"Who told the gorilla that he couldn't go to the ballet?"

Modern American society has lost the art of the riddle.

We have riddles, to be sure. They're all jokes, which isn't a problem with the form in the least - humor takes a great deal of talent to devise and deliver, and any form that can't be used comically is an underdeveloped one. The trouble is that they are for children, and children are lousy at comedy. Awful, really.

Inventiveness in Oral Music on the North Carolina Coast

Not long ago I acquired an album - I use the term slightly generously - from Smithsonian Folkways entitled Between the Sound and the Sea: Music of the North Carolina Outer Banks. It's a glimpse into the last generation of a lost oral tradition in coastal North Carolina, as captured by a modern folklorist without the prejudices that bedeviled the antiquarian tradition of prior decades of folklore studies, and so serves as a perfect case study for the role of authorship in at least some oral cultures.

Special Characters in Folk Festivals

Around the world, across many centuries, traditional festivals feature the portrayal of traditional characters unique to the occasion. Many of these have ancient roots, though every one can be seen to have changed over time. Such characters are, in general, anonymous (or at least able to step out of their performers' everyday selves), tied to the context in which they are seen, and consistent from one instance of the event to the next (even if the performers change as years go by); most are associated with dance or other performance.

Prestidigitation and Culture

The methods of magical performance are not usually seen as examples of folklore, but they have many of the same properties as a traditional story or ballad. Until recent times (and sometimes still today), techniques are passed along primarily orally, from one performer to another; many of the details of patter and other elements that make for an effective performance are also a result of each performer learning from what they have observed and selecting the elements which work the best for them. And so as with a lot of traditional material, effects pass through the years, sometimes lasting centuries but never quite passing on unchanged.

Analyzing an Early Sword Dance

What follows is one of the earliest accounts of a sword dance that has enough detail to be useful, drawn from Olaus Magnus' History of the Northern Peoples (1555), along with my notes on why I interpret it the way I do, where I deviate from the most direct reading of the text and why, and, finally, my thoroughly-danceable notation for a version of this particular dance for modern performers.

Here's Olaus. The translation is taken from William Tegg's The Every Day Book (1825), on Plough Monday, because this translation of this section is widely quoted in readily-available sources (including online ones):

The Northern Goths and Swedes have a sport wherein they exercise their youth, consisting of a Dance with Swords in the following manner. First, with swords sheathed and erect in their hands, they dance in a triple round : then with their drawn swords held erect as before: afterwards, extending them from band to hand, they lay hold of each other’s hilts and points, and, while they are wheeling more moderately round and changing their order, throw themselves into the figure of a hexagon, which they call a rose: but, presently raising and drawing back their swords, they undo that figure, in order to form with them a four-square rose, that they may rebound over the head of each other. Lastly, they dance rapidly backwards, and, vehemently rattling the sides of their swords together, conclude their sport. Pipes, or songs (sometimes both), direct the measure, which, at first, is slow, but, increasing afterwards, becomes a very quick one towards the conclusion.

Hilt-And-Point Sword Dances

Hilt-and-point, or linked, sword dances are a style of dance which originated in Germany (probably in Nuremberg) in the middle of the 14th century. From there, they spread all over central and western Europe; evidence of the tradition has been found by folklorists in England, Scotland, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, the Low Countries, Romania, Austria, and Scandinavia. A particularly showy variety of these dances known as "rapper dances" began in England in the 19th century, peaked in the period between the World Wars, and is still going strong today; many other places have either preserved or revived their sword dance traditions as well. In dancing these dances today, performers continue a custom which connects them to the medieval bourgeoisie and so to over six centuries of history.

Authenticity, Comprehension, "Matona," Folklore, and Musical Performance

The first time I ever heard "Matona, Mia Cara" I knew the lovely Italian Renaissance text was entirely beyond my comprehension, but musically I felt I'd heard enough choral music to feel like I had some sense of what I was hearing anyhow.

I was wrong.