Goathland Plough Stots
{{Short description|Traditional dancing group from Yorkshire, England}}
{{Use British English|date=December 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2021}}
The Goathland Plough Stots are a team of long sword dancers based in the village of Goathland, North Yorkshire, England. The traditional dance that they perform had died out by the start of the twentieth century but was revived in 1923. The team were expelled from the Morris Ring for allowing women to be trained in the art of the dance, the tradition being that it is a male-only dance. The Goathland Plough Stots dance is recognised as one of the oldest in England, with a history dating back more than a thousand years.
History
The long sword dance dates back to the time of the Viking invasions in England, with the dance and associated play acted out by the Goathland Plough Stots recognised as one of the oldest dances of its type in England,{{cite news |last1=Lloyd |first1=Chris |title=Are the bells tolling for a great English tradition? |work=The Northern Echo |date=6 January 2009 |page=3|issn=2043-0442|url=https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/4023017.bells-tolling-great-english-tradition/}} dating back over a thousand years.{{cite news |title=Funding helps to prolong dance tradition |url=https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/7066154.funding-helps-prolong-dance-tradition/ |access-date=7 December 2021 |work=The Northern Echo |date=22 July 2002}}{{dubious|"one of the oldest in England"?|date=March 2025}} Various other locations across the North Riding of Yorkshire) had groups that performed similar long sword dances;{{#tag:ref|The locations given in Yorkshire are ones that have a traditional long sword dance, different from the short (or rapier) dances which were prevalent in County Durham and Northumberland.|name=Short versus long|group=note}} Egton, Flamborough, Sleights and Staithes.{{sfn|Dowson|1947|p=95}} When Cecil Sharp notarised and formalised the dances and tunes of the traditional village dances he ignored the Goathland dance on account of it being "too similar to the Sleights dance."{{cite journal |last1=Ridden |first1=Geoffrey |title=The Goathland Plough Monday Customs |journal=Folk Music Journal |date=1974 |volume=2 |issue=5 |page=352 |publisher=English Folk Dance and Song Society |location=London |issn=0531-9684}}
In the 18th and 19th centuries almost every village in Eskdale had a long sword dance team. By the time that Cecil Sharp had visited this area of North Yorkshire in the early part of the 20th century only Sleights and Goathland still had their teams. Other dances were to be found across North Yorkshire, concentrated around York and the ironstone-mining communities of Boosbeck and Lingdale.{{cite book |last1=Kennedy |first1=Douglas |title=English folk dancing : today and yesterday |date=1964 |publisher=G Bell |location=London |page=58|oclc=903226670}} The Goathland Plough Stots Dance originated around Plough Monday, usually the first Monday after Epiphany, and had the dancers wearing either pink or blue tunics.{{cite web |title=Longsword |url=https://www.efdss.org/learning/resources/beginners-guides/34-english-folk-costume/2470-efdss-section9-longsword |website=efdss.org |access-date=15 October 2021 |date=20 June 2014}} It is known that the dance and the accompanying play were heavily edited when it was revived and tabulated by authors on the subject owing to its rude nature.{{cite book |last1=Brody |first1=Alan |title=The English mummers and their plays; traces of ancient mystery. |date=1970 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |location=Philadelphia |isbn=0812276116 |page=85}}
When the dance was revived in 1923 so too were the associated players and the play that accompanied the dance.{{sfn|Dowson|1947|p=99}} The dancers (or Stots) would drag a plough through the village and threaten to plough someone's garden unless they contributed funds for the young stots. An older player would dress up as a woman, known as Betty,{{cite journal |title=Memorabilia |journal=Notes and Queries for Readers and Writers, Collectors and Librarians |date=January 1925 |volume=148 |issue=5 |page=74 |publisher=Bucks Free Press |location=High Wycombe |oclc=48937892}} and another would dress up as an old man (Isaac), and they would form the gentleman and lady of the play.{{sfn|Dowson|1947|p=98}} The stots were originally the oxen that pulled the plough but later became the name by which the long sword players were known.{{cite book |last1=Peach |first1=Howard |title=Curious tales of old North Yorkshire |date=2003 |publisher=Sigma Leisure |location=Wilmslow |isbn=1850587930 |page=48}} In the revived dance, monies collected would be given to local hospitals, and after some time travelling across the local community (sometimes up to two weeks of dancing and collecting) the Plough Stots would have a feast at one of the local inns.{{cite book |last1=Burns |first1=Tom Scott |last2=Rigg |first2=Martin |title=Round and about the North Yorkshire Moors. Vol. 2, A further glimpse of the past |date=1988 |publisher=MTD Rigg |page=55|oclc=504528664}} The custom of collecting money was originally thought to be to pay for new candles that had been burnt over the twelve days of Christmas, which ended the day before Plough Monday.{{cite web |title=Plough Monday |url=https://www.efdss.org/learning/resources/beginners-guides/48-british-folk-customs-from-plough-monday-to-hocktide/3366-plough-monday |website=efdss.org |access-date=8 December 2021 |date=27 January 2015}}{{cite news |title=January 11 |url=https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/10930722.january-11/ |access-date=8 December 2021 |work=York Press |date=11 January 2014}} Additionally, the plough was blessed by a church service, which continued at Goathland into the 21st century, but is said to take places in only a few churches in the modern day.{{cite news |title=Plough Stots dance at church blessing |url=https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=AWGLNB&t=&sort=YMD_date%3AD&fld-base-0=alltext&maxresults=20&val-base-0=Goathland%20plough%20stots&docref=news/161ECF63DBEDFE70 |work=infoweb.newsbank.com |date=15 January 2017|url-access=subscription}}
In the early 2010s, recognising that the tradition was in danger of dying out, the Plough Stots started training females in the art of the dance. This meant that they were "excommunicated from the Morris Ring", the National Association of Men's Morris and Sword Dance Clubs.{{cite news |title=A joke, a skip – and a sword... |url=https://www.darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/news/10231753.a-joke-a-skip-and-a-sword/ |access-date=15 October 2021 |work=Darlington and Stockton Times |date=15 February 2013}} However, apart from a period during the Second World War, the Plough Stots have been dancing continually each Plough Monday since 1923.{{cite book |last1=Corrsin |first1=Stephen D |title=Sword dancing in Europe : a history |date=1997 |publisher=Hisarlic Press |location=Enfield Lock |isbn=1874312257 |page=84}}
Notable members
- Eliza Carthy, folk musician from the Robin Hood's Bay area, joined the team as a fiddler in her teenage years{{cite news |last1=Carthy |first1=Eliza |title=Eliza Carthy: the Goathland Plough Stots are unique – and they need your help |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/the-northerner/2014/dec/11/eliza-carthy-goathland-plough-stots-longsword-dance-team-fast-becoming-unique |access-date=15 October 2021 |work=The Guardian |date=11 December 2014}}
Notes
{{reflist|group="note"}}
References
{{reflist}}
=Sources=
- {{cite book |last1=Dowson |first1=F W |title=Goathland in history and folk-lore : including original dialect verses |date=1947 |publisher=A Brown & Sons |location=London|oclc=19826024}}
External links
- [https://www.goathlandploughstots.com/ Goathland Plough Stots website]
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWtRLLP_3t0 Film of the Plough Stots from 1939]