Backside must have had the last word in my misspent youth (fl. 1959) when I was persuaded to join the morris dancers. It was a change from country (correctly ‘contre’) dancing which the youth club favoured in them days (just imagine!).
Bean setting
Boadicea's Chariot 
Janus: That there is “Border Morris” with them gurt sticks (drivelers?), not the gentle hankie waving stuff danced elsewhere. The gent on the left is very out of order, his wellies are not suitable footwear, hobnailed clodhoppers are the dress of the day. The actual dance is called a Dillwen, I have no idea why.
Here’s link to the boys hard at work in Monmouth.
[video src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3a/Morris_dancing_in_Agincourt_Square%2C_Monmouth_as_part_of_the_Olympic_torch_relay.ogv/Morris_dancing_in_Agincourt_Square%2C_Monmouth_as_part_of_the_Olympic_torch_relay.ogv.480p.webm" /]
Incidentally the Ragged Band Morris in the clip are also known as “The Dark Side” and there is a like named band in Brisbane AU (stranger than fiction).
There is a more violent offshoot of the Morris, known in the more primitive part of the Marches as “Dwile Flonking” for which Wiki has this entry.
“The pastime of dwile flonking (also dwyle flunking) involves two teams, each taking a turn to dance around the other while attempting to avoid a beer-soaked dwile (cloth) thrown by the non-dancing team…
“The rules of the game are impenetrable and the result is always contested.”
A ‘dull witted person’ is chosen as the referee or ‘jobanowl’ and the two teams decide who flonks first by tossing a sugar beet. The game begins when the jobanowl shouts “Here y’go t’gither!”
The non-flonking team joins hands and dances in a circle around a member of the flonking team, a practice known as ‘girting’. The flonker dips his dwile-tipped ‘driveller’ (a pole 2–3 ft long and made from hazel or yew) into a bucket of beer, then spins around in the opposite direction to the girters and flonks his dwile at them.
If the dwile misses completely it is known as a ‘swadger’ or a ‘swage’. When this happens the flonker must drink the contents of an ale-filled ‘gazunder’ (chamber pot (‘goes-under’ the bed)) before the wet dwile has passed from hand to hand along the line of now non-girting girters chanting the ceremonial mantra of “pot pot pot”.
A full game comprises four ‘snurds’, each snurd being one team taking a turn at girting. The jobanowl adds interest and difficulty to the game by randomly switching the direction of rotation, and will levy drinking penalties on any player found not taking the game seriously enough.
Points are awarded as follows:
· +3: a ‘wanton’- a direct hit on a girter’s head
· +2: a ‘morther’ or ‘marther’- a body hit
· +1: a ‘ripple’ or ‘ripper’- a leg hit
· -1 per sober person at the end of the game
At the end of the game, the team with the most number of points wins, and will be awarded a ceremonial pewter gazunder.”
All good country fun, especially when the subsequent health care is fully covered by NHS.
Good evening Janus.
Oh, you crazy Southern British and your quaint customs!
LW, a good evening to you as well. I have to say that my increasingly undependable memory assured me that dwyle-flonking was an invention of the late and inspired Michael Bentine and ‘It’s a Square World’.. A lot of d-f related googling does mention him but I’m not convinced and am now reasonably certain in the remnants of what’s left of my mind that I’m actually recalling the game of ‘Drats’ and the dreaded nurdle.
http://monologues.co.uk/Sketches/Drats.htm
Moving on, and back, to English Folk dancing, I once had the privilege of buying Bill Tidy a pint in the bar of the Edinburgh University Union. ‘The Cloggies’ were different class, in my opinion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cloggies
Ah well, LW! In rural Warwickshire the sticks were not restricted in their use!
Ditto Kent: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnVa6gMjYDY
Thanks for the history though. Fascinating. JM, I strongly resent being termed Southern British but quite understand your choice of epithet!
Oh bugger! I’ve told you Carmarthen is behind the times. People still use the expression to put on your dancing boots. No exquisite glace slippers but full on tackety boots with heavy/cleated soles minus the cow shit, basically to kick the opposition! (And I don’t mean the girls!)
I have never seen the nicety of dwle flonking, the rag has been dispensed with, just the beer and the glass will do.
I have never been to a country dance yet that didn’t end up descending into a brawl, its considered part of the entertainment. The hunt balls aren’t much better, but they tend to go outside which spoils it as a spectator sport. I suspect the local men’s clothiers do a very good line in replacement dinner jackets as they appear to get wrecked with monotonous regularity.
Are you sure dwyle flonking isn’t a more active version of Mornington Crescent?
Good for you Janus, its a rough job, but someone has to do it!
CO, good evening.
‘Tackety boots?’ Glad to see that your sojourn on the right side of the Wall, even if it was only in Aberdeen, has left you with some remembrance of Jockish,
JM, what do you mean “even if it was only in Aberdeen”? I can go off people very quickly!
Btw, small child to right of pic says: “Why are those men doing that, Mum?” She may well ask.