File:Rush-bearing- an account of the old custom of strewing rushes; carrying rushes to church; the rush-cart; garlands in churches; morris-dancers; the wakes; the rush (1891) (14780890331).jpg

Identifier: rushbearingaccou00burt (find matches)
Title: Rush-bearing: an account of the old custom of strewing rushes; carrying rushes to church; the rush-cart; garlands in churches; morris-dancers; the wakes; the rush
Year: 1891 (1890s)
Authors: Burton, Alfred
Subjects: England -- Social life and customs
Publisher: Manchester : Brook & Chrystal
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ere notall beside themselves, that they so lipd and skipdwithout an occasion. \ Shakspeare, in Henry V., mentions the Whitsunmorris-dance : And let us do it with no show of fear;No ! with no more than if we heard that EnglandWere busied with a Whitsun morris-dance. And in another play, Alls Well that Ends Well,act ii., sc. 2, he speaks of the fitness of a morris forMay-day. In later times the morris was frequentlyintroduced upon the stage. Stephen Gosson, whowrote about 1579, in a little tract entitled PlayersConfuted, speaks of dauncing of gigges, galiardes,and morices, with hobbi-horses, as stage performances.Herrick, in his Hesperides, speaking of countryblessings, says among them were : Thy Wakes, thy Quintals, here thou hast,Thy Maypoles, too, with garlands gract:Thy Morris-dance ; thy Whitsun ale ;Thy Sheering flat, which never fail. * Langleys Antiquities of Desborough, 1797, 4to-> P- r42- t Strypes Eccl. Memorials, iii., p. 376. J Brands Observations on Popular Antiquities.
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THE MORRIS-DANCERS. 109 In Lanehams letter from Kenilworth Castle, aBride Ale is described, in which mention is made of alively Moris-dauns, according to the Auncient manner :six dauncerz, Mawdmarion, and the fool. To the puritans, the morris-dance was particularlyobnoxious, and their diatribes against it are numerousand severe. Stubbes, in his Anatomie of Abuses,1585, p. 107, describes it as follows : They strike upthe Devils Dauncc withall, then martch this heathencompany towards the church and churchyarde, theirpypers pyping, their drummers thundering, theirstumpes clauncing, their belles ingling, their handker-chiefes fluttering about their heacles like madde men,their hobbie-horses and other monsters skirmishingamongst the throng ; and in this sorte they go to thechurch (though the minister be at prayer or preaching),dauncing and swinging their handkerchiefes over theirheadesin the church, like Devils incarnate, with such aconfused noise that no man can heare his own voyce.Anothe

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