y. The songs of peasant-folk
long dead, songs of love and war, parting and death, prospered and spread
in the London streets and workrooms like the news of victory. We were
very well used to find in these singers apt and willing learners; we were
also used to note that whatsoever we had found to teach them hitherto,
passed, when the performance was done, into forgetfulness: we were
totally unused to find this fertility and resonance follow, as it
followed upon the teaching of the Folk-songs. It was like a sowing and a
full harvest in a place where, until now, we had tilled all but
unavailingly.

Forbye Folk-songs, the collector had noted, some seven years before, a
set of Morris tunes from Kimber, leader of the Headington (Oxon) men;
these had lain until now unused. Seeing the Folk-music fall upon such
good ground and flourish so amazingly, even amongst these quick-witted
Londoners, strangers to the countryside, it naturally suggested itself to
him that here was the opportunity, so long desired, to wake the Morris
from its long sleep. Anybody not deaf and blind, or unobservant as a
stone, knows that the genius of dancing is born in the London girl of the
people, as surely as in children of the sun.

We had Kimber and his cousin up to town; and the result of their coming
far outran our fondest anticipations. The Morris, like that magic
beanstalk, seemed to outwit the laws of nature: we saw it in the heart of
London rise up from its long sleep before our very eyes. In connection
with this affair, the mention of that well-beloved fable is appropriate
and irresistible. The first dance that was set before these
Londoners--upon this occasion which we enthusiasts make bold to call
historic--was Bean-setting. It represents the setting of the seed in
springtime. Of course the music, its lilt and the steps that their
forefathers had footed to it in the olden time, were as little known to
these, the London born, as the tongue and ceremonial of old Peru. As
little known, yet not strange at all; it was a summons never heard until
now, yet instantly obeyed; because, though unfamiliar and unforeseen, it
was of England and came, even though it was centuries upon the way, to
kinsfolk. Let the precisian explain it as he may, that is our way of
accounting for an experience both fruitful and astounding. Within half an
hour of the coming of these Morris-men we saw the Bean-setting--its
thumping and clashing of staves, its intricate figures