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Dance names
The names of morris dances under go a fascinating process of Chinese Whispers.
I just found a dance on You Tube called 'White Ladies of Aston'.
The usual name of the dance is 'White Ladies Aston' named for the the village where it was recorded. It's an unusual name for a village, so you can see how the name change occurred.
Another one I've found is "Fiddler's Lock", which was originally named after an old gypsy violin player - 'Fiddler Locke' (and danced to one of his tunes).
Sometimes a dance gets named after the tune used. We hope to learn 'Dancing Oolert', but we'll probably use a different tune. However, we'll probably still call it 'Oolert' rather than its original name of 'Rochester Thistle' which was changed to 'Witchmen's Thistle' by teams who learnt it from the Witchmen...
It is quite possible that the 'East Acton Stick Dance' (which I saw danced last night at a morris gathering) isn't actually from East Acton at all, but originates from a 50s TV show by Tony Hancock!
Anonymous's own dance "All Around my Hat" (which naturally involves dancing around a hat), is actually danced to "All around my hat, I will wear the green willow".
I just found a dance on You Tube called 'White Ladies of Aston'.
The usual name of the dance is 'White Ladies Aston' named for the the village where it was recorded. It's an unusual name for a village, so you can see how the name change occurred.
Another one I've found is "Fiddler's Lock", which was originally named after an old gypsy violin player - 'Fiddler Locke' (and danced to one of his tunes).
Sometimes a dance gets named after the tune used. We hope to learn 'Dancing Oolert', but we'll probably use a different tune. However, we'll probably still call it 'Oolert' rather than its original name of 'Rochester Thistle' which was changed to 'Witchmen's Thistle' by teams who learnt it from the Witchmen...
It is quite possible that the 'East Acton Stick Dance' (which I saw danced last night at a morris gathering) isn't actually from East Acton at all, but originates from a 50s TV show by Tony Hancock!
Anonymous's own dance "All Around my Hat" (which naturally involves dancing around a hat), is actually danced to "All around my hat, I will wear the green willow".

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Ah, I know that song! Steeleye Span did a version of it.
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Brrrrrrrr!
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BTW, note that my comment in the original post about 'East Acton Stick Dance' was wrong. I've now pinned it down in unbelievable detail.
It was actually a sketch by the Goons, a famous radio comedy trio. See https://www.anonymousmorris.co.uk/dances/eastacton.html
It's also a very useful dance.
Look up the Goons on Internet Archive or You Tube - they're still funny even now. My dad was a fan, my kids enjoyed them. My granddaughter was laughing when I recently introduced her, and she wants to hear more.
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