Rushbearing and Internet Archive
I've just discovered the Internet Archive - an absolutely wonderful resource for old books. Project Gutenberg has better quality text because the scanned books are gone over by volunteers to correct all the scanner errors, but if a book isn't on Project Gutenberg, then try the Internet Archive. There are masses more books there, simply because scanning is so much faster.
Lots of universities are scanning their old books. I've just discovered that there was an American university tradition of maypole dancing about a century ago and have downloaded several books of dances that I'm looking forward to reading.
I've also found an online copy of Alfred Bruton's Rushbearing.
If, like me, you're interested in rushcarts and rushbearing traditions, then this is the only decent book on the subject. Originally published in 1891, it was already referring to a tradition that was mostly in the past. Bruton writes about the rush carts because he wanted to preserve the information before they were gone for ever. (Luckily, there are still some modern rushcarts - see link above for more details)
Rushcarts are strongly linked to North West morris.
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth where it has
comments.
Lots of universities are scanning their old books. I've just discovered that there was an American university tradition of maypole dancing about a century ago and have downloaded several books of dances that I'm looking forward to reading.
I've also found an online copy of Alfred Bruton's Rushbearing.
If, like me, you're interested in rushcarts and rushbearing traditions, then this is the only decent book on the subject. Originally published in 1891, it was already referring to a tradition that was mostly in the past. Bruton writes about the rush carts because he wanted to preserve the information before they were gone for ever. (Luckily, there are still some modern rushcarts - see link above for more details)
Rushcarts are strongly linked to North West morris.
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth where it has
comments.