‘Then abruptly the sun rose over the horizon, flooding us with light. We were literally being held in the light.' Photo: by Ann Savchecko via Unsplash
Eye - 16 December 2022
From A bright beginning to Merrily dancing
A bright beginning
A weekend gathering led to a memorable moment, Bob Ward, of Aylsham Meeting, tells Eye.
Friends from Norfolk and Waveney Area Meeting recently got together at Belsey Bridge conference centre.
Bob tells us: ‘On the first morning, before breakfast, Brett Fletcher led a silent meditative walk out into the grounds, with occasional pauses to become fully sensitive to our surroundings.
‘We walked slowly in single file until we reached an area of level ground where we formed a circle, quiet and still.
‘Then abruptly the sun rose over the horizon, flooding us with light.
‘We were literally being held in the light. Everyone there was deeply moved. What a start to the day!’
On this day
Every month Eye will be peering through the pages of the Friend’s 180-year archive to see what nuggets can be found.
So, let’s delve 124 years into the past, with the bumper edition published on the 16th of 12th Month 1898 (as dates were once printed on the cover).
Twenty-nine of the fifty-one pages were dedicated to adverts, and what a range! In addition to holiday homes, books, and events, we can also find cocoa, cameras, winter hosiery, Blenheim orange apples, spring flower bulbs, and household linen.
Something else unfamiliar to many modern subscribers may be the notice that appeared before the content got into full swing: ‘With this issue of THE FRIEND is enclosed a subscription form for 1899, which the Publishers hope will be promptly filled up and returned to them or to the appointed Agents, with accompanying remittance.’
Yes Friends, subscriptions used to be processed once a year for everyone – Eye is boggled at the workload that the New Year greeted the Friend’s team with in years past!
Merrily dancing
A folk song with an energetic Quaker couple centre stage caught the attention of Mary Callaway, from Stockport Meeting.
She tells Eye that they appear in The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book, edited by Iona and Peter Opie, gifted to her by a member of her Meeting in memory of circle dancing events she used to lead.
The first two verses conjure quite the image:
The Quaker’s wife got up to bake,
Her children all about her;
She gave them every one a cake,
And there the miller found her.
He chased her up, he chased her down,
As fast as he could make her;
And merrily danced the Quaker’s wife,
And merrily danced the Quaker.
Eye couldn’t resist digging deeper, and it appears that a form of this song has been around for over 250 years!
Elaine Bradtke, in an article for Folk Music Journal, traced it back through the years: ‘The earliest British printed examples of the tune that we know of date from the mid-eighteenth century. It was printed in Rutherford’s Choice Collection of Sixty of the Most Celebrated Country Dances (c. 1750-67) under the title So Merrily Dance the Quaker.’
It would be fascinating to know more about how it came about, though Eye suspects it wasn’t a Quaker composition!
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