gently swaying body, the elegant waving and posturing such as become the
finished performer of round and square dances in the drawing-room. To
say, put away for a while these methods is to put no slight upon them, or
to offer a word of criticism: it is requisite and necessary, even as one
should advise a change of clothing to somebody about to quit the ballroom
for some rough-and-tumble pastime in the open fields.

Firstly, as to the manner of the steps. The Morris-men wear bells
strapped to their shins; the bells are there that they may ring their
music--and a fine wholesome music it is, too: to ring, they must be well
shaken; to be shaken, the leg they are strapped to must be kicked and
stamped. Get that principle into your head, and that practice into your
legs, and you make the first long stride towards acquisition of the art
of Morris dancing. Strap a set of bells to your shins, get out upon a
grass-plot or the King's highway; never mind elegance or the criticism of
the emasculate modern: kick and stamp upon the earth in such a manner as
to make your bells ring their loudest, and ring all together. You will
see pretty soon that, to do so, you must, when you jump, let the heels
come solidly to earth, immediately following the toes--no man, even an
old-time Morris-man, may jump and alight upon his heels alone, with the
spine held rigidly above them (_see_ p. 33). You will find also that, in
stepping it, whether to advance or retire, or to step rhythmically in one
place, to make your bells ring the true _fortissimo_ you must _kick_, and
kick hard.

Half an hour's experiment of this kind will do more to instil into the
would-be dancer the spirit that presides at Morris revels than chapters
of exhortation. It is a robust and friendly spirit, and will set the
learner's steps--given that he be of English blood, or even of
Anglo-Saxon sympathy--a-thumping to its solid downrightness.