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THE COXBENCH LONG SWORD DANCE Thomas Ratcliffe we know was born at Coxbench about 1840 and that between 1851 and 1881 he moved with his parents to Worksop, at about the age of 15 by reference to parish registers and census returns of those dates. There are three pieces from him one dated 1914 another more specific 1920 and another as yet undated piece, probably between the two. The earliest piece speaks of the dance opening with stepping over the swords on the ground followed by the more usual figures. He speaks of being bemused because what is recorded and written elsewhere is different to what he remembers being performed In his village In 1851. The 1920 piece is more specific and would seem to be describing an actual dance because of the amount of detail. The third piece is more general but gives very specific detail of the dress largely confirmed by the 1920 document but has the dance end with a lock figure, like Grenoside. Of one thing he is in no doubt, that is, the placing of the swords on the ground and the dancers stepping over them. We may surely conclude that this was the special feature of the Coxbench dance and a feature that stuck most firmly in his mind after all those years. A memory that could have been clouded by what he subsequently saw or read and was the source of his confusion. This highlighted the Coxbench practice because nothing quite like it happened elsewhere, with what he might have seen or read about at the time. From the manuscript piece we get further specific directions of a final figure of a lock that is made displayed and then dissembled, after four figures danced at increasing tempo, which again is quite distinctive though not so rare, occurring at least at Grenoside and Haxby. FURTHER DETAILS |
