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Longborough - What We Know Of This Largely Ignored Tradition Harry Taylor was born in 1843, the son of Stephen and Elizabeth Taylor and it was from his father that he learnt his dancing. Harry Taylor was the last foreman of the Longborough morris and was the principle informant for the Longborough tradition both to Cecil Sharp and Kenworthy Schofield, who was present at later visits of the Travelling Morrice He was met by Sharp in 1910 at Condicote, where he was thatching a stack and in its shadow on a miserable rainy day the pair rehearsed two dances, for the collector to note down, using corn stalks for hankerchieves. The method adopted, to be repeated several times, was for the old man, of 68, to whistle the tune for Sharp to note down and the collector to dance opposite at number 2, whilst the old man whistled the tune and danced the steps, the collector taking notes, to be pieced together later. The first dance taken down was Constant Billy, the hand-clapping and half hey dance, given with foot up as the distinctive figure concluding with a whole hey and caper out. The second dance collected was Country Gardens, Taylor's favourite dance, with sidestep and half hey chorus, with foot up, half gip, and whole gip. Eleven days later Sharp was back, this time at Longborough where he collected eight further dances:- Hey Diddle Dis, The Maid of the Mill, Swaggering Boney, Young Collins, Trunkles, Old Woman Tossed up in a Blanket and Shepherd's Hey. This information was given to Sharp on the 2nd and 13th May 1910 and shows three ways of performing the dance, displaying three sets of figures, two sets of footing and three degrees of complexity. Other informants for the Longborough tradition were Edward and William Hathaway from Lower Swell, a village that latterly contributed dancers to the side. Longborough were the last side to win the privelege of dancing on Dover's Hill at the last Games in 1852. The last time that Longborough danced per se was at Sezincote in the 1890's, but did not include Taylor. The last time Taylor danced was at the Jubilee of Queen Victoria 1889. It is unclear as to the relationship between Longborough, Lower Swell and Stow on the Wold sides, whether there were three distinct sides or one and the same. There appear to have been common dances, tunes and personages, for instance when Taylor went to dance with the Lower Swell side he acted as Squire. Stephen Taylor taught the Longborough dances at Lower Swell some years before. Longborough's Fool for some time came from Lower Swell. There is some doubt as to the purity of the Longborough tradition on various grounds:- a.)when we speak of the Longborough tradition are we speaking of a general traditon from the area around Stow or are we speaking of a specific Longborough tradition; b.)the tunes seem to come from musicians associated with the area and do not come from a really appropriate source like a musician connected with this specific village, in the sense of Benfield at Bledington or Wells at Bampton. Harry Taylor seems to have been a musician, although he was Foreman of the side and was the source of many tunes either first hand or through the third hand of George Joynes via Harry Taylor, jnr c.) there is a tradition of various musicians telling the dancers which steps to put in which may mean there is no pure and agreed stepping, but clearly, Taylor the principle informant, who stopped dancing at about the age of forty after about twenty years and was remembering after a lapse of forty years, was quite sure that it was the Longborough tradition. There are several features that need to be born in mind, when considering the Longborough tradition, and how it should be danced. Firstly, there are more tunes and musicians connected with Longborough than any other Cotswold side. The different musicians, apparently used to tell the men what steps to put in, so what was danced was very fluid. They were famous for the Longborough Jump, every two bars, in the most highly developed form of the tradition and every four bars in the simplest form, judging from Sharp's manuscript. Secondly, because of the jump, they could not immediately perform another dance. Thirdly, there is evidence that towards the end of activity they danced with Bledington, three on one side and three on the other, so their dancing was not vastly different. Bledington jumped every 4 bars and Longborough every 2 bars, so Sharp was told by Taylor. Fourthly, the information given to Sharp on two separate occasions in 1910, on the 2nd and 13th May, show three ways of performing the dance, displaying three sets of figures, two sets of footing and three degrees of complexity. Sharp collected the following dances and a brief notation is given here:- 2481 Constant Billy - foot up and handclapping and half hey chorus, finish with double hey and caper out. 2482 Country Gardens - with the accepted distinctive figures, jump every 4 bars, sidestep and half hey chorus. 2483 Hey Diddle Dis - processional 2484 Princess Royal Jig 2485 The Maid of the Mill - distinctive figures with jump every 2 bars and hand movements. 2486 Swaggering Boney with foot up, chorus, half rounds, corners repeated, half gip, corners repeated, half rounds, back to back, corners, half rounds, corners repeated, whole hey and caper out. Stepping with jump every two bars as Maid of the Mill, with two different corners: fighting and half capers. 2487 Young Collins as Maid of the Mill with handclapping and half hey chorus. 2488 Trunkles fullest version 2489 Old Woman Tossed up in a Blanket as Country Gardens. 2490 Shepherd's Hey From the above and Appendix 4 it can be seen that the Longborough stepping can be divided into three distinct groups:- a.)two double steps, galley, feet together jump and repeat b.) one double step, feet together jump, back step,feet together jump and repeat c.) two double steps, back step and feet together jump, a big thing being made of the arm movements of the jump in each case. The Morris Book gives shuffles instead of a back step and this was criticised by Taylor to the Travelling Morrice, preferring the step as collected by the TM at Bledington, between a Sherborne shuffle and Field Town back step. This step is quite clearly indicated in the Schofield manuscript and is at variance to the single step given in Bacon for which there appears to be no traditional foundation. Another stepping that could have been dictated by the musician bringing different tunes, is whether the jump comes every two or four bars but that is not necessarily the case. It is possible to emphasise the arm movement in the jump and not the jump itself as is usually the case. There is evidence to suggest that the overall identifying feature of the Longborough arm movements is they were kept raised high above the head most of the time, but what they did seems to have been unclear to Schofield from Taylor, except the apart in the jumps. Sharp on the other hand seems to be quite clear, "Ordinary position, out with bent elbows, well up waving with wrist in time to music. At jump open out arms in a 'there you are' gesture. At capers hands describe 2 circles in vertical planes in front of body, first moving up and out, then down and in. This to each caper." The foregoing can be deduced from the collected stepping but is it possible to draw any conclusions from the 56 tunes that are connected with the tradition, taken as a maximum and including in some cases three variants of the same title. Given the variety of musicians that are associated with Longborough then this large number of tunes should not come as a great surprise. It is possible for this large number of tunes and musicians to give support to the idea that around Stow-on-the-Wold there was a generic morris tradition. Sharp collected some tunes from John Mason of Stow on the Wold, without any notation, this man does not appear for Longborough in Chandler's study. William Hathaway of Lower Swell who had been associated with the Longborough side at sometime. George Joynes another source of tunes, was not a morris musician , but could read music, and played for some of the time when Sharp was collecting from Taylor, he prepared a manuscript of the tunes that he had obtained from Harry Taylor junior, which he in turn had learned from his father. Some others came from Edwin 'Ned' Hathaway and from Tom Taylor, but there are no tunes emanating from Oliver Webb, a shadowy Longborough musician, the only musician noted in Chandler's Gazetteer other than Benfield. As to other tunes there are at least three occasions when Harry Taylor is happy with tunes from other traditions, meaning they were identical or similar to the ones used at Longborough or the Longborough versions could not be remembered or were lost i.e. Saturday Night, from Bledington, Country Gardens Headington version and Banks of the Dee from Field Town. Of the collected tunes we may ask the question which ones are the true Longborough variants. The version of Young Collins published in Morris Dance Tunes is perhaps the archetypal Longborough tune with the jump coming every two bars. Certainly if we look for the famous Longborough jump then we find that very few tunes have an accentuated jump in the music where it should be, suggesting that very few tunes are authentic or we must look for some other explanation. There are 33 tunes published in Bacon's book for set dances as being associated with Longborough. To account for an accentuated jump you would expect the tunes to give either a minim or dotted crotchet to be given every two bars,but this occurs in only four tunes. Such a musical pause is given in twenty three tunes every four bars, in respect of the A music. If the process is repeated for the B music you get nine tunes that have the same pause. This gives a maximum of six when alternative aires are taken into account. The six tunes are: Greensleeves, Staines Morris, Young Collins, Constant Billy, Swaggering Boney and Shepherd's Hey, but Constant Billy has to be rejected since the appropriate rhythm comes in the handclapping and is not made use of. If this is true then we have only five authentic Longborough tunes that have not had the jump debased by emanating from another musician, so that the men had to sacrifice there traditional jump through the lapse of the traditional aires and even loss.. The variety of musicians with their alternative tunes has had consequences for the stepping in the distinctive figures and has lead to uncertainty. Surely there is a contrary view, because we know from Sharp's collecting experiences that that a major factor in the cessation in dancing was the change from pipe and tabor to fiddle or melodian, for the dancers found they could not dance to the new instrument. Dancers could only recall dances if they could remember the tune or have a suitable tune played for them, failure to do this has resulted in the loss of many traditions and dances. Given this principle, it is most likely that the majority of Longborough tunes represent the actual Longborough variants and it is the jump every two bars that has to be called into question, especially since they could not immediately dance again, making a show impossible. Most of the Longborough tunes have a jump every 4 bars which makes this the norm and the more frequent jump the exception, but one thing remains, the feet together jump accentuated by the flamboyant arm movement. This leads me to the opinion, that the dancers were varied according to the occasion, whether they were on tour when the simplified versions were used because they needed to dance other dances immediately or whether there was reputation and beer at stake, when the most advanced form was performed for they would not be expected to perform again immediately. The Squire would call the figures he felt appropriate for the occasion from among the variants collected. This is certainly true of other traditional sides and seem to be no less true of Longborough. There are three other features that are worth commenting on:- a.)Several tunes that Sharp has from John Mason are pretty and in the Longborough mode, see list in Appendix 2 below, that could be used; the Longborough choruses break down into seven clear groups:-
b.)There is some suggestion that the hands were twisted not simply two to the bar or whatever but waved to the rhythm of the music. c.)It is very easy to emphasise the jump to ridiculous proportions, less needs to be made of, particularly the ground covered and more of the up and out arm movements. This will make the dance less exhausting and more readily danceable. Appendices containing more information 1.Longborough Tunes In The Handbook of Morris Dances 2. Tunes With No Notation In Folk Tunes Mainly From John Mason, Fiddler OF Stow On The Wold 3. Notation Of The Longborough Dances From Harry Taylor in Sharp's Folk Dance Tunes 4. Notations as in Folk Dance Tunes but without the music 5. The Tunes in the Tradition 6.Longborough Tunes NOT in Bacon and where no equivalent occurs Home Page |