Allison Thompson Writer

Writing on English folk dance, Elsie J. Oxenham, Jane Austen, May Day and maypole dancing, Elsie J. Oxenham and more!

A30_Two Joans at the Abbey

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Published in 1945 but set in July through August of 1932, A30_Two Joans at the Abbey takes us into the Second Generation titles. While it is not one of my favorite titles, it is satisfactorily constructed with a nice balance of adventure and folk dancing.

There is an enormous difference in the experience of reading the Abbey Girls series in Publication Order, which is how Stella Waring and Sheila Ray organized their Island to Abbey analysis, in Reading Order, which is how this series of posts is organized, or in Random Order, which is how I (along with, I suspect, many other readers) first encountered Oxenham’s works. We don’t really need to discuss Random Order, which was confusing and sometimes frustrating, but also fun to try to puzzle out the characters and relationships. This puzzlement was not aided by Elsie’s fondness for repeating certain names: take Cecily/Cicely/Cecilia, Rosamund/Rosalind, Marjorie/Maidlin/Maribel, Joan/Janice/Jehane/Littlejan/Joan-Two/Jansy/Jean/Jen, for instance. Who are all these people?

In Reading Order, we dealt with the seven titles that form the Retrospective Titles, A4 through A10, long, long ago—way back in July of 2020. These titles focus on the exploits of young Jen Robins and her pal Jacky and the still teenaged Joan and Joy Shirley as they uncover the many secrets of the Abbey: Lady Jehane’s jewels, the Monk’s Path, and other treasures hidden by Ambrose, the lay brother who loved Jehane and who became a saintly emblem—a Guardian as it were, and I don’t use that word carelessly—of both the secrets of the Abbey and its spiritual heritage. You’ve forgotten about them, right? I know I have. [Read more…]

Camp Fire, Part I: Origins and Influences

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My paddle’s keen and bright

Flashing with silver

Follow the wild goose flight

Dip, dip and swing

Sang we thus, my sisters and I, as under the glimmer of the Corn Moon we paddled along the silvery shores of Asquam near Lake Winne-pe-sau-kee in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. (Listen to a delightful clip of the song complete with loon call and sound effects here, sung by Michael Mitchell.

This is the first of three posts on the topic of the origins and early practices of the Camp Fire movement that Elsie J. Oxenham so loved and which she incorporated in many of her books, including some of the Abbey Girls books. I should have written these earlier, back when Maidlin was shown as being more active as Guardian of her Camp Fire but, life being what it is, I didn’t. In this first post I’ll give a bird’s eye view of some of the social forces in America around 1900 that contributed to the founding of the movement. In a later post I’ll look at the activities and structure of a Camp Fire. Finally, I’ll look at some of the series books for girls that feature Camp Fire—books that to some extent EJO was competing with for readers. [Read more…]

A29_Jandy Mac Comes Back

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Published in 1941 and set in June of 1932, Abbey Time, A29_Jandy Mac Comes Back is simultaneously an important book and, I’m sorry to say, one of the two or three weakest in the EJO canon:  almost as bad as A Camp Mystery (published in 1932, set circa 1924 and part of the Camp Keema series; this installment features international Bad Guys as well as Maribel Ritchie, Rosalind Firth, and Cecily Perowne (remember them?)) or A Princess in Tatters (1908;  a stand-alone that featured a neglected child and an attempt to illegitimize her). Frankly, Oxenham didn’t know how to write either roles or plots for Bad Men as opposed to benign brothers, fathers, and lovers, and Jandy Mac features a car crash, a sensationalistic kidnapping attempt by sneering thugs, and a ventre à terre gallop to the rescue. Awkward though it is, however, it is important to read in the sequence as it introduces a key character and establishes the context for what are known as the Second Generation novels. And, while it does not feature any dancing set pieces, it does bring up an intriguing dance point, one which reinforces Elsie J. Oxenham’s reliability as a reporter about the folk-dance scene in England at the time.

The only extenuating thing I can say about the kidnapping plot is that 1932 was a busy year in Abbey Time, under the rule of May Queen Mirry Honor (“Forget-me-not”).  Jandy Mac is set in June of 1932, and the famous kidnapping and murder of the baby of American aviators Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh had occurred in March of that same year. Could EJO have drafted this book or at least outlined the plot as early as 1932, real time?

However, to reiterate, A28_Jandy Mac Comes Back was not published until 1941, and there is nothing in that book (or, really, almost any other) to tie it to a particular year. Since no list of EJO’s complete works, in reading, publication, or any other order, was published in her lifetime, the average reader picking up this work would have had no way of knowing when the actions were to have occurred. It is only after several re-reads and puzzlings over the plot and perusing Ruth Allen’s invaluable timeline that I made the timing connection and, again, this would not have been possible to contemporary readers unless they had been making their own private timelines.

Before moving on, I want to stress this point about the listing. Back in the 1960s when I was reading and acquiring those shiny-covered Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames series books, I could turn to the back of any of them to see the complete listing of all the titles, since they were all published by the same publisher. I distinctly remember going down such lists and thinking that I hadn’t read this or that one—and this frame of mind was for books that had no long story arc! But Oxenham’s books were published by many publishers, some of whom only published one title, and no such helpful list—at least in its entirety—was accessible. And, remember, the first in the Abbey Girl world was published in 1914 and the last in 1959—you would have had to have been an avid reader with an extensive collection to put all the pieces together!

Back to Jandy Mac. This is where it gets a little confusing. If we are the Reader who is buying or being given the books as they are published, we met her in 1938, real time, in the title numbered A04_Schooldays at the Abbey that appeared in the same year as A27_Rosamund’s Castle. Schooldays is a good read, and Jandy Mac is, as Waring and Ray observe, a true Abbey heroine. In that first story we heard about the ring with seven sapphires that the lay-brother Ambrose made for his love, Lady Jehane. Jandy Mac, who was eighteen in that installment, was adopted as an honorary cousin by Joan and Joy Shirley, and ended that book sailing off to be married to Alec Fraser and to live in Samoa.

The brilliance of this move, as Waring and Ray note, was that EJO had simultaneously opened up a fruitful line of novels featuring young Jen, Joan, and Joy having adventures at the Abbey, and created a character who, marrying at eighteen or nineteen, can now plausibly have a thirteen-and-a-half year old daughter, older than Joan’s or Joy’s girls, who can enter fully in the life of Miss Macey’s School. Up to this point EJO has given us peripheral younger girls—Gail Alwyn, Benedicta Bennett, Belinda Bellanne—but they are either on other career or marriage trajectories or they are too old for school and cannot take on the mantle of May Queen.

My edition is a 1959 Collins imprint with the modern cover, and I do not know to what extent it was abridged from the original. The cover of this (above) depicts Littlejan with her mother, who wears a jaunty neckerchief, with the Abbey behind them. Farther down this post we’ll see what was probably the original 1941 cover showing Jandy Mac in rather Aussie-looking garb on her horse with the castle in the background. EJO often had little or no control over illustrations of her works. The publisher probably included the horse because of the craze for riding that was sweeping over English girls in the Thirties, but, other than Jandy’s ride and some later references to Littlejan’s pony, EJO did not participate in this craze: riding remained for her an upper-class activity. Remember that even Jane Austen’s Dashwood family cannot afford a horse: they would need a stable, a groom, a second horse for the groom (since no girl or woman rode unaccompanied, even in the 1930s), feed, etc. EJO’s heroines much more plausibly, by middle-class standards, learn to drive cars!

Plot Synopsis (Contains Spoilers)

Mrs. Janice Fraser is arriving by car to a big house with her thirteen-year old daughter, named Joan after Joan Shirley Raymond.

—The young Joan has been called “Littlejan” by her father since she is the spitting image of her mother. However, she wishes to leave this baby name behind and be known in England as Joan. After she meets up with her namesake Joan Shirley Raymond, however, it becomes quickly apparent to all that this isn’t going to work, so the little girl is, for this book at least, called “Joan-Two” or sometimes “Joan-Too.” However, she will end up being called Littlejan in the rest of the books and for the sake of our sanity that is how we will refer to her throughout.—

The pair are visiting England and Scotland from their home on Samoa in the South Pacific. Jandy Mac explains to Joan that they are going to visit Mrs. Raymond, with whom she has somewhat lost touch—it will be a surprise. Jandy Mac inquires at the door and finds out that Joan has just had a baby boy that morning and is not receiving.  They then go to a phone booth in the village and -call up Abinger Hall and ask for Lady Quellyn (the former Joy Shirley). Maidlin answers and tells her that Lady Quellyn is in New York City with her husband and baby boy. A young woman in riding kit, who has been sitting on the ground while her groom waits to make a telephone call, hears Jandy Mac’s side of the conversation and asks who she is, and why she is referring to the Ladies Marchwood and Lady Quellyn as Jen and Joy. All is revealed. The young woman is Rosamund Kane, Countess of Kentisbury. Rosamund had been out riding, but the ride was too much for her, so the groom has phoned for the castle car. In the true spirit of the Abbey, she invites the Frasers to come and stay with her, since Jandy Mac is an old friend of Joan, Joy, and Jen. The Frasers stay for one night and then go with Rosamund to see Jen, who greets Jandy Mac joyfully.

As she so often does, EJO uses Littlejan’s unfamiliarity with the Abbey world to give us a family news update, including ages. Let’s pause for a minute and have a baby recap. Deep breath.

Jandy Mac Fraser is around 33. She has Joan, thirteen, and two boys not named or aged in this story.

Joan Shirley Raymond, who was 16 when Jandy Mac was 18, has Janice (named after Jandy Mac), who is ten-and-a-half and goes by the name of “Jansy”—she also is the image of her mother, with dark, copper-red hair, and much will be made of the fact that Joan and her cousin Joy and their three girls all look alike—John, who is eight, Jennifer, who is two, and the newborn, Jim, named after Joan’s father. (It is rather unfortunate that EJO was so fond of alliteration!)

Jen Robins, now Lady Marchwood, married at twenty and has Andrew, Anthony (who goes by Tony), Rosemary, who is five and delicate, Michael, who is two, and Kathleen Jane, who is six months. Kathleen Jane is named after the eighteenth-century Kitty Marchwood, whose story was told in A06_Stowaways at the Abbey, published in 1940.

Countess Rosamund, who is 26, is bringing up her half-brother, Roderick-Geoffrey (Roddy), who is three. Rosamund’s son, Geoffrey-Hugh, little Lord Verriton, is two months old.

Maidlin di Ravarati, the singer, is 25 and had her romance in March through May of Abbey Time 1932, though she is not yet married. She is off-stage in this installment.

Joy Shirley Marchwood, now Lady Quellyn, has her nine-year-old twins Elizabeth and Margaret Marchwood, and a two-month-old son David with her conductor husband, Sir Ivor Quellyn.

After tea, the phone rings with bad news—Sir Kenneth Marchwood, who had taken Andrew, Tony, Jansy, and John to the moors for a holiday, has had a terrible car accident. The children weren’t with him, fortunately. A village child ran out into the road and to avoid her he swerved into a ditch. Everyone rallies: Jen, baby, and Nurse race to Yorkshire in Lady Kentisbury’s big car and Jandy Mac, Littlejan, and little Rosemary and Michael are whisked away to the Castle. Before Jen departs, a second message comes saying that Ken has regained consciousness, so our anxiety is somewhat allayed.

While at the castle, Littlejan is allowed to explore and discovers a wonderful playroom filled with toys for older children. She asks the Countess who says to wait until tomorrow when all will be explained. The next day, fifteen-year-old Tansy Lillico arrives to keep Littlejan company. Tansy shows Littlejan the grounds, include a camping sight outside the castle walls by the river. She also explains about the playroom and the children who played there, which we heard about in A27_Rosamund’s Castle. Rosemary and Jandy Mac join them briefly, mounted on beautiful horses. Littlejan had not previously known that Jandy Mac could ride—go, mom!

Since the castle’s regular head-chauffeur is up in Yorkshire with Jen, Jackson, formerly the head, returns. Tansy doesn’t like or trust him. Young Bob, the under-chauffeur whom everyone likes, also has problems with Jackson. Bob overhears Jackson’s side of a mysterious phone conversation and tells Tansy about it. The two girls think that perhaps Jackson is going to try to steal My Lady’s jewels.

The Earl and Countess have to go to a function. Jackson suggests that he drive the children for a picnic to honor little Rosemary’s birthday. The girls suspect something and make sure they attend. Against orders, Jackson drives them outside the property, to the campground. Bad Men are there—they want to kidnap Lord Verriton, but they don’t know which of the three boys—Roddy, Michael, or the baby—he is. Tansy tackles Jackson, who could have told them, and he hits his head and falls unconscious. Even though a bad man is twisting her arm, Littlejan refuses to tell which child is the heir, and he throws her, unconscious, to the ground. The men take Tansy, Nurse Agatha, and all three boys (Rosemary actually stayed at home as she was starting a cold), onto a fast launch.

On horseback, Jandy Mac has seen the scene unfold and her daughter lying dead or unconscious. She must put duty before motherly instinct, though—Lord Verriton must be saved at all cost! —and gallops the horse to the police station. Tansy knows that she must protect Roddy, who, if Lord Verriton dies and there are no further sons, will be the next Earl. The men abandon her and the little boys on an island, and she struggles to get them back to the castle.

—And here one has to say that, though this is a parent’s nightmare, little Lord Verriton is not, after all, a royal prince! It is not as if the kingdom will fail and fall if he dies. But the Lindberghs’ prominent position in society and the notoriety of the case—the biggest story since the Resurrection, according to newspaper writer H.L. Mencken—might have made the situation particularly resonant for EJO. Finally, she needed a strong reason to tie Jandy Mac and her daughter even closer to the charmed circle of the Abbey. Littlejan is a prominent character in the next ten episodes and a worthy Daughter of the Abbey.—

Well, as you can imagine, everything turns out all right. The men are apprehended; Jandy Mac, Littlejan (who is fine), and Tansy are all heroines (Agatha, too). To reward them, Lord Kentisbury gives the girls a beautiful horse each—Chestnut and Black Boy; these are very common and obvious names based on their colors—and Rosemary gives Jandy Mac seven sapphires for a ring like Ambrose’s that she gave up in A04_Schooldays, and which will tie Jandy Mac to the Abbey and its circle. Littlejan will stay in England and attend Miss Macey’s school with Jansy.

For Folk Dancers

While Lord Kentisbury gave the already-named horses to the girls, it is his wife Rosamund who observes that they are named after country dances. This is the only reference to dance and one that is easy to skim right over.

Chestnut is the name of a three-couple dance interpreted by Cecil Sharp in The Country Dance Book II published in 1911. The full title is “Chestnut, or, Dove’s Figary.” It was originally published by John Playford in 1651 and continued in his and his son’s collections until 1690, by which time dance tastes had changed. It is a pretty minor tune. Today in the U.S. the tune is more commonly used for a longways dance called All Saint’s Day written by David Ashworth in 1991.

Black Boy has a more interesting story behind it. While it is in the Barnes “Blue” book of English country dance tunes, meaning the one that contains most of the dances done when May Gadd was alive—i.e., it is heavily oriented to the Sharp repertoire—it is not frequently danced today, if at all! I have only danced it once, at a dance camp back in the seventies. It’s a shame, because it is interesting: it is a 64-bar tune with 32 bars of reel time (4/4) in A major followed by 32 bars in jig time (6/8) in D major. Fun for musicians!

“The Black Boy” was published only once in the eighteenth century, by John Johnson in 1753 in his “A Choice Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol. 8.” The version that Rosemary was undoubtedly thinking of comes from a booklet of dances reinterpreted by the Sheffield branch of the English Folk Dance Society which published in 1927 a booklet titled Five Country Dances together with their Tunes circa A.D. 1764 as recorded by David Wall, Ashover, Derbyshire.  but more commonly just called “The Ashover Book.” (Sheffield is fifteen miles from the village of Ashover.)

David Wall was a bassoonist and apparently a popular local figure in Ashover. There is a memorial plaque to him in All Saints Church there that reads:

To the memory of David Wall
Whose superior performance on the bassoon endeared him
To an extensive musical acquaintance.
His social life closed on the 4 of December 1796 in his 57 year.

Mr. Wall made a hand-written manuscript of sixteen dance tunes, some with figures set to them. Wall’s dance instructions are below the tunes; another hand wrote their interpretation above them. See the manuscript here.

The dances included in the Ashover booklet are:

The Russian Dance

Bonnie Cate

Major O’Flacherty

The Duchess of Hamilton’s Rant

The Black Boy

Dance leader, choreographer, composer, and dance re-constructor Colin Hume notes that in the introduction to the pamphlet the booklet’s creators acknowledge the assistance that the re-constructors derived from the country dance books of Cecil Sharp, who had died in 1924. He adds wryly that he is not sure that Sharp “would have appreciated this acknowledgement, as some of the interpretations are fanciful in the extreme.” He notes that the most blatant example of this is in The Black Boy, where in the “C” music (that is, the first strain of the jig time), the first corners (first man and second woman) change places, “right foot and right shoulder leading (step close up 4 times), left hand on hip and right hand up, a wrist wave with right hand for each step. Colin adds that “By the time I learnt the dance, a snap of the fingers had been added to the wrist wave” —

—Yes, Sharp would not have approved of this fancy!

—and notes that the original was just “Rights and Lefts.” He provides his very workable alternative, so now the dance caller can choose between two interpretations of this dance: one nearly 100 years old and the other more modern. Read Colin Hume’s anaysis of the Sheffield branch’s interpretation of The Black Boy and the other dances from the manuscript, as well as his own reconstruction.

And here’s one more fascinating tidbit which is part of why I consider Oxenham to be a reliable observer: the Ashover book was published in 1927 and Jandy Mac Comes Back is set, in Abbey Time, in June of 1932. It is therefore entirely feasible in the Abbey world that the older girls could have danced The Black Boy. (Littlejan is not yet a dancer, and Tansy doesn’t dance.)

Hear Pete Castle (concertina) and Derek Hale (guitar) play The Black Boy and see some beautiful Derbyshire scenery

A28_Maid of the Abbey

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A28_Maid of the Abbey is a very satisfying installment! But before we review it, let’s step back just a little for a publishing recap.

A27_Rosamiund’s Castle left Elsie J. Oxenham in a bit of an authorial pickle: four of the five key Abbey Girls—Joan, Joy, Jen, and Rosamund—are not only married but have set up their nurseries. You can scarcely expect them to be dancing much! In addition, their stories are essentially finished: while a few more things will happen to them, they are essentially in safe harbor. Maidlin di Ravarati, the last one left, has said that she’ll never marry until she can find someone that she cares for more than the other girls, and, although the Careful Reader with 2020 hindsight—Sorry! No more 2020!—retrospective vision can see what is being planned for her, most of us cannot. In addition, EJO’s last few titles had been shopped about among publishers; perhaps there was a sense that she was losing her younger, girl-reader with all the romances.

But where to go next? Even if Maidlin is married off, the Abbey Girls’ own children are too young to support a plot; the eldest of them, Janice (“Jansy”) Raymond, Joan’s daughter, is just ten-and-a-half, and the Marchwood twins are about two years behind her.

Sheila Ray and Stella Waring in Island to Abbey, a study of EJO’s works in publication order, point out that this is where the author brilliantly and seamlessly turned to writing what are known as the Retrospective Titles, set between the events of A03_The Girls of the Abbey School (1921) and A11_The Abbey Girls Go Back to School (1922). These titles feature the younger Jen, Joy, and Joan uncovering many exciting secrets of the Abbey, and affirming strongly the spirit of sanctuary and helpfulness that the Abbey has come to represent. We’ll discuss this more next week when we re-encounter a pivotal character from that Series, but for now, let’s look at the publication timeline of the current books, in reading order as prepared by Ruth Allen of the EJO Society:

                    Set in                                                     Published in

A27_Rosamund’s Castle                November 1931 – February 1932               1938

A28_Maid of the Abbey                March – May 1932                                        1943

A29_Jandy Mac Comes Back        June 1932                                                       1941

Thus while A28 was published after A29, it predates it in Abbey Time, although a reader who wasn’t keeping close track of time would scarcely notice it. And between A27 and A29, EJO published five more novels: three retrospective Abbey Girls titles, one retrospective Kentisbury family novel, and one “sideways” novel, as Ray and Waring term it, that looked at characters who intersect with Rachel and Damaris Ellerton, Maidlin’s cousins.

—Here let us just remark that Elsie Oxenham published 88 titles between 1907 and 1959, and there were only six years in that fifty-three-year period in which she did not publish at all. That means that she published no fewer than one and often two, three, or even four titles in all the other years! And this was in the days when type was still set by hand and there were no spell-checkers or computers:  she drafted everything in long-hand, then typed it or had it typed, corrected it, presumably doing this process repeatedly, then sent it to the publishers, then received the long sheets of galleys that had to be proofed by hand in blue pencil, then possibly saw and gave input on illustrations (often not), perhaps saw and corrected a second proof, and finally received the finished product. And all this while she corresponded with fans, wrote the next installments, oversaw her Camp Fire or Guide patrol, and did everything else that one does. Amazing! Personally, I find one long blog post a week on top of a full-time job just about enough to do me in.—

This has been a long detour before we finally turn to A28_Maid of the Abbey! Ray and Waring and others find many points that suggest that A28 was written before A29_Jandy Mac Comes Back—in fact, perhaps even in the late 1930s. Oddly though, while A28 and A29 almost overlap in Abbey Time, Maidlin does not appear in Jandy’s story, nor is the latter aware of the former’s romance.

Waring and Ray also suggest that EJO could have originally conceived of Maid of the Abbey as ending the Abbey Girls series, as it satisfyingly gives Maidlin, the youngest of the original Abbey Girls, her romance, and brings most of the former Queens together with the concluding coronation of the first Hamlet Club “grandchild”—

—this took me a while to parse: Mirry is the twelve-year-old daughter of Miriam Honor, the White Queen and the first Queen of the Hamlet Club. Surely that makes her the first “daughter” of the original group of girls to be crowned. But, although Oxenham doesn’t say this outright, I think that she thought that all club members are daughters of the Club and of the Abbey, and that therefore their own girls are the “grand-daughters.” What do you think?—

—taking the title as the “Forget-me-not” Queen in blue. There is a large procession of former Queens, most attended by one of their children or a girl that they have taken an interest in:

Miriam, the White Queen, attended by her second daughter, eight-year-old Cicely.

Cicely, the Golden Queen, attended by her nearly nine-year-old daughter, Cicely. Yes, that’s not a typo. Both Miriam and Cicely have named their eldest daughters after themselves, and Miriam her second after her friend. This is why you need to take notes.

Joy, now Lady Quellyn, the Green Queen or Traveler’s Joy, attended by her twins, Margaret and Elizabeth.

Joan, the Violet Queen, eight-months pregnant with her fourth child (this isn’t directly mentioned; we infer this from the fact that she holds a large bouquet of lilac in front of her at all times and her violet train is Wrapped Loosely around her), attended by her red-haired daughter, Jansy. This appearance so late in her pregnancy is an anomaly in EJO world, and a testimony to the ceremonial importance of the crowning of the first May Queen’s daughter.

Rosamund, Countess of Kentisbury and the Rose Queen, attended by Tansy Lillico.

Jen, Lady Marchwood, the Beech or Brown Queen with a crown of cowslips, attended by her eldest son, Andrew.

Maidlin, the Primrose Queen, attended by Belinda Bellanne.

Other Queens in the procession include the Blue Queen, the Silver Queen, Beatrice or Queen Beetle in “gaudy stripes,” Queen Barbara in cream with wild roses and more (not named).

In addition to this happy ceremony, Rosamund and Maidlin conclude their discussion of the role of torch-bearing: with her engagement, Maidlin is laying it down and the two agree that the Abbey will choose her successor. They also affirm that they will carry their own version of the Abbey spirit to their new homes, helping young people and those in need.

So, yes, the saga could have stopped here. Everything is tidily wrapped up. But it didn’t! Next week we’ll look at Jandy Mac Comes Back, which is an unconvincing and unsatisfactory episode but one that introduced (since it was already published) a key new Abbey Girl:  Littlejan Fraser, the future Marigold Queen. In addition to her many excellent personal qualities—she is a thoroughly nice and thoughtful girl!—she will bridge the plot gap until Joan’s and Joy’s daughters as well as some other characters, at least one of whom hasn’t been invented yet, are old enough to be heroines themselves.

And, finally, the potential meanings of the title. Of course, one’s immediate response is that the Maid of the Abbey is Maidlin (the North Country version of Madeline or Magdalena, her real name, with its Biblical association as a follower of Christ). This is the story of her romance, after all, and for a long time other characters have affectionately nick-named her Maid or Maidie. But Lindy also acts as Maidlin’s maid-of-honor (called in the earliest books a “brides-maid,” as if the May Queen is becoming the bride of God; I find this a little uncomfortable) in the crowning that concludes the story. And, finally, perhaps the talk of carrying the torch of the Abbey refers to a ceremonial position that Rosamund and Maidlin feel that they have held although they do not employ the phrase: that they, in particular, have been “hand-maids” to the spirit of the Abbey and are now upon marriage officially relinquishing the position at the Abbey itself, though still vowing to express its spirit in their own homes and lives. Will Lindy be the new bearer of the torch? What about the Reader herself? Will you take it up? In all her works Oxenham never asks this question directly, but I think the gentle challenge is ever implicitly before the Reader.

Plot Synopsis (Contains Spoilers)

The story opens with orphaned, seventeen-year-old Belinda (“Lindy”) Bellanne returning from school to live in London with her sister Anne, who is eight years older than she. Anne (“with-an-E” to quote another famous orphaned heroine) has had the flu. Her friend Nelly Jones, a typist living in the same apartment building, asked Lady Jen Marchwood if Anne could be sent to the Grange, in sort of hostel in Yorkshire, as a rest cure. Lady Jen sends working girls there for holidays, and the Grange is run by Ann-without-an-E (“Nan”) Rowney.  Since Anne’s health has not improved after her cold two weeks in Yorkshire, Miss Rowney has asked that Anne and her sister both be invited to stay at a similar hostel in the warmer, southern village of Whiteways, which is where the Abbey, standing in the grounds of Abinger Hall, near Marchwood Manor, are located.

Soprano Lindy is passionate about music and wants to be trained to be a singer like contralto Maidlin, whom she has heard sing, but there is no money for training—Anne had put her capital into a cake shop that failed. The day before the girls are to travel to Whiteways, they receive a letter that says there are measles in the village (as I have commented before, Whiteways is the measliest village in England)—and measles means quarantine. Maidlin di Ravarati, acting as hostess for Abinger Hall, invites the Bellannes to stay at the Hall itself. Mary-Dorothy Devine is also living there with the Marchwood twins, as their mother Joy (now Lady Quellyn) is with her husband and new baby in New York City.

Anne and Lindy arrive and get the necessary over-view of the family news from Maidlin, who is expecting other visitors as well: Dr John Robertson, the famous conductor with whom she has been working, and his neephew Donald, a nice, boyish young man. Lindy escapes from the visitors and wanders into the Abbey where she saves feckless Margaret, who has climbed a tree and can’t get down. During the rescue Lindy suffers a slight concussion and a wrenched shoulder. Anne faints. A few days later she confides to Maidlin the story of the failed cake shop, and that Lindy wants training—though she does not specify in what—and can’t have it. Anne has no job and wonders if she should go into service as a maid in a big house—but would she ever be able to regain her social standing? Maidlin suggests that she be a cook, and that this would (somehow) be a better position. More on this topic later.

Maidlin offers Lindy a summer job as a governess to the twins, and she is delighted to accept.  We see her taking on her responsibilities admirably. Anne and Mary notice how often young Donald Robertson has been visiting Maid and they agree that Maidlin is not at all interested in him. They conspire to not let them be alone together so that he has no chance to propose. While Mary keeps saying that it would not be right to gossip about Maidlin, Anne is quite nebby, and manages to find out or deduce much of the plot. Perhaps EJO felt that she needed the character of Anne to telegraph the romance for the young reader.

Mary reports that the cook, Mrs. Spindle (Susie Spindle, who we met in another Retrospective title, married a cousin, who died two years ago leaving her with a baby who is boarded in the village), has gone to bed with a headache and fever. Anne suggests that it could be the measles. Susie had visited her baby two weeks earlier, right after the first case of measles in the village was discovered. The twins have spent time with her—will they measle, too? Everyone is very angry at Susie and she is sent off to the hospital. They say that Joy will never allow her to come back. (The Abbey girls are sometimes not as nice and generous as you’d think! Susie has just as much right to be worried about her baby as Joy does hers. After the crisis is over a character is able to admit this.) Anne offers to cook, and Lindy offers to stay with the twins and tells Maidlin that she cannot go into quarantine so that she can nurse them, as she is needed for Dr. Jock’s concerts. We see Maidlin thinking about Dr. Jock and his kind eyes. Donald writes requesting a private meeting with Maidlin and this startles her into knowing her own heart. Mary urges Maidlin to reject Donald so that the older man (he is only about thirty-five!) will know that he has a chance. She does.

(Right: a late and inferior cover clearly based on the first one. Lindy in the blue dress is singing; Maidlin in the red dress is overhearing her.)

Seeking refuge in the Abbey after her rejection of Donald’s unwelcome proposal of marriage, Maid hears Lindy’s beautiful but untrained soprano voice. She offers to send Lindy to Joy’s music school and says that they will sing together someday. The next day Dr. Jock shows up and asks Maidlin to accompany him to the Abbey, and when she agrees we all know what that means! We don’t see the proposal, but Maidlin returns changed and glowing. Jock and Maidlin think that when Donald gets over his disappointment and returns to England from South Africa perhaps he’ll marry Lindy—they are the right age for each other. They go to Kentisbury Castle and tell Rosamund, then call Joy in New York (long-distance phone calls then were very expensive and also very short). Jock buys Maid a little ring with daisies and forget-me-nots on it at the Rose and Squirrel. The twins admire the ring very much.

The next day the twins start measling. The more excitable Margaret is very ill indeed, and the adults are very worried. They cable Joy the news and she telephones (over-seas!) to say that she is going to come home for a short time as soon as she can find a berth in a ship; baby David can do without her for a while (meaning that she is no longer nursing him). Jock and Maidlin talk about where to live—this is one of the nicest of EJO’s romances, and the gentleman has more dialogue than perhaps all the other husbands put together—and Jock says they’ll build a nice house in Sussex and call it The Pallant. There is a lot of discussion as to what this old Sussex word means—EJO was very interested in local dialects and words! He also says that until it is built they will live in a little house near the sea. He reveals that he plays the viola (the alto of the violin family) and Maidlin reveals that she is Camp Fire. They visit the charming little cottage, and, because there is a deep step behind the front gate, they decide to call it “Step Down.” (The house is described in loving detail and it was clearly modelled after EJO’s own, as the book is dedicated to her sister Maida (Marjorie) “on the day we bought our little house.”

The girls recuperate, and Maidlin buys them little rings like her own (Jock has since given her a ruby engagement ring).  Joy comes home. Careless Margaret has squashed her ring and Joy instantly offers to get her another one. (Joy! So impulsive and thoughtless, using her money instead of her head.) Lindy corrects her, saying that Margaret should save her own money to buy it, not just be given it. Margaret then asks Elizabeth to not wear her ring to the upcoming coronation of the May Queen and, after a brief struggle, Elizabeth agrees. Please note their characters: Elizabeth, though often the instigator of whatever madness they are up to, is the more mature and balanced girl; Margaret is immature and impulsive. Margaret’s more challenged character will come up as a key element in their final story A38_Two Queens at the Abbey.

Rosamund and Maidlin go to the Abbey for a heart-to-heart and talk about carrying the torch of welcoming people who come to the Abbey in trouble. Maidlin wonders if she is a deserter for getting married and moving away and Ros laughs at her and reassures her that it’s all right for her to lay down the torch—the Abbey will find another person to “interpret” for it. We infer that it might be Lindy for a while, given her thoughtful care of the twins.

For Folk Dancers

After the crowning, the Hamlet Club dances Newcastle, The Geud Man of Ballangigh, Chelsea Reach, Oranges and Lemons, Haste to the Wedding (Jen dances this symbolic dance with Maid, as Doc Jock is not a dancer), The Old Mole, Hey, Boys, Up Go We, the Merry, Merry Milkmaids, and finally Sellenger’s Round. All but Haste and Geud Man are the older set dances “for those who know” —not party dances or ones that are taught at the event itself. While they are undoubtedly more interesting than the longways dances for spectators like Doc Jock and the Earl to observe, they are rather exclusive. This issue will present itself towards the end of Queen Mirry’s reign, in A31_An Abbey Champion, when the older girls of the school make it clear that they are bored with the complicated pattern dances that take so long to master.

A27_Rosamund’s Castle

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Despite what Aslan the great Lion of Narnia says about never knowing what would have happened, which means that since you cannot change the past there is no point in regretting it (unless it changes one’s present or future course of action), I do have regrets. One of my regrets is that, thirty years ago when I was acquiring good reading copies of EJO’s works for very reasonable prices, I did not pick up all eighty-eight of them, especially rare Connectors like Patch and a Pawn, now going for $270 to $900 on Advanced Book Exchange. Even Santa didn’t cough up for these! Patch and a Pawn is part of the Kentisbury set, which is closely interwoven with the Abbey Girls series. That installment comes before A27_Rosamund’s Castle and contains backstory on  the Kane children and on young Tansy Lillico and her unhappy feelings.

Rosamund’s Castle was published in 1938 and is set in November of 1931 through February of 1932, Abbey Time, starting about seven months after Rosamund’s wedding. While I am very fond of Rosamund Kane, now Countess of Kentisbury, this is not one of my favorite of her stories, partly because she appears rather flat in it, partly because of the sensational plot-line, and mostly because the idea of one of Our Girls living in the enormous castle that was apparently based on the real-life Arundel Castle in Sussex is just a little too hard to believe. This installment does feature the girls of Wood End School, and they are a jolly touch to a convoluted story. [Read more…]

A26_Maidlin Bears the Torch

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Our attention lately has been on Elsie J. Oxenham’s Cinderella-heroine Rosamund Kane but now another character, her best friend Madalena di Ravarati, re-enters the spotlight. EJO has been quietly and cleverly setting up Maidlin’s emotional Problem for fourteen or so novels, starting from when she was introduced back in the fourth book to bear the Abbey title, A13_The New Abbey Girls, published in 1923 and set in 1921 (see the note below about publication order). In this episode, published in 1937, we will happily see her come into her own, tip-toeing on the edge of her romantic and artistic fulfillment. [Read more…]

Dancing Honour & Honour Your Partner

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Elsie J. Oxenham published a number of short stories in her long and complicated career. Many of them eventually became chapters in books; apparently only a few were stand-alone. Based on the only two that I have read, I don’t think her skill was in the classic short story; she needed the broader canvas of a full-length novel. But these two stories, published in 1921 and 1923, are of interest to the folk dancer, although one of them, at least, is weak as stories go.

—And here I apologize—I should have written about them around the time that I posted on A11_The Abbey Girls Go Back to School, but forgot that they were in my box of treasures! Mine are photocopies without provenance that Monica Godfrey supplied me with, but Waring and Ray in their study of Oxenham’s works, Island to Abbey, provide the dates of publication.—

Dancing Honour (1921) and Honour Your Partner (1923) were published at the height of EJO’s obsession with folk dancing. [Read more…]

The Girl Guides’ Folk Dancer Badge

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One of the pleasures of writing a blog is to dive down any rabbit hole of interest, and this week’s interest is the varying requirements for a Girl Guide to earn her Folk Dancer Badge. Elsie Oxenham was both a Guide leader and a Camp Fire Guardian, and taught English folk dances to both of her groups. Which dances? Well, any that she knew, I suppose (including rapper sword), but now we have some further information starting in 1929 as to what dances a girl would be expected to demonstrate mastery of, and how these requirements changed over time with changing politics and interests.

This post would not have been possible without the brilliance of “Leslie,” whom I do not know but who I embrace as a spiritual sister. Leslie has done an amazing and comprehensive job of documenting the history of the Girl Guide movement. Check out her home page and particularly the history of the founding of the Girl Guides in 1910 by Agnes Baden-Powell at her elder brother Sir Robert Baden-Powell’s request.

Here is an early but undated image of Agnes Baden-Powell. You’ll see her “smart” uniform—here “smart” doesn’t mean fashionable or dashing as it can in other contexts, but “well-turned-out,” as an officer would look on the parade ground.  Note the well-fit coat with belt that was worn over a well-fit skirt, the hat, the tie, and the vaguely military-looking badge. This is attire that shapes the girl or woman into the image of the male officer—but without the physical freedom of trousers or a loose-fitting skirt, although Leslie writes that this early uniform was actually comparatively practical for the gently-born ladies who led the local Patrols. This was parade dress for leaders in the organization; while engaged in out-door activities in the 1920s, Girl Guides seem to have worn middy blouses and loose skirts over long dark stockings. Here’s a girl in a 1909 uniform (pre-standardization) courtesy of Leslie. [Read more…]

Cecil Sharp’s Elementary and Advanced Folk Dance Certificates, 1912

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Elsie J. Oxenham’s fictional heroine Rosamund Kane holds her Elementary Certificate from the English Folk Dance Society (the precursor of the EFDSS) and has possibly also passed the Advanced Cert. requirements for country dancing, if not for morris and sword. Cecil Sharp began offering these certificates of proficiency in 1912 as part of his control over the repertoire and its pedagogy, and they continued to be offered up to World War II, when Douglas Kennedy abolished them as he felt they were inhibiting participation by men in folk dancing. I have long wondered what these certifications entailed.

I am deeply indebted to Derek Schofield, former editor of English Dance & Song magazine and now the Reviews Editor for the Folk Music Journal, for uncovering the three-page pamphlet of the certification requirements of 1912. They are found in the Ralph Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, reference AS12. Derek speculates that the dances required might have changed over the years as Sharp published Books III, IV, and V of the Country Dance series.

Before we get to the requirements themselves, however, I’d like to digress a bit to discuss repertoire. I’ve been teaching English country dance for 45 years and have seen the repertoire change significantly and expand exponentially from the Sharp-based rep of the Seventies. One thing that we callers (and some dancers) have noticed is that as the repertoire has expanded, and as, in the U.S. at least, the technical standards have been relaxed, people don’t typically dance as well as they used to have to under the eagle eye of May Gadd (The Little Robin), nor do they have the knowledge of a core repertoire that people used to have. You used to be able to announce—at Pinewoods Camp English dance week at least—that the next dance would be the rather complicated dances Fandango or Newcastle or Nonesuch For Those Who Know (i.e., neither taught nor prompted) and three-quarters of those present would stand up for the dance and perform it pretty well.

For most groups or clubs now those days are gone. This is the present outcome of the age-old battle between Descriptivism (the way things (especially but not exclusively) language) currently are and Prescriptivism (the way things Ought To Be as defined by the Powers That Be). Are we going to be Inclusive (teaching generally to a low—Oops! Value judgment!—an accessible common standard and not investing effort in complicated set dances that can take quite a while to teach and master and scarcely three minutes to perform) or Exclusive (the reverse). Adding to the tension, we know that we sometimes lose dancers in our groups because they are tired of easy dances and want something with a little more meat to it! Elsie J. Oxenham was well aware of this tension between beauty and perfection versus happy-joining-in, and her characters actually explore but do not resolve the issue in a couple of the later installments—we even saw a touch of it in A25_Rosamund’s Tuckshop when one of the school girls says, in effect, that she is sick of the two-couple set dance Rufty Tufty (which was taught at her school) but ends up enjoying Corn Rigs with its jolly polka step.

The preliminary comments to the requirements indicate that you could take the exam in any of the three weeks of the Summer School at Stratford and thereafter by application. The preface indicates that the candidate had to exhibit “practical and theoretical” knowledge, although this requirement is reinforced in a heightened fashion for the Advanced Cert.   At least some of the country dances could be selected by the candidate, who had to submit her list in advance—it is unclear to what extent the examiners set the morris and sword dances, although Derek relates that he was told that the examiners would call for a set for, say, Shepherd’s Hey and tell you to dance fifth position in it.  The preface also clearly states that holding either certificate was not a test of “teaching capacity” and that a list of “approved” teachers was kept at the EFDS Office. It is also not clear that you would have been required to hold an Advanced Cert. in order to be approved to teach—in a later installment, Elsie J. Oxenham gives us a jolly teacher (and old friend from the Swiss Series) who the EFDS Secretary says is not quite up to snuff to get an advanced group ready for an examination in something complicated like Chelsea Reach, but is well-suited for leading a dance party, and that she knows all the newer dances.

Elementary Certificate Requirements, 1912

For the Elementary Certificate, you would be expected to be able to dance in any position in any of the groups of dances itemized below, starting with the country dances—are these in your wheelhouse?

     Book I                                                                                    Book II

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Any six dances from the Country Dance Books I and II (not more than two dances from Book 1, which were the easy, traditional longways dances). This is a total of 48 dances that you were expected to have mastered, although, again, it is not clear whether the candidate selected all the dances or whether the examiners set some.  (Click on the images above to see the list enlarged; see the dance instructions and tunes at The Round.
  2. Any six of the following 16 morris set dances (both handkerchief and short- or long-stick)Beansetting (I)             Old Woman Tossed Up (I)Laudnum Bunches (I)  Black Joke (I)

    Country Gardens (I)     Bobbing Joe (III)

    Trunkles (I)                     Shepherd’s Hey (III)

    Rigs O’Marlow (I)          Glorishears (III)

    How D’ye Do (I)             The Gallant Hussar (III)

    Blue-eyed Stranger (I)  Shooting (III)

    Maid of the Mill (I)        Brighton Camp (III)

  3.  Any one of the following three morris jigs.

Old Mother Oxford (II)     Lumps of Plum Pudding (III)     Jockie to the Fair (III)

  1. Any position of either the Kirkby Malzeard longsword dance (for six dancers) or the Flamborough Sword Dance (for eight dancers). This means six or eight unique positions in two dances of a very different style (click on the links to view them).

Note that the morris dances listed above have the volume number after each title. Cecil Sharp and Herbert MacIlwaine published the first two volumes of The Morris Book in 1907 and the third in 1910, and Sharp produced revised and expanded editions of all three a few years later. He published his three volumes of Sword Dances of Northern England from 1911 to 1913.  It was in these years that he was also producing his graded volumes of both country and morris dances—alas! I gave away my volumes of these a few years ago without examining them closely enough. I do not know if the grading was adult beginner to adult advanced or child to adult, but a dancer would at least have had a few more years to get Books I, II, and III under her belt than Book IV. But also note that the village tradition is not specified in the certification requirements above (or below)—you are expected to know it. For example, Beansetting, Laudnum, Country Gardens, Trunkles, Rigs, How D’ye Do, and Blue-eyed are all from the Headington tradition; Maid of the Mill is a linked handkerchief dance from the Ilmington tradition; Brighton Camp is from Eynsham; Lumps of Plum Pudding from the village of Bampton, and so on. You were expected to dance correctly in each style. Here’s what Elsie J. Oxenham, in a rare article printed in Every Girl’s Annual of, I believe, 1923 (my copy is undated, but she refers to having attended the Cheltenham vacation school in the prior year), has to say about the various styles; she begins by saying that each tradition has “peculiar points of its own” and continues:

Ilmington, in Warwickshire, has evolved an especially tricky, though beautiful hey or chain—“the thing with question-marks and tea-cup handles in it,” as I heard it described lately. Bampton, in Oxfordshire, has a peculiarly fascinating arm-movement, like the action of sowing seed or feeding hens—a real country movement, seen nowhere else—and gives us curious walking back-steps; also two very beautiful solo jigs. Fieldtown, in the same county, turns the back-steps into queer little hops, or sometimes into ferocious stamps, with quite a different arm-movement. Sherborne, in Gloucester, makes you move back in a weird shuffle, messes up its Morris step,  and has one really dreadful track movement; Sherborne is a brute, but a fascinating brute! Bledington, in Oxfordshire, is very original, and makes you twist your hands in the opposite way from any other village’s hands, and creates new and extraordinary jump positions in its capers; so do Fieldtown and Bampton, for that matter.
You have to concentrate on all important points like these. If you put whole-rounds into Bampton, or half-rounds into Ilmington, you get well shouted at if “Madam” [Helen Kennedy North] happens to be teaching; it is a failing of my own, so I know.
Or you keep meeting new forms of old friends. Take “Shepherd’s Hey.” You learn it as an Ilmington dance, with stick-tapping and the funny hey; presently you come across it with Bampton arm-waves and back-steps. Then you find it is also a Headington solo jig, with hand-clapping, and then it turns up as a Badby dance, with sticks again, but quite different sticks. And last of all it is a Fieldtown dance, with handkerchiefs, as in Bampton, but no other likeness, either in tune or dance, to any “Shepherd’s Hey” you have ever met before.

The above is from a writer who clearly enjoyed these dances but, despite her understanding and her clarity of description, did not feel confident enough to essay the examination. But this is the level of mastery you were clearly expected to show! And, remember, in 1912 you would have been examined by The Prophet himself, or by the imperious and critical Madam (Helen Kennedy North) or Joshua (Douglas Kennedy). Nerve-wracking!

Advanced Certificate Requirements, 1912

The requirements for the Advanced Certificate were considerably more demanding and involved a significantly greater focus on morris dancing—no wonder Rosamund has only passed the country dance portion of the Advanced Cert. and the Writing Person (one of EJO’s avatars) never attempted to obtain a certificate at all. Unlike the Elementary certification, the requirements for the Advanced one begin with the re-statement that the candidate had to possess “a practical and theoretical knowledge” of the materials listed below. This theoretical knowledge presumably means that you couldn’t just show the movements and rely on muscle memory or subtle cues from a partner—you had to intellectually know everything cold and be able to explain all the fiddly bits. At the end of this post I am going to give some questions that I think could have been on an English country dance exam, whether on paper or viva voce. They are real questions with real answers—will you be able to pass the test?

  1. Any ten dances from the Country Dance Books I and II—and again no more than two from the easy Book I.
  2. Any six morris dances from the following.

Laudnum Bunches (I)            Bobbing Joe (III)

Trunkles (I)                              Shepherd’s Hey (III)

Black Joke (I)                           Shooting (III)

Rodney (II)                               Brighton Camp (III)

  1. Any four morris dances from the following. Since these are from volume IV, they would certainly have been less familiar to the dancers, whether or not they are intrinsically more difficult.

The Cuckoo’s Nest (IV)          The Rose (IV)

Constant Billy (IV)                   Bobby and Joan (IV)

Lads A-Bunchum (IV)              Banks of the Dee (IV)

London Pride (IV)                    Dearest Dicky (IV)

Swaggering Boney (IV)           Step Back (IV)

  1. Any two morris jigs from the following.

Princess Royal (first version) (III)             Sherborne Jig (IV)

Jockie to the Fair (III)                               None so Pretty (IV)

I’ll Go and Enlist (IV)                                 Molly Oxford (IV)

  1. Any two dances from the sword dance list. Again, this is any position in these very different sword dances.  For example, the Earsdon dances is a rapper sword dance whereas Grenoside is a slow longsword dance performed with stepping in clogs.  I encourage you to click on the bolded links.

Grenoside (I)          Sleights (II)

Earsdon (II)             Flamborough (II)

 Do I think I could have passed these Certs? In my young and lissom days I danced English country dances, morris (many traditions), rapper- and long-sword (ditto), English clog, garland, Running Set, New England contras, Scottish country dances, Highland dancing, and some Vintage and historical dancing. I am confident that with a bit of swotting up on some of the less-familiar set dances—but remember, you weren’t supposed to learn from books!—I would have passed the Elementary Cert. with flying colors or possibly colours, but I would have had to study hard for the Advanced one—not so much for the country dances (that requirement is the same, although I think the performance/knowledge standards were probably higher), but for the morris and sword!

Allison’s English Country Dance Examination Questions

These are real questions, some based on the fiddly bits that I recall Genevieve Shimer (May Gadd’s successor at CDSS) and others of her generation insisting on. Not all the questions are based on the country dance books I and II!

Answer fully and completely, using a No. 2 pencil and making no stray marks on the pages.

In Prince William, describe the actions of the first couple and the second woman in the first strain of the A music of the second part of the dance. What does the second woman particularly need to remember to do?

What is the correct sequence of the hands given in the chorus figure of Rufty Tufty? Choose from:

RLRL     RLLR     LRLR      LRRL       Other

Which couple (using original numbering) initiates the progressive hey at the end of the set dance Nonesuch?

Describe/show the difference(s) between the pas de basque step and the polka step. What dance named after a member of the Royal Family uses the pas de basque step?

Mark the dances below in a round formation that number anti-clockwise rather than clock-wise.

Peppers Black         Winifred’s Knot          Sage Leaf

Mundesse           Put on thy Smock on a Monday     Jenny Pluck Pears

Describe the actions of the second chorus figure of the dance for two couples, Althea.

In which figure of Sellenger’s Round do dancers raise their arms, and why?

The second time the lines of four form in Newcastle, which way are they facing? Across the hall or up and down it?

Elsie J. Oxenham and A25_Rosamund’s Tuck-Shop; A School Story

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There is a lot to unpack in this installment! As I discussed early on, the current group of postings in this blog relate to Elsie Oxenham’s Abbey Girl series and in particular to the folk-dancing scenes found therein. While many of EJO’s readers apparently find/found folk-dancing after reading the books, I came to her works from the world of folk dance and want to share her vision and her depictions—especially of Cecil Sharp and his teachers —with my folk-dance friends. After the last five or six installments that bore the subtitles “a romance of the Abbey Girls” and contained little or no dancing, we are now, at least briefly, back in the dance world. Rosamund will show us how a “certificated” teacher instructs.

As I also mentioned early on, I initially read these books completely out of order—not even realizing that there was an order—as they were shipped to me by the amazing Monica Godfrey, who wrote the article in the EFDSS magazine that inspired me to reach out to her to find out more about these mysterious Abbey Girls. And this installment, A25_Rosamund’s Tuck-Shop, with its significant subtitle, “A School Story,” was one that initially made my eyes roll back into my head. It starts off in a typically discursive way, with one girl in a bit of an inexplicable jam, who then meets up with other school pals, all of whom have names, nicknames, alternative nicknames, and so on until the brain bubbles and swells and one must call faintly for Jeeves to bring a restorative and a cold towel to tie around one’s head.

But perseverance (and multiple re-readings) pays off and I think I can now parse this for you or at least ease you over the early and confusing chapters. We will skip introducing most of the girls; just be aware that there is a younger group of rather wild girls, and an older group that includes Rhoda and her friends Tamzine and Sonny.

And here props to Elsie Oxenham, that consummate long-arc story plotter and re-purposer of characters! In 1909 she had published her fourth book, what was then a one-off tale titled The Girl Who Wouldn’t Make Friends. It told the story of Robertina Brent, left an estate in Wales called Plas Quellyn, by her god-father, painter Robert Quellyn, an admirer of her mother’s. Robert had unofficially adopted a friend’s orphan daughter, Gwyneth Morgan, but failed to make provision for her in his will. Deprived of her beloved Plas Quellyn, Gwyneth won’t make friends with Robin, until they are reconciled and become adopted sisters at the end of the story. Their conflict, which they relate to Rhoda hoping to help her in her dilemma, is not dissimilar to hers, though she refuses to acknowledge it. But what is more interesting to me is the slow and subtle interweaving of Robin into the Abbey series. We had a hint of it in the last installment: Sir Ivor Quellyn refers to the Welsh pictures of a distant cousin, that same Robert Quellyn, and to the heiress and estate. We’ll have occasional further hints of Robin and her estate until her story concludes in A32_Robins in the Abbey. It seems unlikely to me that when EJO published The Girl Who Wouldn’t Make Friends in 1909 she knew that she would repurpose Robin (although we can’t know for sure and there are other clear signs of careful, long-term plot planning), but having created her, she puts her to good use and brings her back. What fun it is to encounter old friends again!

A25_Rosamund’s Tuck-Shop was published in 1937 and takes place in September through October of 1930. It is a satisfying installment, showing Rosamund in fine form as a compassionate lover, sister, and friend. It also shows her as an excellent English folk dance teacher!

Plot Synopsis (Contains Spoilers)

Lady Rhoda Kane is mourning the recent death in a motorcycle accident of her younger brother, Geoff, the sixteen-year-old Earl of Kentisbury. The new Earl, also named Geoffrey, is the semi-invalid younger brother of Rhoda’s deceased father. His health has improved since he became engaged to a young girl whom Rhoda and her mother do not know but whom they hate. The new heir-presumptive is this girl’s baby half-brother, and Rhoda hates him, too.  They feel that a distant cousin, Bill Kane the sailor and his younger sister Rosalie, have been skipped over—like Mrs. Bennet, they do not seem to understand how the rules of entail and succession work. Lady Verriton had also been looking forward to acting as the head of the family during Geoff’s minority, and resents the young future countess and the fact that she, Lady Verriton, and her daughter will be turned out of the castle upon the Earl’s marriage. Rhoda has the additional chip on her shoulder that she herself is dark and petite, not tall and fair like all the others in the Kentisbury family.

—Now here Lady Rhoda and her mother are being just plain ridiculous! There are centuries of precedence that the Dowager and her daughters, younger sons, etc. are bounced out of the ancestral home as soon as the current Earl or Duke or whomever marries. It’s rather like the peaceful transition of power between one American President and the President-Elect! You don’t get to stay in the White House forever!

But Rhoda and Lady Verriton are unreasonably thinking that Bill, whom they know and love, and who often visited the estate when he was growing up, should have had the title, or should at least be next in line for it. They seem indifferent if not actively antagonistic to the new Earl, the invalid whom apparently no one paid much attention to until he got engaged and his fiancée took him to see new doctors who improved his health. Their animus is reserved for that nameless young gold-digger (as they think of her) and her wretched baby brother. The kindest thing one can say about Rhoda is that she and her mother are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder over the relatively recent death of their father/husband, respectively, and the very recent and tragic death of the teenaged Earl. The Careful Reader, who was not I until about the third re-reading, will have picked up that the boy was willful and stubborn and wouldn’t have made a particularly good Earl in any case. But that’s neither here nor there in this episode. —

Lady Verriton leaves the country to visit her sister and Lady Rhoda and her distant cousin Rosalie (Bill’s sister; she has no title) go to attend Wood End school, which is designed for girls who don’t want to go on to college, but whose future lies in running their husbands’ estates. They need to be able to direct and supervise the servants and outdoor staff. The curriculum is hands-on-learning of things like the insides of a motor car, basic veterinary skills, how to run a Women’s Institute meeting, and lots of gardening and other outdoor work, as well as French, which well-brought up young women are supposed to be fluent in. The uniform is like those of the Women’s Land Army of World War I—” …khaki breeches like those the land-girls had during the war and smocks [emphasis added].’” Which war is not specified—of course, WWII had not occurred either in real time nor Abbey Time—in fact the series ends before the war begins. But depending on when you read this installment, you might be forgiven for thinking the uniform was that of the Land Girls of WWII.

—Elsewhere EJO refers to the Wood End uniform as being a “smock” over the breeches and boots, and some illustrators (and I) took this to be a traditional shepherd’s type of smock below, as translated to the left. In the cover illustrations at the top of this post you’ll see the smock concept on the right, along with the stout gloves needed for pruning roses.

However, a loose billowy smock gets in your way if you are bending over hoeing or weeding. In fact the Land Army uniform was a long, belted jacket with lots of useful pockets and various colored arm-bands and hat-badges to show different lengths or service and accomplishments. The U.S. and Australia also instituted Women’s Land Armies or the equivalent, in order both to free up men for service and to increase home production of agricultural and, later, mechanical products. Here’s a good website devoted the Women’s Land Army, founded in January 1917 and disbanded in November, 1919. Here’s a website with more information. 

Below and especially to the right is the uniform: keys are slouch hat, breeches, high boots or short boots with puttees, and a coat that protects other garments.

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Historia/Shutterstock (9820224a)
The Agricola Outfit – Strong Serviceable Well Cut and Becoming – Idea For Women Workers On the Land and Available From the Cleveland Manufacturing Company. Advertisement in the Sphere, 27 April 1918
Overalls For Women Workers, Ww1, 1918

 

 

Cousins Rhoda and Rosalie quickly make friends, including Robin Brent and Gwyneth Quellyn of The Girl Who Wouldn’t Make Friends, and Rhoda is reunited with Sonia (“Sonny”) Raymond, who is Joan Shirley Raymond’s husband’s niece. Near the school is a cottage with two halves: the Squirrel is a tea-shop and the Rose sells hand-made craft items. Both places are out of bounds for the school girls. They are allowed to visit the school tuckshop (Americans: closest analogy is ice cream parlor or candy store), run by pretty young Gail Alwyn. Due to her youth Gail has a little trouble keeping order; the left-hand image above shows her (flowered overall) telling two of the younger girls to get down off the counter.

The girls meet their country dance instructor, a tall, fair girl named Rosamund. They assume that her last name is Abbott, as she keeps referring to her aunts who run the Squirrel tea-house, but she just wants them to call her by her first name. Rosamund is blonde, walks with grace due to her years of country dancing, and wears an enormous diamond on her left hand—the girls speculate that she must be going to marry someone important. They try to pump Gail for more intel, but she is adamant about not gossiping. Of course, she is our Rosamund Kane, but shh! don’t tell Rhoda!

One day one of the younger girls, who is out-of-bounds, spies a loom in the front room of the Rose, and tells the others. Sonia is wild to see it more closely and the girls decide to—it’s hard to believe this!—sneak downstairs in the middle of the night, go out-of-bounds —that is, impugning their honor to obey the rules—and commit a little B&E. Robin Brent tries hard to dissuade them from this bad idea. Rhoda is uneasy about the project but goes anyway as part of the group. The girls enter the cottage to see a lovely piece of white material shot with gold and silver on the loom. Gail Alwyn comes down and tells them to go home. Then Rosamund, in a jolly blue kimono and with her hair in long fair plaits, comes down to see what the noise is. Rhoda has just picked up a piece of paper that she assumes is instructions for the weaving pattern, but is actually a letter from Maidlin. Rosamund is furious and accuses Rhoda of reading her letter (a cardinal sin in Victorian England, but also she wonders if Rhoda has deduced who she is and is trying to find some dirt on the future Countess), and Rhoda denies it. After everyone calms down and cocoa is served, a teacher from the school, Lisbeth Durant, comes in; she had seen the girls leaving the school building, but it took her some time to dress and figure out where they went. She carelessly reveals Rosamund’s last name and Rhoda turns white with rage when she realizes that this jolly dance teacher is the horrid interloper. The girls leave, and the adults promise that they won’t tell the Head of School. Rosamund weeps when they leave. Rosamund has been aware all along that Rhoda hates her, and she has convinced the Head not to reveal who she is, hoping that she can get Rhoda to change her mind before she reveals her identity.

(Above: Rosamund is in a red kimono. Dark-haired Rhoda is seated and it is probably Tamzine wearing the school jacket and tie. This illustrator did not get the Land Army uniform memo! BTW, that is not my thumb.)

While her friends try to convince her to play nice, Rhoda remains adamant in her rage and dislike of Rosamund. The latter finishes the piece of material–it is for Maidlin, for her upcoming singing debut at the Queen’s Hall under the baton of Sir Ivor Llewellyn, Lady Joy Shirley Marchwood’s fiancé. The other girls come to apologize again, and Rosamund sends them back to school, urging them not to go via the commons, as a developer has cut down many trees, leaving the great top-heavy pines dangerously exposed. A storm with high winds is arriving. Rhoda also appears at the cottage and angrily confronts Rosamund. As Rhoda jerkily moves to leave the room, she bumps into the writing table and knocks ink onto the material, ruining it. Rosamund speaks harshly to Rhoda, who runs out of the cottage, sobbing.

Rosamund works to compose herself. After a while she realizes that Rhoda is not really to blame; that it was an accident and not done on purpose. She scribbles a note of apology (in pencil! Nice touch, Elsie!) and takes it up to the school, where Rhoda is not to be found. Rosamund intuits that Rhoda has run to the commons so as not to be easily discovered, and she goes after her, despite the high winds. She starts to lead Rhoda to safety, but the girl trips and, before she can recover, a large tree named Adam, falls and pins her down. Another tree, Eve, is swaying dangerously and is certain to fall soon. Rhoda urges Rosamund to flee, on her own account as well as Geoffrey’s and her brother’s, but Rosamund refuses to leave her alone. They wait for Eve to fall and Rosamund hopes that she’ll be killed outright, rather than left crippled. Here EJO shows us without telling us that Rosamund is playing up and playing the game as well as being true to the motto of the Hamlet Club. The tree does crash, but lands on the first tree. Rosamund is briefly knocked out, but the girls are safe.

Adam and Eve and the fall of the trees—man’s fall from Eden? Oxenham rarely indulges in overt religious symbolism, but this could be one of the times, although I am still puzzling over it. Oxenham liked to give her heroines a Problem to resolve—and Lady Rhoda’s is pride. Rhoda has to be humbled by Rosamund’s generosity with regard to the ruined fabric and her gallantry in staying with Rhoda in the face of danger and possible death before she can achieve peace of mind and happiness.

The gardener and other men arrive and help the girls back to the school. Rhoda apologizes profusely for ruining the dress, but Rosamund assures her that Maidlin will prefer the reconciliation to the material, as indeed she does. Rhoda becomes completely reconciled to Rosamund and also confesses to the other girls that it was she who had ruined Maidlin’s gown. Rhoda and Rosalie offer to be bridesmaids at Rosamund’s wedding.

For Folk Dancers

This installment has quite a lot on dance: both on some new dances that Rosamund teaches the girls as well as the style of teaching and some of the comments on dance style itself.

Rhoda is eager to learn the country dancing, as her local Women’s Institute does it—she has not, however, cared to join in with them because she does not want to reveal her lack of knowledge and be “hauled through” a dance by mere villagers. (Her friends laugh at her for her snobbish attitude.) Rhoda asks if the teacher knows a lot of dances: “A dreadful thing happened once in our village. The W.I. had had lessons from a school teacher, and thought they knew a lot. Then someone else took them on, and she said they were doing it all wrong. She taught them all different ways, and the poor things didn’t know where they were, or what or who was right’ (97).” She is assured that Rosamund has the headquarters’ certificate. Rosamund appears, walking lightly “with a movement which told, to anyone who understood, of years of folk-dancing” (98).

Accomplished pianist Gail plays the dulcitone for the dancing: a pretty but rather quiet and tinkly sound-ing spinet-like instrument. Rosamund thinks that it fits the dances even better than the penny whistle that Gail had wanted to play, but I’m not sure I agree with her, at least not for some dances—here’s a dulcitone.

Gail asks for a chance to dance and Rosamund assures her that she’ll play better if she does. She then tells the girls to join hands and slip clockwise—and the girls asks which way that is. (102). And this was when everyone was using analog clocks!

To start the session, Rosamund tells the girls to form two lines and Tamzine says rather scornfully that she knows what’s going to happen: “‘Lead your woman down and turn her under; skip her back and swing your partner! These things in lines are all alike’ (98)” It is clear from this comment that folk dancing has to some extent already permeated the school P.E. curriculum. Rosamund says that perhaps she’s done Haste to the Wedding or Pop Goes the Weasel (both from Sharp’s first Country Dance Book of 1909), but what they are going to do is different. Later, Rosamund tells them to form a two-couple set, Tamzine scornfully thinks it’s going to be for Rufty Tufty, which apparently she is rather sick of. These sound like comments from real girls.

Here is Rosamund teaching:

“‘Take hands-four; oh—sorry! Make small rings of two couples! Now—those with their backs to me are Ones, those facing me are Twos. You’re sure of that? Keep your same number till you reach the end of the line, then change. I’ll take care of you when you change your number. Play the tune, Gail; listen everybody! It’s ‘Christchurch Bells.’ Do you know it?’ (99)”

Rhoda says that she knows it as a song and Rosamund tells the girls that many of the dances were songs. Rosamund continues, making the girls “practice the brisk clapping and the ‘cast,’” but almost at once insisting on the movements being fitted to the music. “As soon as the girls knew what they had to do, they were urged to try it with the tune, so that the music and movements should go together in their minds. (100)” This is excellent teaching technique! I have seen far too many people teach a dance without giving any indication of the music.

Christchurch Bells is indeed a jolly little dance and a good one for beginners in that it is short and the progression very clear. It is a three-part tune, originally a round or catch, written by Oxford don Henry Aldrich in 1673 and published in 1733 in The Second Book of the Catch Club.

  1. Hark the bonny Christchurch bells, one two three four five six.

They sound so woundy great, so wondrous sweet,

And they troll so merrily, merrily.

2.  Hark the first and second bell that every day at four and ten

Cries come, come, come, come, come to prayers, and the verger troops before ye.

3.  Tingle, tingle, ting goes the small bell at nine to call the bearers home,

But the de’il a man will leave his can ‘til he hears the mighty Tom.

The song Christchurch Bells in Oxford reminds us that the city was a place of worship as well as study, and that the bells of the various churches pealed all day long to tell the hours and to call students to class and celebrants to prayer. English bells were not pitched to play a tune as in a carillon, but different-sized bells did have different tones and pitches and could be rung in changes for specific purposes. Tom is clearly a basso profundo who says it’s time to high-tail it home. (For more on bells, read Dorothy Sayers’ mystery The Nine Tailors (1934). Did Oxenham read this? Probably—in addition to her popular mysteries, Sayers also wrote on religious topics, and she would have been of interest to EJO.) The “can” referred to above is the mug of beer that some prefer to other pursuits.

Here is a delightful rendition of the catch—be sure to watch it to the very end!

Here’s the dance as interpreted by Cecil Sharp from the seventh edition (1686—thirteen years after Aldrich wrote his song; it must have already been popularly spread by word of mouth) of The Dancing Master. Phrase One: first man turns second woman by the right, then his partner by the left. Phrase Two: second man turns first woman by the left and his partner by the right. Phrase Three: all four slipping circle around in 8 steps, then two claps (own hands, partner Right, own, partner Left), and in four steps the ones cast off to second places, twos moving up. Fun and easy but with amusing potential to get mixed up on the turns—is it left-hand or right? Well, here’s what EJO has Rosamund say; the girls are having some trouble at the ends of the lines when they change numbers and Rosamund urges them to trust the couples coming at them.

Presently Rosamund called a halt. “Look here, you people! Trust the couple coming up or down the line to you. They’ve been doing it all the way; they won’t suddenly go wrong. If the second woman wants to give right hand, let her, new first man! She’s correct; don’t insist on giving her your left.” Rosamund is right! This kind of insight reminds us that Elsie Oxenham taught dancing to her Camp Fire and her Girl Guide troop.

Later one of the girls asks how many dances Rosamund knows:  she responds “120,” but that they won’t get through them all in this term (185). Rosamund is being a little dated—her answer would have been nearly correct up to 1922, which was about the time that the Oxenham family left London and presumably that EJO ceased to dance quite as often as formerly with the EFDS crowd.

The Country Dance Book I    (1909)              18 (or 20 if you count variants in this edition)

Book II                                   (1911)              30

Book III                                  (1912)              34

Book IV                                  (1916)              43

We’ll leave out Book V (1918) because it is devoted to the Kentucky Running Set. Book VI (1922) contained another 52 dances interpreted by Sharp from the Playford publications. However, the sum of the dances in the first four books is 125. (The total sum, again excluding Book V, is 177.)

However, Elsie and Rosamund are not wholly out-of-date! The dance Corn Rigs, with its polka step, comes from Sharp’s amanuensis and prominent collector in her own right, Maud Karpeles’ 1931 publication of Twelve Traditional Country Dances with pianoforte arrangements by Ralph Vaughan Williams. In a later instalment, EJO will refer to the dance Steamboat, which also comes from this publication. These dances deserve an essay of their own, which they are not going to receive at present—their importance in this story is that Oxenham, 57 in 1937 when the book was published, was still in touch with dance trends. The girls enjoy this dance and its new step:  “. . . at the end of ‘Corn Rigs’ they broke into spontaneous clapping. ‘That’s tophole! Great, that one is!’”

And now on to two dances that Rosamund teaches that I am confident that few if any Gentle Readers will have encountered (I was certainly unfamiliar with them!): Sage Leaf and Put on Thy Smock on a Monday. Both are set dances with some complexities and both have tunes that are. . . . undistinguished. Dull, in fact.

Like (and probably related to) the Boulanger that Jane Austen enjoyed about 130 years later, the Sage Leaf (fourth edition, 1670) is a dance that is probably a blast at the end of your first grown-up party, when you and the other eighteen-year-old kids are slightly tipsy on the punch that you didn’t know was as strong as all that, and there’s a cute boy who keeps looking at you. In other words, it’s a party dance. There’s lots of skipping about and then plenty of time to catch your breath. Here’s how it goes.

As many couples as will, lady standing to the gentleman’s right, join hands in a big circle and slip to the right and then to the left. Gents dance in to the center and fall back; ladies the same. Now comes the distinctive figure—let’s say there are four couples in this set.

First couple lead in to the center, fall back, and then right-hand turn. Then second couple does the same thing, then third, then fourth. Now first man turns his partner by the right-hand once and a half around, then turns the second lady by the right, then the third, then the fourth, wending his way around the ring. Then the second gentleman turns his partner thusly and then all the other ladies. Then the third gent, then the fourth the same.

Now, to change things up, that whole paragraph is repeated with the second couple starting with the leading in. Then that paragraph again for the third couple, then again for the fourth. You can see that if there are a lot of couples, there is a fair bit of standing about, which is when you get to chat with your partner. The dance concludes with everyone circling right and left back again. One pities the musicians.

(Actually, with stronger tunes to support it, I could see this dance being fun in certain situations, particularly with a community of people who are familiar and comfortable with each other—at the closing party at a dance camp/weekend or for a home-school group or something of that sort. It wouldn’t take long to teach and is very accessible.)

Put on thy Smock on a Monday is a round for three couples that doesn’t deserve to be as forgotten as it is, again probably because the tune is dull, IMO. It has the standard USA figures (up a double or slipping circle, siding, and arming) with a chorus that is led by each gentleman in turn. The chorus is not difficult, per se, but, as Rosamund notes, you have to have a good spatial sense. Think of it as the first gentleman honoring, in turn, the third lady, then the second, then his own partner. Here’s how it goes: you are in a circle, first gent, and the first lady is on your right hand and the second on your left. Join hands with these two ladies and advance in a line to the left-over lady and retire; as the 2L and 1L turn each other once around behind your back, so to speak, you turn that honored third lady three-quarters around to end facing the second lady, opening into a new line of three numbered 1L – 1G – 3L. These three advance and retire and the two ladies turn once around while the first gentleman turns the second lady three-quarters around to re-orient the line facing the first lady, numbering 3L – 1G – 2L. Advance and retire and the first gent turns his partner while the other two ladies turn each other: all end at home positions. If you keep in mind that the honored lady will always end up at the active gentleman’s right hand with the nearer other lady in his left, and that the lines are oriented in three directions, it’s not so bad! This chorus is repeated by the second gentleman after the siding, and by the third after the arming. It could be tricksy in an all-girl set! The Wood End girls call it a “dear little dance,” but they have difficulty in controlling their three-quarter turns. (It takes a fair bit of control to turn only three-quarters in the phrase of music that you could turn once around in!) Rosamund tells them that they must cultivate their sense of “design.” This is a new word for EJO—she has mentioned “pattern” before—patterns work themselves out—but “design” is probably closer to what is needed in terms of the spatial awareness for this dance.

One of the tricky points that Rosamund is aware of is that Sage Leaf, a round for five couples, is numbered anti-clockwise, whereas Put on thy Smock is numbered the more usual clockwise. I do not know why or how Sharp came up with these rules—I don’t see anything in the facsimiles to indicate it. But this kind of detail would certainly have been part of the certificate testing.

Our next episode brings Rosamund to her happy ending, but there is more drama ahead. But first, a brief detour to the world of the certificate.