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Kemps Nine Daies Wonder

Note bels — KEMPS NINE DAIES WONDER, PERFORMED IN A MORRICE FROM LONDON TO NORWICH.

Reading edition

P. 7, l. 26, bels.]—“The number of bells round each leg of the morris-dancers amounted from twenty to forty. They had various appellations, as the fore-bell, the second bell, the treble, the tenor, the base, and the double-bell. Sometimes they used trebles only; but these refinements were of later times. The bells were occasionally jingled by the hands, or placed on the arms or wrists of the parties.”—Douce’s Illust. of Shakespeare, ii. 475. The same writer mentions that in the time of Henry the Eighth the Morris-dancers had “garters to which bells were attached,” 473.

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