Morris Dancing - the 17 Century of Rebel Punk

There is always that little bit of debate and controversy about the Morris.

Is it backdated and pointless all these ancient wallies with their bells and sticks?

What about black face Morris is it racist?

I saw a young troupe of black face Morris a few years back. They had theire faces greeny black and green and black streams from their hats.

Wild costumes, wild dancing, lots of hefty stick banging and bell jangling

And of course the 'obby oss.

Getting black to the colour issue their were a few black people in England at that era. They drummed and chanted and sang their tales

Some of them were kings back in Africa.

Why do we have the song

Old King Cole was a merry old soul and a merry old soul was he

He called for his pipe and he called for his bowl and he called for his fiddlers three

Who was Old King Cole?

He seems very jolly and a hybrid of a black person and an Irish person!!

But the Morris I saw was wild.

One of the dance troupe explained that Oliver Cromwell banned music and dancing so the Morris went out into the woods with blacked up faces from sooty fires to do their own thing.

What they were deonstrating and embodying was

'We are not the Kingsmen

We are not Cromwell's army

We are the Morris

We rule the night with our Black Music (Moor was the name given to any black person)

It was rebel punk!!

I would love to see the troupe again.