sword dance

sword dance, folk dance performed with swords or swordlike objects, displaying themes such as human and animal sacrifice for fertility, battle mime, and defense against evil spirits. There are several types. In linked-sword, or hilt-and-point, dances, performers hold the hilt of their own sword and the point of the sword of the dancer behind them, the group forming intricate, usually circular, patterns. Combat dances for one or more performers emphasize battle mime and originally served as military training. Crossed-sword dances are performed over two swords or a sword and scabbard crossed on the ground. Finally, guerrilla dances in circular formation are often performed with swords.

Hilt-and-point dances are widely distributed through Europe—e.g., in northern England, Basque territory, and Spain. They are often performed as part of a folk play. The plays are closely related to the English mummers plays and parallel the Greek folk play in Thrace. In the dance the swords are interlocked at one point, forming a “rose,” or “lock,” that is held aloft and placed around the neck of a performer in mock decapitation. Often the “beheaded” falls “dead,” to be revived by a “doctor,” a fool, a man-woman, or other character. The roots of these dances are in ancient vegetation rites of death and renewal, possibly in sacrifice of a leader to ensure fertility. Even today they are believed to bring luck or well-being.

Dances of stylized battle mime survive in modern Turkey (some with rifles replacing swords), in the dirk dance of Scottish Canada, in Borneo, and elsewhere. The pyrrhic dance of ancient Greece served as an exercise of military training until late antiquity, when it degenerated into popular professional entertainment. The hassapikos, or butchers’ dance, of Turkey and ancient and modern Greece—now a communal social dance—was in the Middle Ages a battle mime with swords performed by the butchers’ guild, which adopted it from the military.

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Crossed-sword dances are common in Europe (e.g., Scotland, the Balkans) and also appear in India, Borneo, and other areas. Characteristically, one or more dancers execute precise, complicated steps over and between the swords. The famed Scottish solo dance Gillie Callum, which is danced to a folk melody of the same name, is first mentioned only in the early 19th century. In its close relative, the English solo Bacca pipes jig, crossed clay pipes replace the swords. There are evidences that such dances formerly included swordplay. In the Scottish Argyll broadsword dance, the four performers flourish their swords before laying them on the ground, points touching, to form a cross. Possible ancient ritual meaning is suggested by the frequent belief that if a sword is touched, even lightly, the dance must be stopped.

Guerrilla dances survive particularly in the Balkans and Turkey, long afflicted by invading armies. Typically, they are in circular formation, beginning with the leaders whirling and making whiffling sounds with their swords. Improvised dance, often with battle mime, follows. The whiffling of swords also occurs in the Balkan rusalia, a ritual dance for healing and fertility. It also precedes several English hilt-and-point dances and possibly derives from ancient whiffling to clear the dance area of evil spirits.

Many European sword dances were taken over by trade guilds, trade implements often replacing swords. Dances with sticks are related both to sword dances and to Morris dances and moriscas, ritual dances usually for a double file of men. Many dances of the Morris–morisca family employ swords.