The goats have started their summer job. Like they did last year, they’re keeping the reservoir up the road tidy. Eating their way around it.
Sometimes they take breaks up on the roof.
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A Bad Guide 
WOW! Fabulous shot of the dancing goats and their shadows! Amazing!
I like the shadows too. It’s actually a good place to take pictures, up there.
FANTASTIC!
(read it with the tone of Dr.Who)
I have a dancing dog, but two goats and their shadows … ¡es mucho más que eso!
Good for you & good for them (always lovely)!
Oh, please put up a picture of your dancing dog!
I love a dancing goat.
It could never be as good as your picture…
I don’t want to compete and loose! (It’s better to imagine something great, instead of seeing something dull)
That is a wonderful picture. It will keep me smiling today.
Good.
A dull dancing dog? Huh. A paradox.
Looks like they’re doing an English Country Dance.
No, he’s not dull (he’s funny and fantastic), but the pictures I have right nowdo not do justice to his skills…
But perhaps my husband’s new girl-friendcan help me one of this days.
The dancing goats are sans pareil. Marvellous. We need new lyrics for this old fave.
All together now:-
I may go out tomorrow if I can bring dancing goats so rare
Oh, I’d step out in style with my sincere smile and my dancing pair
Outrageous, alarming, courageous, charming
Oh, who would think a boy and pair
Could be well accepted everywhere
It’s just amazing how fair people can be
Seen at the nicest places where well-fed faces all stop to stare
Making the grandest entrance is Arthur Crown and his dancing pair
They’ll love us, won’t they?
They feed us, don’t they?
Oh, who would think a boy and pair
Could be well accepted everywhere
It’s just amazing how fair people can be
Who needs money when you’re funny?
The big attraction everywhere
Will be Arthur Crown and his dancing pair
It’s Arthur Crown and his amazing dancing pair.
The goats with their shadows remind me just a little of Kipling’s picture of Old Man Kangaroo in the Just So Stories.
I always liked Alan Price and Randy Newman’s songs. I wonder if Alan Price & Georgie Fame are still going?
I read that the word “country” in English country dancing is supposed to have come from French contre. If that’s so, then you’re right. I love to watch the expression on their faces while they perform this ritual: it’s always the same, very formal and concentrated and it reminds me of Travis Bickle saying “Are you talking to me?”.
I’ll have to look up Old Man Kangaroo, I can’t remember it.
I have a soft spot for Mr Price: he entertained me and a few friends in our Common Room long ago; he played and sang blues while we bought him the occasional beer. Top man.
Kangaroo
Oh, yes. That’s great.
AJP: I read that the word “country” in English country dancing is supposed to have come from French contre.
I, on the other hand, have read many times that the contre in French contredanse comes from English country in country dance.
Take your pick! But the latter seems to be the more likely scenario. There would be no reason to use the word contre (meaning “against” or “counter” – as in “counter-revolution”) with the word danse.
>A. J. P. Crown, Marie-lucie
It’s true that it isn’t the Bible but our « Real Academia Española » writes :
http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltGUIBusUsual?TIPO_HTML=2&LEMA=contradanza
It’s also great the way they look at each other, as if they were in love.
However, I’m not sure the waterproofing membrane likes it very much to have fighting goats running atop.
That was my first thought too, but they haven’t made any impression in it so far.
Of course they’re making no impressions – they’re tripping the light fantastic.
they haven’t made any impression in it so far
That’s because Vesla and Misty haven’t — yet — got the idea of wearing stiletto heels, but just wait a bit…
Vesla and Holly I mean. (How can I mistake one for the other? Misty would never ever wear stiletto heels.)
Obviously not. That would be silly.
Why did you photoshop their guitars out of the dancing picture?
Holly’s strings, on the right. Vesla’s bongos.
Bongos. Of course!
(Not goatskin. Of course.)
I read that the word “country” in English country dancing is supposed to have come from French contre.
As a kid, I too read that many of the calls (“patter” and “singing”) in American square dancing derive from French. The direction is done by callers or cuers. The link mentions Allemande left, Right and Left Grand and Promenade. What I remember especially is dosey-do (that’s the spelling I know):
Then there’s this to clear up the old misconceptions:
In Crown’s picture, I recognize the figure of goat-si-go.
Maybe this is what Joni Mitchell had in mind when she sang
I met a redneck on a Grecian isle/He did the goat-dance very well/He gave me back my smile/But he kept my camera to sell.
Caleb, welcome to our little goat-dance.
This animated satire has helped popularize the commonly held and mistaken notions that one should hold one’s arms crossed over the chest while executing the step.
How many notions are we talking about here? Even if it’s just one, I’m not sure it’s mistaken. This may be a case of two competing variants, one of which has survived in the dance subculture to which the wiki writer belongs, and the other of which also had a valid life of its own even before receiving a boost from Bugs Bunny.
In other words, this may be a case of narrow-minded dance prescriptivism.
Mind you, I don’t do it with arms crossed and I’m a little irritated when others do; but I distinguish between “that’s not how we do it here” and “that’s wrong”.
Western dance tradition is mostly about moving one’s legs and feet, and there is always a problem of what to do with the arms. Perhaps holding the arms across the chest is a way of using one’s arms while in a position where it is not possible to hold hands or otherwise interact with one’s partner. For women, it is always possible to hold one’s (traditionally full) skirt at each side, slightly away from the body, but that is not an option with male costume. I am not familiar with all the intricacies of that type of dance, let alone its history, but perhaps crossing one’s arms started for the men (it is one way to show they are not armed, for instance) and was later extended to the women.
What do with your arms? Wave your dirk and claymore, surely.
Not in that kind of dance! You seem to be referring to Highland dancing, not to “square dance” as practiced in America (an offshoot of some types of Continental European dance).
Oh, from the Continent. Couldn’t one wave an eclair and a fondant fancy, perhaps?
Or some sort of fish, if one is of the Norse persuasion.
Dearie said he became a rugby threequarter from having learnt Highland dance routines when he was very young.
Yes, and he referred specifically to the nimble footwork. Here in Nova Scotia, Highland and Irish dancing are very popular with young girls. The footwork is indeed nimble, but their arms seem stuck stiffly to their bodies.
I wrote “Western tradition” by comparison with Eastern dances such as those of India or Bali or even China where arm and hand movements are much more complex (in traditional Chines and Korean dances, women wore clothes with extremely long sleeves, so as to emphasize those arm movements – perhaps a Central Asian tradition).
There was an Irish group a few years ago who did that straight-armed dancing. They were called River Dance. I saw it on television. It looked rather fun. We tried it out in the living room.
The Norse influence at work-
AJP, in case you have not come across it already, a great deal of goat dance is here to be found.
The 17 seconds of food motivated goat dance, top row far right, is probably better described as goat standing on hind legs to solicit material favour.
(Animal tricks inspired by humans occasionally cause some uneasiness of the soul, it must be confessed.)
The top row far left “Pygmy happy dance” appears a bit more independent in conception, as well as expressive.
Mid second row the Eastern European (?) fiddler is an old goat who could teach younger goats a few tricks (speaking of tricks.)
In any case, AJP, we love your goats whether they do or don’t. (Dance, that is.)
Meanwhile, animals at our end of the virtual wilderness this week are an Emperor Penguin breaking the ice and a couple of
serval cats looking back.
(Those serval cats are tremendous dancers, by the way, the Emperor not so much.)
Speaking of old goats doing tricks, here is that goat dance anthology re-coded.
We miss you AJP! Where are you? Enjoying your summer? Is winter here!
¡Saludos! :-)
Julia. Yes, we need to run and jump in the sun while it’s here. We just got another horse, and that’s taking up some time. Plus the lawn mower doesn’t work very well on the steep slope in the garden, and I’m having to cut the grass with scissors.
Tom, thank you for some interesting links. Funny that they only show pigmy goats dancing. I, too, have mixed feelings about the goat on the tightrope. Jolly clever goat, though.
Manden som skulde stelle hjemme. (via.)
Yes, that’s a good description of me. Here it is in English.
I know Wm Morris was interested in Norway and I read somewhere (not Wikipedia) that he was on his way here when he died, but what is his connection to Asbjørnsen & Moe?
Julia: Enjoying your summer? It’s winter here!
Yeah, and the days are damn short at the moment!
Hmm… it looks as if my comment got frozen somewhere. Or maybe it got cut by AJP’s scissors, “les ciseaux d’Anastasie” in this case.
Hmmmmm… Two comments gone now. Censorship is working without any break it seems. Maybe I should log in with WordPress again in order to have anything published at all. (AJP, do you have a rake coming with your scissors, so that you could catch two of my comments which were very neatly cut down?)
I admit I don’t have a chain of evidence. I just remembered News from Nowhere and looked for the original. It might be through Sir George Webbe Dasent’s translation, the basis of the English to which you linked. Morris edited a series of saga translations, but I don’t know how good his Norwegian was.
Wikipedia only mentions Iceland.
While we’re at it, I see no reason that Jane should be forgiven for the suet incident.
Jane Morris? This is the story you’re referring to, beastly woman. I quite enjoyed reading this, especially where she says:
Oh, no, poor AJP! Beware of ropes, cows and specially butter…
Yes, Siganus, winter is sad, although I’m sure ours is nothing compared to Norway.