Note 707 — Chapter IX · THE SWORD-DANCE

Tabourot’s morris-dancing boy had his face blackened, and Junius (F. Du Jon), Etymologicum Anglicanum (1743), says of England ‘faciem plerumque inficiunt fuligine, et peregrinum vestium cultum assumunt, qui ludicris talibus indulgent, ut Mauri esse videantur, aut e longius remota patria credantur advolasse, atque insolens recreationis genus ad vexisse.’ In Spousalls of Princess Mary (1508) ‘morisks’ is rendered ‘ludi Maurei quas morescas dicunt.’ In the modern morris the black element is represented, except at Brosely, chiefly by ‘owd sooty face,’ the fool: in Leicestershire it gives rise to a distinct figure, Beelzebub.