A Morris Border (not Border Morris)

Here's a hearty little project from earlier in the summer, for my morris men in Southampton.

King John's Morris Men wanted a new poster for dancing dates. I thought it would suit a dense border with plenty of details to pick out, taken from dances and songs, along with assorted rural, maritime and alcoholic titbits and ephemera.

Here, because you want to know and because I want to tell you, is a full contents list:

• At the top:
• Roses - for The Rose Tree In Full Bearing.
• Hops - the importance of beer cannot be overstated.
• The KJM badge - a portcullis, representing Southampton Bargate, above water.
• At the bottom:  hollyhocks, wheat, trout and watercress (very small), more hops, tankards and a barrel being rolled out - as in the song Roll Out The Barrel.
• At the sides:  an oak tree (on the right) and an apple tree (on the left, complete with ladder and scrumper), containing...
• Bells - Ring O' Bells usually ends the King John's running order and Haste To The Wedding is included if we feel up to the challenge.
• A shepherd's crook - Shepherds Hey features in several morris traditions.
• Rifles - there are several shooting dances... including Shooting.
• A fair - for Jockey To The Fair and the Hampshire song Taro Fair.
• A mill - for Maid Of The Mill and possibly Milley's Bequest, which I may have misunderstood.
• A ship - well, this covers various maritime references and several shanties featured in the KJM singing sessions - John Kanaka, Sugar In The Hold and many more.
• Piglet - a plaster pig's head - is the King John's mascot, who comes out from time to time to cause trouble among the audience.
• The pony, hound and cow are decorative but add to the rural idiom...
• ...and, for a spread of birdlife, a seagull, falcon, woodpecker...  and the other kind of kite.
• In the centre:  the accoutrements of the morris - a top hat, stout shoes, sticks for clashing, bells for jangling, hankies for waving, the fool's brush and bladder (for tickling and bopping respectively) and our main instrument, the mighty melodeon.

Now, there are several dances that we do but that I couldn't work out how to draw, at least at such a small scale:

Bonnets So Blue, Balance The Straw, Getting Upstairs, Bean Setting, Broad Cupid, Saturday Night, The Vandals Of Hammerwich, Cuckoo's Nest (I should have got that one in), Old Black Joe, Beaux Of London City, Sheriff's Ride, Nuts In May... and whatever Trunkles are.

They all deserve drawing, as do these, although we don't dance them at the moment:
Lads A Bunchum, The Captain And His Whiskers and The Old Woman Tossed Up In A Blanket / The Old Woman Who Carried A Broom.



Look for King John's in the Southampton area and sometimes roving farther.  There are monthly singing evenings and around Christmas there will be mumming and border dancing.  First, on 15th September, KJM is hosting FOLK DANCE SOUTHAMPTON, featuring numerous visiting dance groups in the centre of Southampton and a ceilidh in the evening.

Caper, Caper, Clash

The year since I took up morris dancing has been long enough only to encounter a fraction of its tradition and lore.  There's a deep mine of colourful customs; a wealth of very specific and subtle differences.  It has linked up titbits of folk history half-remembered from museums and children's books.  I'll be a beginner for a long time.

This week the year's complement of dancing events begins - at least for me.  I'm going to a school hall in Hampshire to see bunch of morris sides from across the south, many of whom I hadn't heard of despite the many events last year.

Twelve morris men... who will know what I got wrong!

I'd like to get the quirks and character down in ink on paper.  Sketching at an event is a laudable aim but not for me and not for a night of drink and dance.  What I like better is a good stint of research and time to think of things to pick out and fit in.

Here's my page showing the sides who I was told may be represented on the night.  I combed through pictures and group websites for the specifics of each group's kit and colours.  The result is a bunch of made-up figures, not real people from photos.

This sort of thing helps me to learn what's what in a complex oeuvre.  I feel a bit more prepared for what I'll see, even if things turn out to be wrong (such as Winchester's eight-foot jig champ).  It's no document, just a cheerful array of ribbons and bells, hats festooned with flowers and tin badges, tabards, baldricks and belchers.



Bonus list:  some of the best names of dances from Lionel Bacon's "A Handbook Of Morris Dances", known as "The Black Book":

Bare-footed QuakerBluff King HalBuffoonCaptain With His WhiskersCurly-headed PloughboyDevil Among The TailorsGallant HussarHunting The SquirrelLollipop ManLumps Of Plum PuddingOld Woman Tossed Up In A BlanketRoast BeefShave The DonkeySwaggering BoneyThree Jolly Black SheepskinsTravel By SteamWalk Of The 2d PostmanWebley Twizzle

A Rose For St. George

I was late beginning work on a piece for St George's Day this year.  It has been a weekend of morris dancing around the Meon Valley in Hampshire, with two sides visiting from Devon.

The jaunt was full of things to draw:  there were bells, sticks, hankies, tankards, hats, tabards, badges, drums, squeezeboxes, pies, cutlasses, hats, ribbons, flowers and a nice green vintage bus.  Saturday ended with songs being shared - oh, and some more dancing.  John wrapped the session up with a song I didn't know called Saint George.  The chorus knocked all my other ideas for six and I even got a little emotional.

For St. George's Day 2017

It became an on-the-morning piece, drawn first thing this morning between getting up and going to Oxford to watch more morris dancing at the Folk Weekend.

You will see featured figures George and Guy, respectively leaping in a jig and playing the melodeon.

Here's that process in full:

• Go over jig videos
• Sketch
• Draw
• Colour
• Drying time!
• Rub out
• Scan
• Whack it on the Twitter
• Dash to the station

Happy St. George's Day!