Morris Dancing Naked
As is the custom among those of us who keep both a blog and a sitemeter of some sort, I occasionally drift through the "search words" section of the sitemeter pages to see how the hapless googlers ended up on my blog. Some of them are actually looking for me -- I can tell cause they google for things like "anne brannen blog," which is pretty specific. But mostly they're not, really. Though sometimes they can actually use me, even when I'm not what they were really looking for, when what they want is advice on dealing with the first communion banners, or opinions on important knitting books, or pictures of crown jewel jello cakes.
But I'm of no use to the droves of googlers looking for "totally spies porn." I've got none. I've got no links to any. Besides. Guys. It's a cartoon. What the hell. (A related search is "is totally spies age appropriate?" Clearly, it depends.)
Or the person searching for "earth damn designs." As it turns out, NO sites were helpful to this person. There are no "earth damn designs." There are, however, bunches of these.
Also, I'm sorry, a little bit, to have been one of the people making life difficult for the person googling "hard times in the circus." Cause I'm pretty sure this person was not interested in Dickens, who takes up a bunch of the search finds. And I'm absolutely certain this person was uninterested in my Waste Essay.
But my favorite search term this morning is "morris dancing naked."
What the hell are you talking about, anonymous googler? Are you nuts?
Nobody, I tell you, NOBODY should be anywhere near morris dancing naked. It is a Mistake.
It's clear why I would come up on the search. Let's go see, however, what other sites have to say on the subject.
Ok: here's an article, from 1932, on a carved panel from Lancaster Castle, which appears (according to the article) to contain, amongst a bunch of morris dancers, a "nude girl dancer (or a curly-headed boy personating a girl, with the aid of artificial feminine characteristics)". Right. Let's not jump to conclusions.
Next, we observe the Scarborough Fayre dancers from 1999, some of whom are "half naked" on account of dancing in the ocean.
Here we have a scholarly article from 2003, which references the Lancaster panel, notes its connection to two other depictions of morris dancers, and shows that the "naked" dancer in the Lancaster panel is connected to one which originally had clothes on.
Down on this page there's a picture containing "naked morris dancers," but they're not dancing. They're lying about on a raft. But they are naked, and when not lying about on rafts they dance the morris. With their clothes on. As is obvious from the rest of the pictures.
You can continue the search, if you like. But here's the scoop: No naked morris dancers, except when they're not morris dancing. Not in the 16th century, at least, not that I'm convinced of. I'm willing to believe -- oh, how I am willing to believe -- that there's somebody out there RIGHT NOW recovering from having been dancing the morris naked yesterday. On account of it seemed like a good idea. And they maybe even thought it was one of the ancient customs of our people. It wasn't.*
But please. If you know of any naked morris dancing, would you let me know? Cause I want to be SURE to miss it.** Especially if the dancers have taken it into their heads to conflate the morris with the sword dance. Too scary.
*************
*Go here for the definitive scholarly work on morris dancing, if that's what you're interested in.
**Think this through. A bunch of naked guys, with ribbons tied on their arms, waving handkerchiefs and jumping around in synchronized fashion. I. Don't. Think. So.
****************************
Though, now that I get to the end of all this, I remember that we started out with "totally spies porn." Methinks there's a connection....
But I'm of no use to the droves of googlers looking for "totally spies porn." I've got none. I've got no links to any. Besides. Guys. It's a cartoon. What the hell. (A related search is "is totally spies age appropriate?" Clearly, it depends.)
Or the person searching for "earth damn designs." As it turns out, NO sites were helpful to this person. There are no "earth damn designs." There are, however, bunches of these.
Also, I'm sorry, a little bit, to have been one of the people making life difficult for the person googling "hard times in the circus." Cause I'm pretty sure this person was not interested in Dickens, who takes up a bunch of the search finds. And I'm absolutely certain this person was uninterested in my Waste Essay.
But my favorite search term this morning is "morris dancing naked."
What the hell are you talking about, anonymous googler? Are you nuts?
Nobody, I tell you, NOBODY should be anywhere near morris dancing naked. It is a Mistake.
It's clear why I would come up on the search. Let's go see, however, what other sites have to say on the subject.
Ok: here's an article, from 1932, on a carved panel from Lancaster Castle, which appears (according to the article) to contain, amongst a bunch of morris dancers, a "nude girl dancer (or a curly-headed boy personating a girl, with the aid of artificial feminine characteristics)". Right. Let's not jump to conclusions.
Next, we observe the Scarborough Fayre dancers from 1999, some of whom are "half naked" on account of dancing in the ocean.
Here we have a scholarly article from 2003, which references the Lancaster panel, notes its connection to two other depictions of morris dancers, and shows that the "naked" dancer in the Lancaster panel is connected to one which originally had clothes on.
Down on this page there's a picture containing "naked morris dancers," but they're not dancing. They're lying about on a raft. But they are naked, and when not lying about on rafts they dance the morris. With their clothes on. As is obvious from the rest of the pictures.
You can continue the search, if you like. But here's the scoop: No naked morris dancers, except when they're not morris dancing. Not in the 16th century, at least, not that I'm convinced of. I'm willing to believe -- oh, how I am willing to believe -- that there's somebody out there RIGHT NOW recovering from having been dancing the morris naked yesterday. On account of it seemed like a good idea. And they maybe even thought it was one of the ancient customs of our people. It wasn't.*
But please. If you know of any naked morris dancing, would you let me know? Cause I want to be SURE to miss it.** Especially if the dancers have taken it into their heads to conflate the morris with the sword dance. Too scary.
*************
*Go here for the definitive scholarly work on morris dancing, if that's what you're interested in.
**Think this through. A bunch of naked guys, with ribbons tied on their arms, waving handkerchiefs and jumping around in synchronized fashion. I. Don't. Think. So.
****************************
Though, now that I get to the end of all this, I remember that we started out with "totally spies porn." Methinks there's a connection....
<< Home