INTRODUCTION.


We have been drawn to the publication of tunes and description of the old
English Morris, not primarily for the information of the archæologist and
scholar, but to help those who may be disposed to restore a vigorous and
native custom to its lapsed pre-eminence.

Whether we have erred in believing that there exists to-day a wide and
keen desire for that restoration will be plainly shown in the reception
and the result of our endeavour. How we ourselves came by the belief in
that desire is easily told.

The idea that the Morris dance might once again be known amongst us, in
town and countryside, as the ordered expression of a national spirit, was
given to us in this wise. One of us--it is not by now too much to
claim--had acquired an enthusiasm for Folk-music, and a certain knack of
finding it where it still survived in the agèd memories of the peasantry,
and of transcribing and preserving it when found. The other had also his
knack of passing on the music that pleased him to susceptible and willing
juniors, and of making them to perform the same. In a happy hour the
collector with his treasury and the teacher, pining for some fresher and
sincerer melodies, met together. The "Folk Songs from Somerset" were
given to those working girls of London town to whom this book is
dedicated. From the very start we were aware that the old songs, merry or
mournful, that until then had been looked upon by this newer generation
for the greater part with something of an antiquarian and merely curious
eye, had been given wings and a new vitality. The songs of peasant-folk
long dead, songs of love and war, parting and death, prospered and spread