Introduction / Peter Harrop & Steve Roud -- Part I: Folk Drama, Theatre and Performance -- Introduction / Peter Harrop -- 1. Towards an anatomy of English customary drama: theatre, stage, play / Thomas Pettitt -- 2. Performing calendrical pressures: Shrovetide processions and shroving perambulations in premodern England / Taylor Aucoin -- 3. Robin Hood folk-performance in fifteenth and sixteenth-century England / John Marshall -- 4. Alongside the mummers’ plays: customary elements in amateur and semi-professional theatre 1730–1850 / Peter Harrop -- 5. The Alderley Mummers’ Play: A story of longevity / Duncan Broomhead -- 6: A performance bestiary / Mike Pearson -- 7. Performing community: village life and the spectacle of worship in the work of Charles Marson / Katie Palmer Heathman -- 8. Boxing Day Fancy Dress in Wigan / Anna F C Smith -- Part II: Folk Dance -- Introduction / Peter Harrop -- 9. Merry Neets and Bridewains: contemporary commentaries on folk music, dance, and song in the Lake Counties during the Romantic period / Sue Allan -- 10. Sword Dancing in England: Texts and sources from the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries / Stephen D Corrsin -- 11. From Country Gardens to British Festivals: The Morris Dance Revival, 1886–1951 / Matt Simons -- 12. The English Country Dance, Cecil Sharp and Authenticity / Derek Schofield -- 13. Douglas Kennedy and Folk Dance in English Schools / Chloe Middleton-Metcalfe -- 14. Fancy Footwork: Reviewing the English Clog and Step Dance Revival / Alex Fisher -- 15. Expanding a Repertoire: Leicester Morrismen and the Border Morris / John Swift -- 16. Dancing with tradition: clog, step and short sword rapper in the twenty first century / Libby Worth -- 17. ‘Sequins, bows and pointed toes’: Girls' carnival morris – the ‘other’ morris dancing community / Lucy Wright -- Part III: Folk Song and Music -- Introduction / Steve Roud -- 18. Recrafting Love and Murder: Print and Memory in the Mediation of a Murdered Sweetheart Ballad / Thomas Pettitt -- 19. Burlesquing the Ballad / Steve Gardham -- 20. The Rise and Fall of the West Gallery: popular religious music in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries / Vic Gammon -- 21. The Drive for English Identity in Music and the Foundation of the Folk-Song Society / Arthur Knevett -- 22. ‘No Art More Dangerous’ : Eve Maxwell-Lyte and Folk Song / Martin Graebe -- 23. Creativity versus Authenticity in the English folksong revival / Brian Peters -- 24. Folk Choirs: Their Origins and Contribution to the Living Tradition / Paul Wilson & Marilyn Tucker -- 25. ‘Past Performances on Paper’: A Case Study of The Manuscript Tunebook of Thomas Hampton / Rebecca Dellow -- 26. The Performers in the Playground: Children’s Musical Practices in Play / Julia Bishop

"This broad-based collection of essays is an introduction both to the concerns of contemporary folklore scholarship and to the variety of forms that folk performance has taken throughout English history. Combining case studies of specific folk practices with discussion of the various different lenses through which they have been viewed since becoming the subject of concerted study in Victorian times, this book builds on the latest work in an ever-growing body of contemporary folklore scholarship. Many of the contributing scholars are also practicing performers and bring experience and understanding of performance to their analyses and critiques. Chapters range across the spectrum of folk song, music, drama and dance, but maintain a focus on the key defining characteristics of folk performance – custom and tradition – in a full range of performances, from carol singing and sword dancing to playground rhymes and mummers' plays. As well as being an essential reference for folklorists and scholars of traditional performance and local history, this is a valuable resource for readers in all disciplines of dance, drama, song and music whose work coincides with English folk traditions." -- Utgivarens hemsida.