an adaption of one called Poaching.

Many of the dances feature a lot of clashing of sticks.

One dance is named clockwork badger, and is the result of a workshop with some Portuguese boy scouts who did a demonstration of staff fighting exercises over on Brownsea Island which is where the first scout camp was held. It is an island in Poole Harbour.