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Home : About Morris

About Morris Dancing at Wessex

This is just a brief introduction to morris dancing. There have been many books written on the subject, try Googling. You could also visit the Morris Ring website which has lots of information. Below are some answers to the questions we often get asked while we are out performing, though rather than plagiarize other people's material, here are some starters in your research.

You could of course do much worse than look at Roy Dommet's page.

Why is it Called Morris?

Ah well, nobody really knows. Popular explanations are that it comes from Moorish dancers, that it is a corruption of morisco, or...

Try googling for Morris origins.

History

You could try the entry in Wikipedia...... but there's lots out there on the web, some likely, some nonsense.

Some Terms

OK, so we are a morris side (team). We dance dances from a range of traditions (named after the Cotswold villages that the dances originated from). Our side has the following officers:

The Squire, responsible for our performance and leader of the side

The Foreman, responsible for teaching the dances and in charge of practice sessions

The Bagman, is the secretary of the side and responsible for bookings and so on

The Treasurer, looks after the financial side of things

We also have a deputy foreman and a deputy squire, also a fool, supposed to be the best dancer and who acts as a go-between with the audience and a keeper of the squire's music (head musician). There are presently two animals, Cadbury (a horse) and the Ooser (you tell me!) both of which you can read about in the about us page.

The Music

Our music is that collected from the original sides, and is now available in ABC notation on the Morris Ring website. If you download an ABC player, you can see the tunes in musical notation, or play them through your computer.

We use instruments that are representative of the various periods in morris history. Most of our music is played on the melodeon (diatonic button accordion rather than an organ). The earliest known morris instrument was (is) the pipe and tabor, followed by the fiddle. We do not presently have a concertina player playing for us.

The Dances

We dance quite a wide range of dances, currently from 12 main traditions.

A Fertility Rite?

Again, who knows? (but probably not). The dance seems originally to have been motivated by the need for money at times of the agricultural year when work was short.