The Old Men’s Morris at Hereford

Hone reprinted an account of a morris danced at a horse race near Hereford in 1609, when lords and knights gathered and one gentleman had promised a hobby-horse that would outlast all the racehorses. The joke was that every performer was very old. The fiddler was said to be 108, the pipe and tabor player 97, and the four whifflers who kept the ground, with long red and white staves, over a hundred each; the twelve dancers included a bone-setter who came to mend any joint put out, John Hunt the hobby-horse, and Meg Goodwin of Eardisland as Maid Marian, said to be 120. Dressed in red and white with red roses on their shoes, the company was reckoned to carry 1837 years between them, and courtiers who had won their wagers wore the dancers’ colours in their hats afterwards.