The leader, a grizzled West Country type, started this by saying it was a crow-scaring dance. But he said it wouldn’t work on puffins. “I hate puffins,” he growled, “that’s why I hate Lundy.” As soon as he said that I started filming because I knew he was going to be👌👌👌 an A+ Good Quality Character.
But Dr Glass dragged me off. Morris dancers make him uncomfortable. So here is 0:17 of My Day Today At Avebury.
Wait, do you also have Gothic Morris Dancers in the West Country? Because I was so confused when I moved to Brighton and saw Morris Dancers who looked like this:
And this:
…When I’ve only ever seen Morris who look like this (in the Home-Counties):
…My mum laughed at me when I told her we had goth Morris Dancers in Brighton :|
In Brighton??? Oh dear!
Black-clothed, feathery-goth, black-face-painted Morris dancers are doing the “Border Morris.” (Or possibly Terry Pratchett’s Dark Morris.)
The black makeup is the subject of Troubled Discourse and is potentially Problematic. The pagan side of the debate says it’s nothing to do with black people; makeup made from soot and the ragged clothes were simply a way for medieval people to cheaply disguise themselves as anonymous forest spirits, to practice under feudal Christianity.
The social justice side of the debate just needs to say “blackface, tho? really?” And that’s all they really need to say, I think
As I’m not really qualified to voice an opinion and haven’t researched the topic, I’ll leave it there!
But you usually see the black plumage variant in the Border counties, I think!