Morris dancers

Yes some more VBCW figures. Next post something different I promise! Again these are all painted for my good friend Matt at the wargames club. And again they are all 28mm and VBCW figures. The sculpts are (I am told) by Woodbine design and several have been converted with weapons added to give them a more military feel. Some came with weapons as well but Matt has added more guns.

The first 2 pics are them all together and then some in more detail. If you are not English you may be forgiven for not knowing what Morris Dancing is. so here is a link to the Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_dance and if you are English you probably think it is a sad waste of time and even try to quote others disparaging remarks about it. But I will have none of that on my blog.

There are in fact several different forms of Morris dancing and they all stem from Pagan routes and are mostly to do with celebrating erhm... fertility... yes, yes Fertility that is the right word! And each of these forms is geographically based but sometimes with linked themes and traditions.

Along with the dancing there is usually plentiful amounts of beer and cider consumed and now adays the Morris Dancing mostly takes place in country pubs. And there is little wrong with that. But Morris dancing is not for everyone and and an be seen as a joke by those city folks who do not understand the feeling of nature and traditions. Each to their own.

These have been painted to represent a generic Morris Dancing Troop and not a specific group as colours and clothing does vary greatly in both eras and locations. So realistically any colours could be taken and still look authentic. But that said I did settle on Dark blue and cream as the feature colours. I also regulated the colours of the flowers in the hats although they could be any colour that would grow in the gardens and fields of England.

The flag is by Solway ( painted by Pete Barfield) and is of Rochester, the Cathedral town in Kent (It did used to be a cathedral city BUT the local council did not fill in the right and proper paperwork so the government has demoted the City to now a town.... Local government, I say no more!)

The flag also has the Kent emblem of the white horse which neatly brings me on to "Oodening!" I do not expect anyone to know that word as it is sometimes spelt "Hodening" but with a deep Kent accent it is actually OOdening as the H gets dropped and the O vowel sound does get lengthened!

Anyway it dates back to 12th century English possibly coming from the Norse god Odin who had a 6 legged horse if I remember correctly. Anyway in Kent Morris dancing also had a pretend Hobby horse which was usually draped in sackcloth as shown in the early black and white picture circa 1905.  While the use of a hobby horse (Now used as children's toys) was "Exported" to other areas of England it was started in Kent where we set our VBCW. And as the symbol of Kent is a white horse I was of course obliged to paint the horse as a grey! (Yes a white one).

While the man/rider is dressed in greens and a few browns as the colours of the forest as he represents the Green man from English pagan folklore. I do realise that most of you will have gotten bored by now and stopped reading so thank you if you are still here. The Green man usually makes his appearance (traditionally) on the 1st of May bringing in the growing season.

Anyway that should explain the colours used and the reason behind their use. I know there has been a bit of reading today sorry about that.


Right at the very end I have put a Youtube video about Morris dancing. But kindly remember while the music and dances my be traditional the clothing is not in most of the dancing troops. Just in case you have never encountered it before and want to know more.

I apologise to anyone if I have any facts wrong as this is just how I see it and not based on participation, just observation.

Thanks for looking today and more in a couple of days, when I get some more painting done!

Cheers Clint