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MONA DOUGLAS “RESTORING TO USE OUR ALMOST-FORGOTTEN DANCES” THE COLLECTION AND REVIVAL OF MANX FOLK SONG AND DANCE MONA DOUGLAS “RESTORING TO USE OUR ALMOST-FORGOTTEN DANCES” “RESTORING TO USE OUR ALMOST-FORGOTTEN DANCES” WRITINGS ON THE COLLECTION AND REVIVAL OF MANX FOLK DANCE AND SONG BY MONA DOUGLAS Edited by Stephen Miller Chiollagh Books 2004 This electronic edition first published in 2004 by CONTENTS Chiollagh Books 26 Central Drive Onchan Introduction i Isle of Man British Isles * IM31EU “Restoring to use our almost-forgotten dances” Contact by email only: [email protected] 1. Folk-Lore Notes: Lezayre Notes (1916) 1 Originally published in 1994 under the title: 2. Liverpool Manx Society: Lecture-Recital by Miss Mona Douglas, Mona Douglas: Manx Folk-Song, Folk Dance, Folklore, Collected Writings “Manx Folk Song” (1925) 3 Reprinted here in a reset 2nd edition, corrected, enlarged, and expanded 3. Songs of the Manx Nation (1927) 6 © 2004 Chiollagh Books 4. Ceremonial Folk-Song, Mumming, and Dance in the Isle of Man (1928) 9 All original material by Mona Douglas © 2004 Estate of Mona Douglas 5. Twelve Manx Folk Songs, Set 1 (1928) 13 Administered by the Trustees of the Manx Museum and National Trust 6. Twelve Manx Folk Songs with Manx Gaelic and English Words, Set 2 (1929) 14 (Manx National Heritage) 7. Animals in Manx Folklore and Song (1930) 16 Details of all texts included in the copyright notice are to be found on pages 77–80 & 121–23 8. Five Manx Folk Dances, Set I (1936) 25 All Rights Reserved 9. Manx Folk Dances: their Notation and Revival (1937) 27 isbn 1-898613-15-x 10. The Traditional Dances of Mann (1941) 35 11. Folk Song and Dance in Mann with Some Notes on Collection and Revival of the Dances (1949) 39 12. Seven Manx Folk Dances, Set II (1953) 47 13. The Manx Dirk Dance as Ritual (1957) 48 14. Some Ritual Dances of Mann (1957) 51 15. Twelve Manx Folk Songs with Manx Gaelic and English Words, Set 3 (1957) 56 CONTENTS CONTENTS 16. ‘A Chiel’ Amang ’Em’: Memories of a Collector on the Isle of Man (1958) 57 33. The Manx Language Society (1917) 103 17. Story of a Militant Manxwoman: Sophia Morrison was a Champion 34. Bessie Cowley (1919) 104 of Manx Culture (1964) 61 35. Letter from W.H. Gill (1921) 105 18. Can We Re-Popularise Manx Folk Music and Dance? (1973) 66 36. Letter to J.J. Kneen (1929) 106 19. Manx Gaelic Singing (1973) 69 37. “The Green Flash” (1929) 107 20. Hunting the Dance in Mann (1973) 70 38.“Aeglagh Vannin: Objects” (1932) 108 21. Songs in Manx Gaelic (1975) 74 39. “Manx Nationalism and Aeglagh Vannin” (1932) 109 22. Manx Music: Then and Now (1978) 77 40. “A Rallying Song for Aeglagh Vannin” (1934) 112 23. The Leighton Stowell Book of Manx Dances (1981) 81 41. A Manx Primer (1935) 113 24. Rinkaghyn Vannin: Dances of Mann ([1983]) 84 42. “‘Ta Mee Nish Keayney’: An Old Manx Song Expanded” (1942) 115 Sources 87 43. “The Laare Vane” (1942) 116 * 44. The Secret Island (1943) 117 “mona douglas came to crammag” 45. Storied Isle (1951) 118 25. “Longing” (1914) 95 Sources 121 26. “Billy the Dollan” (1915) 96 27. Manx-Song and Maiden-Song (1915) 97 appendix 28. Learning Manx (1915–16) 98 Mr J.D. Qualtrough’s Stirring Address to [the] Manx Society (1942) 127 29. Letters to Sophia Morrison (1915–16) 99 30. The Manx Call to Arms: And the Answer (1916) 100 31. “The Fairy Tune” (1916) 101 32. “Ersooyl” (1917) 102 INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION Ten years have passed since this collection first appeared under the title Mona Douglas: Manx Folk-Song, Folk Dance, Folklore, Collected Writings (1994) and a reprint has been planned for several years.1 Firstly, to correct the many infelicities of typography that have become apparent, the imposition of house style not being as consistent as was at first thought.2 Secondly, and perhaps inevitably, to add texts overlooked (or disregarded) at the time, the use of the term “collected writings” always a hostage to fortune, especially in an area that is as poorly served bibliographically as is Manx Studies.3 Two of the extra six pieces appearing here in this second edition were found in newspapers as a serendipitous result of working on other topics.4 The inclusion of these two newspaper pieces perhaps calls for a clarification of the selection criteria. Mona Douglas was profilic as a journalist, although she did not follow that as a profession, being employed in the Island’s Rural Library from 1933 until her retirement in 1966. To pursue her in newsprint over the years is a near impossible task and unlikely to bring sufficient reward should it be so embarked on. Compendiums of some of her output of journalism and other occasional pieces do exist,5 but none of her contributions on the subject matter treated with here are worth reproducing, bar one piece.6 1 Stephen Miller, ed., Mona Douglas: Manx Folk-Song, Folk Dance, Folklore, Collected Writings, (Onchan: Chiollagh Books, 1994). 2 The format has likewise been changed so this is also a reset edition as well as being corrected, enlarged, and expanded. Finally, the title has also changed. 3 For the first attempt to list Mona Douglas’ substantive writings see Stephen Miller, “Mona Douglas: An Interim Checklist of Writings on Manx Folkways,” Manx Notes: Folkways and Language 4 (1993). The follow-up to this was Miller, ed., Mona Douglas: Manx Folk-Song, Folk Dance, Folklore, Collected Writings. 4 The six extra pieces are “Liverpool Manx Society: Lecture-Recital by Miss Mona Douglas, ‘Manx Folk Song’,” Isle of Man Weekly Times 14 March 1925, “Songs of the Manx Nation,” Isle of Man Weekly Times 19 March 1927, “Story of a Militant Manxwoman: Sophia Morrison was a Champion of Manx Culture,” This is Ellan Vannin: A Miscellany of Manx Life and Lore (Douglas: Times Press, n.d. [1964]), “Can We Re-Popularise Manx Folk Music and Dance?,” Manninagh 3 (1973), “Manx Gaelic Singing,” Manninagh 3 (1973), “Manx Music: Then and Now,” Manx Life March–April 1978. 5 This is Ellan Vannin: A Miscellany of Manx Life and Lore (Douglas: Times Press, n.d. [1964]), This is Ellan Vannin Again: Folklore (Douglas: Times Press, 1966). The last item reprints many of the pieces from the first title here, often with just slight and only minor changes. The pieces first appeared in the Isle of Man Weekly Times. See too, They lived in i Stephen Miller Introduction This collection has been restricted to material appearing, in the main, in academic No doubt, Mona Douglas feared that without a Manx dance tradition to display, journals and Insular small press magazines. Also reproduced as well are the forewords Manx schoolchildren especially would continue to be introduced to English country and prefaces to both her own and other published collections of Manx folk dance dancing and the Morris team then in existence would continue.9 and song. Why then these two newspaper articles? Chronology is the key here. Her Basing a revival on dancing was also attractive for a number of key reasons. It was first article, a short piece on folklore collected by herself in Lezayre appeared in 1916. a visible spectacle by its very nature and so could be used as a literal display of The second, on folk dance, was published in 1928. The newspaper pieces are from “Manxness.” All that was needed to participate was a basic sense of timing and a 1925 and 1927 and gain their inclusion from their early dates, presenting an early view willingness to learn and master new sets of dance steps. It was thereby accessible to of the activities and attitudes of the young Mona Douglas as she steps into the light all, young and old, male and female alike. Being a group activity, it was social in as both a collector and a revivalist. nature and enjoyable on that ground as well unlike learning the verbal paradigms of On another issue raised by the notion of chronology, in the first edition the texts Manx Gaelic, which was an alternative path to Manxness.10 were grouped together thematically under three headings, namely folklore, folk Mona Douglas was encouraged at an early age by Sophia Morrison to collect dance, and folk song. In retrospect, this was a mistake as nothing was gained by such folklore: an arrangement, and so the texts now appear here in date order. Inevitably, there is When I was ten I met the late Miss Sophia Morrison, a keen folklorist and then more than a little recycling of material between her pieces, and in the case of the Secretary of the Manx Society. She was kind to my childish enthusiasm for old “Dirk Dance of the Kings of Man” elaboration and inflation through the years. Manx lore and encouraged me to put down in writing all I could glean of tales, Moreover, as regards those years, these twenty-four texts span the years, songs, dances, place-names and so forth It was chiefly owing to her encouragement extraordinary, as it seems, from 1916 to 1983. Mona Douglas was born in 1898 and that my conscious collecting of folk-material began: but I had no idea of arranging died only in 1987.7 Throughout all these years, she was continually active in the or classifying what I did collect, so my early notes are all jumbled together 11 Celtic cause, never, it would appear, experiencing “burnout” at any stage.
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