The sword-dance in its simplest
form is described by Tacitus in his "Germania": "they have," he says of
the Germans, "but one kind of public show: in every gathering it is the
same. Naked youths, who profess this sport, fling themselves in dance
among swords and levelled lances."{9} In certain forms of the dance
there are figures in which the swords are brought together on the heads
of performers, or a pretence is made to cut at heads and feet, or the
swords are put in a ring round a person's neck. This strongly suggests
that an execution, probably a sacrifice, lies at the bottom of the
dances. In several cases, moreover, they are accompanied by sets of
verses containing the incident of a quarrel and the violent death of one
of the performers. The likeness to the central feature of the |300|
St. George play--the slaying--will be noticed. In one of the dances, too,
there is even a doctor who revives the victim.
In England the sword-dance is found chiefly in the north, but with it
appear to be identical the morris-dances--characterized by the wearing of
jingling bells--which are commoner in the southern counties. Blackened
faces are common in both, and both have the same grotesque figures, a man
and a woman, often called Tommy and Bessy in the sword-dance and "the
fool" and Maid Marian in the morris.
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