Morris
and Maypole - An Old Lancashire Tradition
What
was Morris dancing like in Lancashire of bygone times, say three hundred
years ago? It was not the “North West” or “Clog Morris” that we
know today. We will never know for certain what the older Lancashire
dances were like, but we do have a few clues.
Some
useful hints are given in “The great diurnall of Nicholas Blundell of
Little Crosby, Lancashire”: 16th June 1715 “Mrs
Barker, my Wife and I went to Ailes Mellings, we saw the Morris Dansers of
Sefton as were going their Round in order to Rear a May-Pole in Sefton...”; 9th July 1715 “The
Little Boyes & Girles of this Town diverted themselves with Rearing a
May-pole in the West-Lane, they had Morrys dansing & a great many came
to it both old and young ...”; and 24th June 1721 “...
coming home I overtook the Morris Dansers as were going to Flower the
May-Pole in Magull”. Blundell did not remark on any significant
difference between the Morris dancers of Lancashire and those he had seen
previously in Gloucestershire in 1703.
Other
Lancashire towns and villages had links between the Morris dance and
Maypoles. Alan Crosby, in his history of Penwortham, quotes an early
Victorian author: “Half a century ago, May-poles were erected, and garlands woven, early
in the spring at Middleforth-Green, and on the edge of the Moss, when
‘merry nights’ were kept, with morris-dances and rustic finery”.
This Penwortham tradition died out in the 1790s or thereabouts.
Lancashire
was not the only county where the Morris dance and Maypoles were
connected. Cecil Sharp noted the custom in nineteenth century Ducklington,
in Oxfordshire: “Roused at four
o’clock.... the villagers assembled at the village-green to assist in
raising the Maypole.... Directly the pole was placed in position the
Morris men danced round it.... The Maypole remained in position throughout
the week [following Whit Sunday], and the Morris men danced round it every
morning ‘for luck’ before starting out on their daily rounds.”
And so to
Abram. Though some of the late 19th and early 20th century Morris teams in
Lancashire performed Maypole dances, or appeared at events where others
danced around a Maypole, Abram was unique. The Abram Morris Dance was
performed around the flower-decorated Maypole that had been an English
tradition for centuries. Elsewhere the Maypoles were of the plaited-ribbon
Continental European variety which was popularised in England only in the
1890s.
There
were other significant differences between the Abram Morris Dancers and
other local dancers. Most Lancashire Morris teams performed more
frequently than did the Abram dancers, whether in annual local processions
or further afield in competitions. The Abram dancers performed at
irregular intervals, but at least every 21 years. They did not compete
with other teams for cups and medals, but confined themselves to
entertaining the people of Abram and surrounding towns and villages. Their
contemporaries sometimes devised elaborate dances for such competitions,
waving sticks decorated brightly with ribbons and bells, or ‘mollies’
- lengths of plaited cotton tied with coloured ribbons. The latter were
probably derived from the handkerchiefs used by Lancashire Morris dancers
in earlier centuries, also by those of the South Midlands and by the Abram
Morris Dancers to this day. The Abram Morris Dance may appear to have more
in common with those dances known as ‘Cotswold Morris’ than with those
from nearby Lancashire towns. The reason may be that it is a survival of
the type of Morris dance performed round the Maypole, once widespread in
Lancashire, which died out in every place apart from Abram.
