MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.

In earliest days of the Morris, music was made by a simple pipe, by pipe and tabour, or the bagpipe.  Of these the bagpipe was apparently the original.  An old madrigal, printed in 1660, runs thus: 

    Harke, harke, I hear the dancing
    And a nimble morris prancing;
    The bagpipe and the morris bells
    That they are not farre hence us tells;
    Come let us goe thither,
    And dance like friends together.

Since the disappearance of the bagpipe, pipe and tabour (called whittle and dub) have been, even within the memory of living men, the accepted instruments wherewith to make music and beat time for the Morris.  They are now fallen into disuse.  The pipe or whittle was of wood, really an early form of the flageolet, over a foot long; sometimes it had a metal tongue in the mouthpiece; two finger-holes and a thumb-hole to vary the note, and was played with the left hand.  From the left thumb the tabour, or dub, was suspended by a loop:  the dub was a miniature drum, elaborately made, and was beaten by a stick held in the right hand.  Pipe and tabour were sometimes played by separate men.

At the present time the music is generally played on a fiddle; though here, again, having no complete knowledge of all the traditional dancers still left among us, we offer no precise statement as to the instruments still in use.  One Morris-man we knew made music on a concertina. See plate opp. p. 22.

DRESS.

In the matter of dress, old-time accounts prove that the Morris-men indulged in considerable variety; and even amongst present-day inheritors of the tradition there are many differences.  Still, certain features may be regarded as common, and the dress of Mr. Salisbury (plate opp. p. 21), leader of the Bidford men, may be cited as typical.  The tall hat, though not universal, is the most popular and general headgear; and this dancer and his men wore a broad band of plaited ribbons on their hats some two-and-a-half inches wide, in red, green and white.  The elaborately frilled and pleated white shirt is also typical; this was tied at wrist and elbow with blue ribbons, the ends left hanging.  The breeches were of fawn-shaded corduroy, with braces of white webbing; on the braces were pinned, in front and at the back, level with the breast, rosettes of red, white and blue ribbons, the ends left hanging.  The tie was of the same blue ribbon as that in the rosettes, also with the ends long and loose.  The boots, as befitted the sturdy work they had to do, were substantial; the stockings of rough grey wool, which showed between the boots and breeches.

[Illustration:  Mr. Salisbury, leader of the Bidford morris-men (1906).]

[Illustration:  The Bidford morris side.