Sword Dance Research Articles

Pictorial Documentation of Court Entertainment Dance during the Daehan Empire

This paper identifies the repertoire, gender of the dancers, and the most popular court entertainment dances during the Daehan Empire, and analyzes selected changes in these dances as depicted in Records of Court Banquets, an invaluable source of information on the types of court banquets and certain aspects of some of the dances performed. The court entertainment dances performed during the Daehan Empire were in large part based on those danced in 1892. The most interesting feature of the court banquets held in April 1902 was the revival of dances such as the Double Large Drum Dance, Double Sword Dance, and Double Ball-throwing Dance, which had not been performed since they were first created in 1795, 108 years earlier. In order to develop a fuller understanding of changes, however, an in-depth analysis of accompanying music and singing, costumes employed, and movements used must be carried out. The scope of this paper focuses on what can be seen in the paintings.

Dancing from the Past to the Present: Nation, Culture, Identities (review)

Reviewed by: Dancing from the Past to the Present: Nation, Culture, Identities Kathy Foley Dancing from the Past to the Present: Nation, Culture, Identities. Edited by Theresa Jill Buckland. Studies in Dance History series. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007. 320 pp. 32 black and white photos, 6 maps, 2 illustrations. Cloth $55.00, paper $24.95. This compilation of nine essays includes four on Asian or Pacific topics. The opening essay by the editor effectively notes the history of contemporary dance studies within the larger nexus of new history, cultural studies, and performance studies. The most provocative essays are the ones written by dance [End Page 397] scholars who have spent a lifetime studying the genres they discuss. Adrienne Kaeppler's "Dances and Dancing in Tonga: Anthropological and Historical Discourses" emphasizes a diachronic analysis of the Tongan laka laka, showing how choreographies influence later work as she compares accounts from Captain Cook's voyage in 1777 with pictorial and late nineteenth-century accounts, with work she saw as a young anthropologist in 1964, and with dances for the eightieth birthday celebration of King Tauf'ahau Tupou IV in 1998. This essay shows a comprehensive command of the history and genre. Judy Van Zile's "Interpreting the Historical Record: Using Images of Korean Dance for Understanding the Past" questions the presumed usefulness of historical paintings for drawing conclusions about dance practices of the past. Her points are well argued in relationship to the two specific Korean dances that she details: "Ch'ōnyongmu," an important mask dance with exorcistic implications that has been documented in court records since the late thirteenth century, and "Chinju kommu," a sword dance from the city of Chinju. Janet O'Shea's "Dancing through History and Ethnography: Indian Classical Dance" details her movement from an embedded student of Balasaraswati style bharatanatyam to an ethnographer with a historically nuanced understanding of the wider tradition. Felicia Hughes-Freeland's "Constructing a Classical Tradition: Javanese Court Dance in Indonesia" demystifies the court bedhaya tradition of Java. These two essays are by scholars whose work is now reaching full maturity. This set of essays would be of use as a text in a world dance or anthropology of performance class. Additional essays deal with Romani performance, Yugoslav dance, English Morris dance, and dance in New Mexico's pueblos. All the essays are useful models of researchers who are moving between ethnography, historical research, and movement analysis. Kathy Foley University of California–Santa Cruz Copyright © 2008 University of Hawai'i Press

A study on the digitalization of the intangible cultural assets related to motion(jin-ju sword dance) and the prototype of information system for the contents development

A study on the digitalization of the intangible cultural assets related to motion(jin-ju sword dance) and the prototype of information system for the contents development

Highland Dance: Heart-Rate and Blood Lactate Differences Between Competition and Class

This study looked at the physiological effects of performance in Highland-dance competition to consider whether the traditional methods used during class and rehearsal provide an appropriate training stimulus toward this performance. Nine championship standard, female Highland dancers (age 14.2 +/- 1.47 years) had their heart rate and blood lactate concentrations measured before and after 3 dances during a championship competition. Heart rate was also measured during the same 3 dances in rehearsal and during class. Repeated-measures analysis of variance showed significant differences in predance lactate concentrations between the first dance (Highland Fling, 1.4 +/- 0.3 mM/L), the second dance (Sword dance, 2.3 +/- 0.8 mM/L), and the third dance (Sean Truibhas, 3.5 +/- 1.8 mM/L; F2,16 = 11.72, P < .01. This, coupled with a significant rise in lactate concentration during the dances (F1,8 = 76.75, P < .001), resulted in a final postdance lactate concentration of 7.3 +/- 2.96 mM/L. Heart-rate data during competition, rehearsal, and class (195.0 +/- 6.5, 172.6 +/- 5.4, and 151.9 +/- 7.4 beats/min, respectively) showed significant differences between all 3 (F2,16 = 107.1, P < .001); these are comparable to research on other dance forms. Given the disparity between the anaerobic predominance of competition and the aerobic predominance during class, it is suggested that the class does not provide an appropriate training stimulus as preparation for competitive performance in Highland dance.

Walter Toscanini, Bibliophile and Collector, and the Cia Fornaroli Collection of The New York Public Library

The first dance items of what is now known as the Cia Fornaroli Collection entered the New York Public Library in 1954, do nated by Walter Toscanini, the eldest child of the great conductor Arturo Toscanini, in memory of his wife, Cia Fornaroli, a cele brated dancer. Walter was a collector with a mission: to document Italy's dance heritage and give it the recognition he felt it lacked. Despite the importance of that heritage in the birth and develop ment of theatrical dance in Europe, at least until the end of the nineteenth century, no history of Italian dance then existed?and still does not. However, the fact that such a history can now be writ ten is mainly the result of Walter Toscanini's collection of material that covers nearly five centuries of dance history. Some documents may be found at other libraries and archives, but only at the Jerome

Early Asian Drama: Conversations and Convergences

Introduction The idea for this special issue began as a proposal for a double session on the convergences of Eastern and Western Drama for the International Congress on Studies at Kalamazoo in the spring of 2003. Entitled East Meets West in Drama, these sessions were intended to provide an opportunity to initiate a dialogue and to engage in a broader discussion of an area of drama that had not previously been addressed in a venue of its own at the Congress before. The two-part session, located that year in one of the infrequently used and out-of-the-way buildings on the campus of Western Michigan University (Sangren Hall), drew a modest audience of interested conferees, some more knowledgeable on the subject than others, but all there to share what they knew and to learn more of what they did not know. What became apparent from the active exchange of information and the sharing of firsthand viewing experiences was that another series of sessions would be necessary to continue the discussion we had just initiated. With that in mind, the next year brought further development of the topic, a broadening of its parameters, and a decision to feature mixed-media presentations, one by Max Harris on the Croatian sword dance (written with Lada Cale Feldman) (1) and another by Zvika Serper, which included a live performance. Two of the essays in this special issue derive from that early beginning--Mikiko Ishii's analysis of weeping mothers in Japanese Noh and early English drama and Serper's discussion of the complementarity of Noh and Kyogen drama. The three other essayists and their topics--Dongchoon Lee on the carnivalesque function of Korean mask dance, Min Tian on the script markings of Chinese Yuan zaju, and Cecilia Pang on the history and development of Chinese opera in the United States--were added along the way to expand the purview of the subject as well as to demonstrate the range and adaptability of Asian modes of drama. Whether read individually or in conjunction with one another the work presented here initiates a project rich in implications for contemporary audiences both expert and novice. Early Asian drama, subject to change, and adaptable to the surrounding sociopolitical environment whatever that environment might be, was at the same time able to retain distinctively traditional characteristics: skills and performance techniques, instrumental and vocal music, dance, gesture, costume, masking, and script markings to name a few. From folk drama to more formalized presentations, these plays engage their respective audiences and encourage both imaginative and physical interaction in the symbolic world they engender. Whether high or low, whether artfully stylized or profoundly parochial, the symbolic meanings of colors and shapes, of gestures and props, of masks and movement, transport their audiences to an otherworld, one jarringly unusual yet at the same time comfortingly familiar. It is in the realm of the symbolic, these plays seem to suggest, that certain truths about human existence can be expressed most openly even when those truths are represented as frequently by visual juxtapositions, percussive instrumentation, and nonverbal modes of communication as they are by verbal expression. Despite the most obvious differences between Asian drama and its Western counterpart, the many points of convergence and familiarity of themes--for example, the loss of a loved one, the disenfranchisement or alienation of self or community--suggest the presence of an underlying effort to address the circumstances and conditions of human experience from the most fundamental of family interactions to the place of humanity in the larger scheme of things. In the essay that launches the collection Dongchoon Lee maps out the operations of such themes in Korean drama. Entitled Medieval Korean Drama: The Pongsan Mask Dance Lee's focus on mask dance, a form he calls a composite art demonstrates how dance, music, and symbolic meaning converge in carnivalesque fashion to defuse the frustrations of the common people. …

Blackened Faces and a Veiled Woman: The Early Korčula Moreška

Mock battles between Moors (or Turks) and Christians are one of the most popular features of the folk theatrical repertoire almost anywhere that Spanish culture was once dominant. Beginning, perhaps, in the late thirteenth century, and varying in form from small dances to massive street theater, they are still immensely popular along Spain's Mediterranean coast and throughout much of Latin America. Scholars have tended to pay most attention to the traditions westward travels from Spain to the Americas, where the conquered peoples often insinuated a hidden transcript of indigenous resistance into the public transcript of European Catholic triumph. (1) But the tradition also traveled eastward to parts of Italy and Germany under Spanish rule and, further, to parts of eastern Europe not ruled by but engaged in trade and diplomatic relations Spain. One such place in eastern Europe where the tradition still thrives is the medieval walled city of Korcula on the Croatian island of the same name. The island of Korcula sits in the Adriatic Sea, close to the mainland and about equidistant between Split and Dubrovnik. Known to Greek antiquity, because of its thick woods, as Korkyra Melaina (Black Korcula) and to the Romans as Corcyra Nigra, its strategic position on the Adriatic trade route between Europe and the East has meant that the island has been governed by external imperial powers for much of its history. Venice, the most frequent and longstanding of these, ruled the island for a brief period after 1000 and, again, in 1125/29-1180, 1254-1358, and 1420-1797. (2) Korculan attitudes to Venetian rule were ambivalent at best. In the last and longest of these periods, the only realistic alternative to Christian rule by Venice was Muslim rule by the Ottoman Turks. Korculans, according to Vinko Foretic, grudgingly preferred the former, with all its evils, to the latter. (3) Testimony to an enduring Korculan resentment of Venetian rule can also be found in the still popular legend of the Crnomiri (Black Peace) brothers, reputed to have led an uprising against the first Venetian duke of Korcula, Petar Orseolo, in 1000. (4) The island has a rich heritage of traditional sword dances. Five villages boast kumpanije (companies) whose members perform a linked sword dance, varying slightly from one village to the next. (5) The city of Korcula has two groups that perform a traditional moreska, a mock-combat sword dance in which two sides, variously identified as Whites and Blacks, Christians and Moors, or Turks and Moors, clash swords over the fate of a veiled young woman. The dramatic narrative of the moreska clearly locates the dance in the widespread tradition of mock battles among Muslims and Christians mentioned earlier. The authors of this article have seen the moreska performed on several different occasions: at the opening ceremony of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival; at the opening of Korcula's annual Festival of Sword Dances, organized since 1997 by the island's Tourist Board; and in its traditional setting on 29 July, the feast day of Sveti Todor (St. Theodore). The traditional moreska on the feast day of Sveti Todor used to last a full two hours. To cater to the recent influx of tourists, the dance is now performed some fifty times a year in a shortened version, lasting only half an hour. The longer version, which involved more repetitions of the same dance figures, is no longer staged. (6) Today's moreska begins a scene in which the Black (Moorish) King drags the chained and veiled Bula (Muslim woman) into the playing area. He pleads his love. She protests her allegiance to the White King, whom she calls by the distinctively Turkish name Osman. The two armies follow, each consisting of an equal number of dancers, usually between eight and twelve apiece. After a vaunting exchange between the Black and White Kings, the two sides perform a series of seven figures, in which clashing swords cause frequent sparks to fly. …

The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain

The Origins of Christmas The Twelve Days The Trials of Christmas Rites of Celebration and Reassurance Rites of Purification and Blessing Rites of Hospitality and Charity Mummers' Play and Sword Dance Hobby-Horse and Horn Dance Misrule The Reinvention of Christmas Speeding the Plough Brigid's Night Candlemas Valentines Shrovetide Lent The Origins of Easter Holy Week An Egg at Easter The Easter Holidays England and St George Beltane The May May Games and Whitsun Ales Morris and Marian Rogationtide and Pentecost Royal Oak A Merrie May Corpus Christi The Midsummer Fires Sheep, Hay, and Rushes First Fruits Harvest Home Wakes, Revels, and Hoppings Samhain Saints and Souls The Modern Hallowe'en Blood Month and Virgin Queen Gunpowder Treason Conclusions.

The Dances of the Processions of Seville in Spain's Golden Age (review)

REVIEWS Brooks, Lynn Matluck. The Dances of the Processions of Seville in Spain's Golden Age. Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 1988. 41 1 pp. Brooks' monograph is a comprehensive history of the dances that accompanied Sevillian religious celebrations, particularly the feast of Corpus Christi, which in the Golden Age was at least as ostentatious and costly as current Holy Week processions. She explores every aspect of the performances: history, choreography, costumes, music and the convoluted economic arrangements involving the City Council, dance directors and financial underwriters. First Brooks reviews the Church's ambivalent attitude toward the dance: its proscription of secular dance as pagan and erotic and its perfunctory endorsement of sacred dance as an expression of joy and harmony (2). Yet in Spain, particularly in Seville, not only the religious dance of the seises but courtly danzas de sarao and popular danzas de cascabeles sponsored by the City Council became indispensable features of Corpus Christi processions and reached their zenith in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In fact they were a matter of local pride, reflecting the wealth, flamboyance, and religiosity of the city. Each dance, Brooks explains, "had its own title, separate performers and musicians, special costumes, and distinct choreography" (37). The Corpus Christi celebration began at 4:00 AM when the participants assembled outside the cathedral. They entered the church where each group performed in the nave. There were so many participants that the procession did not leave the cathedral until 10:00 AM, whereupon it made its way through the city streets. Included, in addition to the dances, were such traditional modes of entertainment as the tarasca, gigantes, cabezudos and the autos sacramentales mounted on pageant wagons. Chapter HI traces the history, training, music and dance of the seises, also called cantorcicos, cantorcicos seises and seisicos. Theirs was the only religious dance officially sponsored by the cathedral. The seises performed at the feasts of the Holy Spirit and Immaculate Conception; also at the fiesta del obispillo when one of their own was crowned bishop. On Corpus Christi day they 163 164BCom, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Summer 1992) danced around the custodia, the elegant feretory containing the Host, as it was carried through the streets. We know, too, that the seises impersonated the angels and shepherds in Nativity plays staged in the cathedral under the guidance of professional directors. Thus they become an important element in the origins of the Spanish stage. The dance of the seises, unlike the dances sponsored by the municipality, was executed "with the greatest seriousness and composure" (125) as it imitated the pavana and other courtly Renaissance dances. Chapter IV emphasizes the uniqueness of the Corpus Christi dances sponsored by the city, for, unlike the dances that were incorporated into Christmas plays, those for Corpus Christi remained detached from a written text. The so called "regular" dances which included the tarasca and sword dance, were expanded by the danzas de invenciones, original creations that elaborated historical and allegorical themes. Unfortunately, with the exception of a few details recorded on "scrawled, hasty-looking scraps [of paper]" (153) little is known about their choreography, probably because of the absence of an effective system of dance notation. The danzas de sarao, aristocratic invenciones, elaborated pastoral themes offering a highly romanticized image of the shepherd 's life. They boasted brilliantly costumed dancers who executed complex geometric patterns in a show of technical virtuosity designed to dazzle the general public. Other invenciones exploited the heterogeneity of Renaissance society: represented were various "naciones" such as gypsies, Moors, Negroes, Turks, French, Portuguese, all elegantly attired. Specific dances included thepavana, gallarda, torneo, turdión, baja, alta, alemana, españoleta, as well as dances of popular origin, folia, villano, chacona, canario, which had infiltrated high society. The popular danzas de cascabeles were "actionpacked " dances in which "story, action, music and costumes created a unified statement" (173). Moreover, the story was not necessarily popular; rather there were such biblical themes as David and Goliath and Queen Elena's discovery of the cross. The dance steps anticipated modern flamenco. These were noisy performances with hand clapping and foot stamping. The bells (cascabeles ) sewn to the dancers' costumes only increased the racket. Chapter V elaborates...

The English Long Sword Dance: A Comparison between Two Contemporary Traditional Teams

Almost without exception, men's rituel and ceremonial dances in England are performed with implements (Cawte et al. 1960). Cecil Sharp started notating the morris dances in the early years of the twentieth century, and concentrated his attention on the morris dances of the South Midlands, in the counties of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire (Sharp, 1907, 1909, 1910, 1911a, 1913a). These dances were generally performed by sis men in the period around Whit Monday in May or June. The dancers performed with handkerchiefs or short sticks which were struck together during the dances. Sha.rp largely ignored the morris dances from other areas of England, such as the 'Border' morris from the counties on the border between England and Wales. These dances were performed at the Christmas and New Year period and the dancers used sticks which were struck together during the dances (Cawte, 1963). Sharp completely ignored the morris dances of the north-west of England, from the counties of Lancashire and Cheshire. These dances were generally for eight men, danced in clogs or heavy shoes in a summertime procession. The dancers carried short sticks or pieces of cotton rope which they twirled during the dances (Howison and Bentley, 1960; Buckland, 1984). Although Sharp first saw morris dancing in 1899, he did not start to notate the dances until 1905. In 1910 he was told about the sword dances of the north of England, and in 1911 he published the first of three books of sword dance notations. In total, nine long sword dances and five short sword dances were published by Sharp (Sharp, 191 lb, 1912, 1913b). The long sword dances all came from the county of Yorkshire, from the area around Sheffield in South Yorkshire, from the Vale of York area and from the Cleveland EIills region. The swords are made from wood or rigid metal, about ninety centimetres long by three centimetres wide. The swords are not sharp and have a handle at one end. The short sword dances (the swords are

"Chinju Kommu": An Implement Dance of Korea

A prominent feature of many traditional dances of Korea is the manipulation of hand-held objects. These objects range from such things as fans and scarves to drum sticks and swords or knives. The purpose of this paper is to describe one sword dance performed today. I will briefly discuss its historical background, give a summary description of the dance, and then shift attention to the use of the implement.

Cecil Sharp and the Handsworth Sword Dancers 1913–1924

THIS account describes the visit made by Cecil Sharp to Handsworth in Sheffield to observe and record the Handsworth Sword Dance prior to its publication in The Sword Dances of Northern England volume III, in 1913. It is not concerned with the details of the dance itself, nor, except incidentally, with the better-known sources such as Sharp's manuscript notebooks. The main purpose is to illustrate a small part of his work on traditional English dance by means of an unusually complete series of letters, some from the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library of the English Folk Dance and Song Society and some, rather more in number, still in the possession of the Handsworth team. Although these often tell only one side of the story, as is often the case with letter collections, they nevertheless give a good idea of Sharp's methods and of attitudes on both sides to dancing and dance-collecting immediately before and after the First World War.

A New Theory of Morris Origins: A Review Article

dance research in recent years, but few people have dared to pronounce on the origin of the dance (or rather dances). Forrest himself is appropriately diffident about theories of the 'origin' of Morris dancing, writing in his 'Historical Survey of the Morris' (p. 15): 'To attempt to discover the pure or original morris dance is a lost cause.' He sets his sights lower, concentrating on the ancestry of the Cotswold Morris dances. The purpose of the book is twofold: to demonstrate that Cotswold Morris dances performed in the nineteenth century, collected by Sharp and others, are descended from the European matachin dance of the sixteenth century; and to expound a general model for comparing dances. Previous attempts to divine the origins of English Morris dances have foundered, Forrest writes, because they have selected disparate elements from different dance traditions to fit preconceived ideas about pagan fertility rites. Closer examination of the geographical distribution of the dance indicates that the 'pagan fertility rites' origin cannot be substantiated. In order to analyse dances as a whole we need a rigorous analytical model which can be applied to dance traditions for point-bypoint comparison. Forrest provides such a model, enabling us to compare dances on fifty-one points of similarity or difference. These are grouped under eight general headings: (A) Setting, (B) Dance Group Structure and Composition, (C) Musicians, (D) Music, (E) Costume, (F) Individual Body Movements, (G) Group Movements, and (H) Social Function. As an initial exercise Forrest uses the model to rebut Sharp's contention that sword dance, Morris and mummers' play contain common elements. So far I am in agreement with Forrest. When he puts his model to further use I begin to disagree with both the way in which he applies the model and the material to which he applies it. Forrest first of all examines British Morris in the period 1458-1650. This is the best part of the book. He distinguishes three different types of Morris dance: a processional dance by the guilds through city streets; a 'ring' dance with chironomic and 'antic' limb movements, round a central female figure; and a solo jig. Each is described in terms of the model. The processional has the disadvantage that only three of the eight sections (A, B and H) and eight of the potential fifty-one points of reference are known and so available for comparison. The ring dance is better represented, with twenty of the fifty-one points known. One feels, however, that Forrest has already decided which dance references go together, and that the points listed in the analytical model represent a subjective composite of various, not necessarily identical, dances. This is brought out more fully in his analysis of the solo jig. Forrest combines three accounts of solo dances that were called 'Morris'-two English, one French. The information from the sources is sometimes contradictory. For example, under 'Body Parts Emphasized' Forrest gives 'arms and legs' or 'legs and feet,' depending on the source used.

The Politics of Brutality: Toward a Definition of the Critical Volksstück

The critical Volksstiick, which has been enjoying a new vogue on the West German stage, is a dramatic genre alien to the Anglo-American tradition, and although recent English works like Bond's Saved, Pinter's earliest plays, or dramas of the kitchen-sink school could be related to it, no one would call them folk plays. The term "folk play" in English would rather designate unliterary, impromptu dramatic performances like the mumming play that are usually accompanied by song and dance (sword dance, morris dance) and given at village festivals by the villagers themselves. These plays usually treat the themes of death and resurrection, honor local worthies, or celebrate heroic feats. Since this term does exist in English and does refer to a historical form of the drama, the German term "Volksstück" will be retained throughout this paper.

The Beginnings of Drama in Scotland

The drama in Scotland, as in other countries of Western Europe, emerged from ancient pagan rites. Remnants of these rituals became Christianized. The extant information about these early folk entertainments, which is meager and tentative, exists mainly in ecclesiastical edicts suppressing these festivities. The sword dance, morris dance, and mummers' play all are outgrowths of dances and fertility rites associated with the four seasons. These ceremonies of pagan inspiration developed into plays of a more literary character, such as representations of St. George and of Robin Hood. Guisards, or players who performed on various holidays, were familiar figures in sixteenth-century Scotland.

Sword Dance and Drama

Sword Dance and Drama

Sword Dance and Drama. Violet Alford. (The Merlin Press, 112 Whitfield Street, London, W.i, 1962.) 222 pp. 30s.

Sword Dance and Drama. Violet Alford. (The Merlin Press, 112 Whitfield Street, London, W.i, 1962.) 222 pp. 30s.

Sword Dance and Drama

Sword Dance and Drama

Notes on the Brueghel Exhibition, 1943–44

THE exhibition of paintings by the Brueghels and their school which was held in the Eugene Slatter Gallery, Bond Street, last winter, has a great deal to say to folklorists, dancers and musicians as well as to artists. Certain of Brueghel's dancing figures have become stock illustrations in histories of dance, but these are nearly always lifted from their surroundings so that inferences as to occasions, and reasons for their dancing are impossible. They are, for the most part, but a part of scenes rich in folk custom, and study of their environment and the figures about them is of the first importance. No. I in the catalogue. The celebrated Kermesse at Hoboken by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, dated 1559, a pen drawing with bistre tints, shows a Ring dance, at that date probably a Carole, round two children sitting in its centre. I do not think these children have any ritual or choreographic significance. They may have been put there for safety by their parents who wanted to dance. Just so have I seen small children inside a Sardana ring. Two musicians play their bagpipes for the dance, while in another part of the crowded fair-ground one couple dances a pair dance outside the inn. The village Fool in a cap with ears, kindly leads two children by the hand. This constantly recurring village Fool, so closely allied in dress to the Court Fool, is a most interesting figure. No. 2. In the catalogue this is called Celebration of St. George's Day, by Pieter Brueghel the Younger. He worked between about 1580 and 1638. This is the famous picture showing a Sword dance, St. George and the Dragon, and a Country dance, all going on in the same village on the local Patronal feast. I do not think it is St. George's Day for the trees are in full leaf, which would be unseasonable, to say the least of it, in a village in Flanders. But there is no need to confine St. George's appearance to his own festival. Does he not come out at Midwinter in our own Mummers' plays? He is much in favour to-day at town and village feasts in the Netherlands and Belgium, appearing at the patronal festivals and at Carnival, in company with the Dragon and many small hobby horses, as well as with the giant hobby horse, Bayard, whose long back accommodates the Quatre Fils d'Aymon. The ecclesiastical procession ambulating the churchyard in the background of the picture, shows men bearing chasses on each of which is a statue. The first one is that of a Bishop, probably the Patron Saint of the village and certainly not St. George. This picture has been used for an explanation of the Baccubert Sword dance of Dauphin6 by a local enthusiast, who, knowing no other possibility, imagined that Pieter Brueghel on his travels had passed through the tiny hamlet of Pont de Cervibres-though it is quite off any ordinarily used route to Italy-and had been so struck with the Sword dance that he introduced this French-Alpine rite into his Flemish village scene. Such a proceeding was about as alien to a Brueghel homely and tradi-

The Meaning of "The Shulammite"

In 1934 E. J. Goodspeed contributed to this Journal' a short note on The Shulammite, in which he criticized view, common in present-day commentaries, that word is equivalent of the Shunammite, or native of Shunem, and proposed to understand word as feminine of Solomon, just as Judith is feminine of Judah and Jeanne of Jean. He noted that Erbt had recognized that Shulammith is feminine of Shelomo, and referred to efforts of more recent Tammuz theorists to bring name into connection with a deity whose name is feminine counterpart of that which lies behind Solomon. But Goodspeed desired rather to use connection in service of Wetzstein-Budde wedding theory of Song, and claimed that it provided a striking confirmation of that theory, remarking that the simplicity and obviousness of this suggestion make one wonder that it has not been dealt with before. Finally, he suggested that it may not be an accident that the Shulammite occurs in connection with sword dance, and in New Testament lady who entranced Herod Antipas by her dancing was named Salome, which is feminine of Solomon.