Origin of the Morris

On the Origin of Morris Dancing and Its Role as the Emerging Mythological Paradigm of Twenty-first Century Western Civilization

In the minds of many the term "Morris Dancing" and the Cotswold region of England are either synonymous, or at best, mean the same thing. This is only due to historical accident, confusion, and the mere fact that some old farts were waving handkerchiefs to keep flies away from their black and tans that fateful Whitsun afternoon when Cecil Sharp's BMW ran out of petrol in front of the Grub and Shovel near the Cotswold village of Harcourt Brace in 1905.

Since then, close scrutiny by desperate Cambridge doctoral students in search of a thesis has revealed that Sharp falsified much of his data on the dancers' stepping, hand motions, and general attitudes in order to direct a physical education program at the Esperance Club for Working Girls, becoming a victim of a pathetic combination of authoritarian personality and erotic irony. Thus it is both imprudent and contrary to the lack of evidence supporting this interpretation to conclude that Morris Dancing originated as a fertility cult in the Neolithic Age, somehow managing to progress through cultural evolution and assimilation to the state we observe it in today, or last week, for that matter. On the contrary, it is becoming increasingly apparent that contemporary Morris Dancing is but a harbinger of a profoundly new religious orientation emerging in the post-modernist world order, whose credo is this time and whose message is a resounding once to yourself, feet together, jump!

--From Pokingbrook Morris' 1990 Harvest Ale brochure (copied from the portion that didn't have beer spilled on it)

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Last modified: Thu Jul 20 02:14:20 2006 by Jeff Bigler