The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson

Dance
    T ally was right. There was a book about folk dancing, several books in fact, but they were not very helpful.
    â€œThere’s Scottish dancing and maypole dancing and morris dancing,” she said.
    But Scotland was a long way from Devon and they did not feel they had a right to pretend to be Scottish, and anyway the steps were difficult.
    â€œMaypole dancing looks nice,” said Julia. “All those ribbons.”
    But Barney said that disasters happened very easily with maypole dancing. In his village the vicar at the garden fête had been completely trussed up when one of the children had taken her ribbon in the wrong direction.
    â€œHe had to be cut out in the end,” Barney said.
    So that left morris dancing, which was derived from the ancient sword dances of medieval England, only instead of swords the dancers had wooden sticks—and it was danced by men.
    â€œWell, we can’t have only boys,” said Julia. “We’d never get enough.”
    They had of course consulted Armelle, but she was so horrified at the idea of a dance that did not come spontaneously from inside the soul that she was not helpful at all.
    â€œIt says here that they hit each other with the sticks—they’re called staves—at least they bang them together and they flap at each other with handkerchiefs,” said Tally, looking at the book. “And they have bells on their ankles, rows and rows of bells, and more bells tied around their knees so that their trousers look baggy.”
    â€œAnd they wear hats with flowers sewn onto them. There’s one dance called the Helston Flurry Dance, which is danced in Cornwall. Flurry means flowers,” said Tod. “It’s not exactly a morris dance, but it’s that kind of thing.”
    He had at first wanted to have nothing to do with the trip to Bergania. The king who had said no to Hitler might be brave but he was still a king, and all kings belonged in dungeons—preferably with their heads chopped off. But when his friends all became involved he had joined in and put in some very useful work in the library.
    â€œI don’t want to flap with my handkerchief,” said Kit, looking even more woebegone than usual.
    â€œThere’s one person who rides a sort of hobbyhorse through the dancers,” said Barney. “The Devil, they think. Or maybe the Fool. It’s a very old dance. ‘Full of antiquity,’ it says here.”
    It certainly looked old from the few pictures they could find. Not only old but exceedingly odd.
    â€œWhat about the music? ” asked Borro.
    They went to consult the old professor who taught music and he said it would probably have been danced to pipes and tambours but perhaps a violin would do.
    â€œAugusta’s got a violin,” said Tally. “I remember when she came.”
    So they went to find Augusta, who was eating a banana and reading a detective story, and she said she could play the violin, but she couldn’t play it well.
    â€œI don’t really like the noithe it maketh,” she said.
    But she fetched it and played a slow tune full of double stops and they thought it would do if she could play it faster and maybe learn a more jigging sort of piece as well. Taking Augusta to Bergania would be complicated because of her only being able to eat so very few things.
    â€œBut if we stock up with bananas you’ll be all right, won’t you?” said Julia, and Augusta agreed that she probably would. She was really a very good-natured girl and they were glad she had come back from Wales.
    â€œOf course, the other groups will probably have all sorts of instruments—an orchestra even—all those Swiss and Bavarian people in lederhosen slapping their thighs will be terribly good—but we can’t compete with them. All we want is to be there,” said Tally.
    â€œI don’t,” said Kit. “I don’t want to be there.”
    â€œWe