THE COUNTRY DANCER "A Little of Your Treasure"
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THE I 'I COUNTRY 1 r DANCER ==~~~====================== { ~appine66 throughout J VOLUME 9 l NUMBER 3 the <=rlew ~ar The Kissing Bough WINTER 1953- 1954 THE COUNTRY DANCER "A little of your treasure" Editor: May Gadd. Associate Editors : Edward Tatnall Canby, Recently you will have found in your mail a suggestion that you Anne Davis, Maggie Mahon, Florett Robinson, Ruth Sanders, count the C.D.S. among those to whom you send a Christmas or New William Sellers, Genevieve Shimer, Roberta Yerkes. Year Gift. Like the doctor in the Mummers' Play"we wish to bestow up~n us a little of your treasure" feeling that the Society by spread1ng knowledge of its dances and songs has indeed''shown you the best of its pleasure". Then we can most heartily say with the Mummers - Published four times a year by the COUNTRY DANCE SOCIETY OF "Well done old Father Christmas AMERICA, 31 Union Square West, New York 3, N. Y. Telephone: And that's the best of all ALgonquin 5-8895 . Subscription: $1 a year; 35e a copy . We wish you a 'Merry Christmas' And God bless 'ee all'". PRESENTATION THE KISSING BOUGH The following letter is addressed to those who shared in the We are indebted to "English Dance and Song" for our cover presentation made to Mrs. Max Sellers (Peggy Stanley-Brown) on the picture and for the following description: occasion of her retirement from the national Executive Committee: "The evergreen 'kissing bough' was the tradit~onal Christmas decoration (In England) before the German_Chr1stma~ Tree became Dear Country Dancers, # popular. The Symondsbury Mummers end the1r play w1th the words: I want to thank you all again for the lovely Party you gave "Tie a bow of ribbon now me. I was very touched by your generous thought of me and the On this our Christmas Holly Rough" '"' airplane lvggage has been put to good use on our trip to Iowa. I am looking forward to using the tea set when we get ?ack ~o Con spoken just after the doctor has said: necticut. As I look back over the twenty-seven years 1n which I have been associated with the C.D.S. I think that the spirit of "Now ladies and gentlemen, friendliness is one of the outstanding things that Country dancing We've shown you the best of our pleasure fosters. You simply cannot bear grudges and dance at the same time. And we wish for you to bestow upon us A little of your treasure". All through the middle west we have seen posters announcing square dances in the small towns and dancing is scheduled on the and they are passing the hat round before going on to the next Adult Recreation programs. We haven't had a chance to attend any place of performance. dances but I know there is great interest in them. We have had a very good holiday and the trip out through the cornfields o~ Nowadays the Mummers carry only~ spray of h?ll~, _but it Indiana and Iowa was fascinating. We will be back in Connect1cut seems more likely that they once carr1ed a bough s1m1lar to the end of the month and will hope to s ee any of you who come along the one on the cover. Whatever the tying on of ribbons may the Housatonic River. symbolize it is certainly a delightful custom, and o~e can picture the Mummers in times past carrying home a br1ghtly Again my thanks and all good wishes for a fine winter of decorated bough, well fed, well toasted, and we hope well dancing. rewarded with 'treasure'". Peggy S-B Sellers 34 35 symbolized in a contest, or a victory of beneficent life-giving MUMMERS' PLAYS forces over malignant powers of winter, sterility and death. Wherever it appears, whether in C~eece of Mexico, in Finland or Spain, or the Pacific Islands, Africa, Asia, or England •. the play' contains this symbol of contest and victory expressed in terms familiar to the people of the place, or significant in the story of their country. In England the 'good' and the 'beautiful' and eventually victorious figure is usually called St. George, and his opponent, The Turkish Knight, or Black Prince of Morocco, recal ling the days when Turkey, Arabia and the North African shore of the Mediterranean were the countries of the Infidel, and enemies of Christianity. Sometimes he is the Soldan of Egypt, sometimes just Rold Slasher - but hy whatever name he goes he is the enemy, .the Dragon, the evil one, the force which temporarily gains an advantage, and then is finally vanquished . .. The other essential character is the Doctor, Priest or Medecine-man who by his arts restores the fallen hero to life and ensures his victory. Various other characters add themselves, carrying some insignia of fertility or life, crude and unabashed in some countries, mild in En~land, where the custom and decorum of centuries has prevailed. The doctor may have a horse, and a man - a comic, rude fellow - to hold the horse and fetch the bag of cures; an old woman (a man dressed as such) who laments the fallen hero; Little Johnny (a hump-backed) Jack with his family on his back; Beelzebub, a giant carrying male and female symbols of , fertility and Little Devil Du-out who sweeps or cle~rs the way for the players with his broom. O£ten the mummery is 'presented' by a lead~r, frequently but not always, in Fngland called Father Christmas - who like the Prologue and Epilogue in a Shakespearean play asks the audience to receive the actors, and courteously takes leave when the performance is over. Refore everyone with A P.~RTY OF MUMMERS. draws a 'quete' or collection is taken. This is an essential part of the ceremony, for by it the contributors secure 'luck' · or That the prac t1ce. o f ''mumm1' ng" still exists. in England· isI benefit, and the players are enabled to complete the rite - for 11 demonstrated by the film made recently 1n Dorset~h~re. n that is what the performance is - a rite recalling the conquest of :~her counties also there are families where the trad1 t1on s':lr- death by life - with the feast which is its proper conclusion. Ch h're Hampshire Gloucester, Oxfordsh1re, v1 ves - es 1 , • ~erkshire, 1 · ed Sussex Yorkshire and elsewhere. Commonly the_p ay ls.enact .. From place to place the manner of performance varies, the betwee~ Christmas and Twelfth Night, but oc~aslo~a~ly ~t ~aki~ h comic business is less, or more crude, the names and allusions are place at Easter or Hallowe'en. A pamphlet 1ssue Y t e "n~ lS different - but the essentials are the same: the fight takes Folk Dance and Song Society sums up the ~eneral form and purpose place, the dead man is res to red to life - the audience buys the of these folk plays as follows: luck, and the players feast." .. The Murmers' Play or • Folk-Play' is. not, itself, a peculiar! Y E 1· h thin · _it springs up like ~rass 1n all the older ~~~n~~ies ofgthe world where there are aboriginal peop~e who have seen the days shorten, the nights lengthen,£ r~~ hea~ r~vghetp~~ce to The picture of Mtmmers appearing at~ house_ to gi~e their cold in winter; who have seen ~he return o 1 e an 1 play is taken from Chambers .. Book of Days, publ1shed 1n 1866. summer, whose hope of imnortahty for themselves has become 36 37 SWORD DANCE PLAYS At Ampleforth there appears the familiar figure of the Doctor, his horse and the man-woman; but it is the Fool who brings back his substitute to life, and, rejuvenated, carries off the ambiguous female he and his eldest son have both courted - as he does at Revesby; but at Revesby it is the Fool who is killed - who dies 'with my face to the light for all of you' and who brings himself to life without other agency. Alive again, he grows young while his son grows old - it is by far the most impressive and the most illuminating English example of this universal death and resurrec- tion drama." (E.F.D.S.S. Pamphlet) COUNTRY OR CONTRA? A collection of longways dances has been sent to us by Eleanor Man Woman Clown Doctor Victim Kmg Boyle who tells us that they were found in the house of a branch of the Merrill family in Maine. The dances · are handwritten and , AMPLE FORTH FOLK PLAY are clearly someone's notebook, made to remind himself of the figures of the dances popular in his day. Mrs·. Boyle asks if Sketch by Captain W.R. W. Kettlewell these would be English country dances brought here from overseas - l j and some seem to be very close to the 18th Century Apted collec- SWORD DANCE PLAYS tion - or if they belong to the New England Contra development. We print two examples below. Unfortunately the maker of the note "In a few rare examples, of what is probably ~ m~ch older. book gives no information about the tunes used. Perhaps some of purer type unencum bered by later historical assoc1at1onsbe (as IS our readers will have suggestions: the case i~ the St. George Mummers' Play), the contest .tween rsons whose significance is understood rather than .obvlously de THE ENCHANTED WOOD ~ned, displays more clearly the fu~da~nt~l or m~st1cal c?nc~p~ tion inherent in the play - the belief 1n 1mmoral1ty conta1ne 1n Cast off and hands four round at bottom the identity of a father with his son.