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the Father, and so go forth to that which lieth before us. He bade us
therefore make as it were a ring, holding one another's hands, and himself
standing in the midst he said: Answer Amen unto me. He began, then, to sing
an hymn and to say: Glory be to thee, Father. And we, going about in a ring,
answered him: Amen. (95) I would be saved, and I would save. Amen. I would
be washed, and I would wash. Amen. Grace danceth; I would pipe; dance ye
all. Amen. I would mourn; lament ye all. Amen. The number Eight (lit: one
ogdoad) singeth praise with us. Amen. The number Twelve danceth on high.
Amen. The Whole on high hath part in our dancing. Amen. Whoso danceth not,
knoweth not what cometh to pass. Amen. I would flee, and I would stay. Amen.
(96) Now answer thou unto my dancing. Behold thyself in me who speak, and
seeing what I do, keep silence about my mysteries. Thou that dancest,
perceive what I do, for thine is this passion of the manhood, which I am
about to suffer. Thy god am I, not the god of the traitor. I would keep tune
with holy souls. I have leaped; but do thou understand the whole, and having
understood it, say: Glory be to the Father. Amen. (97) Thus, my beloved,
having danced with us the Lord went forth." The early date of this singing
dance shows the importance attached to this mode of worship, which though
heathen in origin was transferred to the religious services of the
Christians as though with the sanction of the Founder of the religion.
The ring dance was regarded as a sinister ceremony by the priestly
authorities who were engaged in suppressing the Old Religion during the
Middle Ages. Boguet compares the round dance of the witches with that of the
fairies, whom he stigmatises as "devils incarnate".[70] The ring usually
moved to the left, but where as in France the dancers faced outwards the
movement was widdershins, against the sun. The Aberdeen witches[71] were
accused of dancing devilish dances round the Market and Fish Crosses of the
town, and also round a great stone at Craigleauch.
The ring dance has shared the fate of many religious rites and has become an
amusement for children. Some such dances have a person as the central
object, round whom the whole ring turns. Those which have no central figure
are usually imitative dances, like Mulberry Bush, where the original actions
were undoubtedly not so simple and innocent as those now performed. In parts
60
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of Belgium the children still dance in a ring with the performers facing
outwards.
The immense importance of the dance as a religious ceremony and an act of
adoration of the Deity is seen by the attitude of the Church towards it. In
589 the third Council of Toledo[72], forbade the people to dance in churches
on the vigils of saints' days. In 1209[73] the Council of Avignon
promulgated a similar prohibition. As late as the seventeenth century the
apprentices of York danced in the nave of the Minster.[74] Even at the
present day the priest and choristers of the cathedral at Seville dance in
front of the altar on Shrove Tuesday and at the feasts of Corpus Christi and
of the Immaculate Conception; while at Echternach in Luxembourg on[75]
Whit-Tuesday the priest, accompanied by choir and congregation, dances to
.
church and round the altar.
The sacred dance is undoubtedly pre-Christian, and nothing can emphasise
more strongly its hold on the minds of the people than its survival after
many centuries of Christianity. Not only has it survived but it has actually
been incorporated into the rites of the new religion, and we see it still
danced by priests and worshippers of the new faith in their holiest precints
just as it was danced by priests and worshippers in the very earliest dawn
of religion.
The music to which the worshippers danced was a source of great interest to
some of the recorders, and accounts are very varied. It was not uncommon for
the Grandmaster himself to be the performer, even when he led the dance; but
there was often a musician who played for the whole company. The usual
instruments were the flute, the pipe, the trump or Jew's harp, and in France
the violin. But there were others in vogue also. The musical bow of the
little masked figure of the Palaeolithic era (plate II) is very primitive,
the player is dancing to his own music as the Devil so often did in
Scotland. The flute as an instrument for magical purposes occurs in Egypt at
the very dawn of history, when a masked man plays on it in the midst of
animals. The panpipes, as their name implies, belong specially to a god who
was disguised as an animal.
In Lorraine in 1589[76] the musical instruments were extraordinarily
primitive. Besides small pipes, which were played by women, a man "has a
horse's skull which he plays as a cyther. Another has a cudgel with which he
strikes an oak-tree, which gives out a note and an echo like a kettle drum
or a military drum. The Devil sings in a hoarse shout, exactly as if he
trumpeted through his nose so that a roaring wooden voice resounds through
the wide air. The whole troop together shout, roar, bellow, howl, as if they
were demented and mad." The French witches were apparently appreciative of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]