“The dancers wear white shirts, sparsely decorated back and front with ribbons, dark trousers and belt, and have nothing on their heads. Each man carries a rapper of the usual type... The blade from hilt to tip is nineteen inches in length... The Betty, a man-woman, wears a bonnet and a dress of coloured stuff, and carries a rapper. Holding her sword horizontally above her head, harlequin-fashion, she dances up and down down outside the dancers, throughout the performance, encouraging them from time to time with wild and uncouth cries.” (Cecil Sharp, The Sword Dances of Northern England, London: Novello, 1913; volume 3).
@Wotsitorlabart Cross dressing for different reasons has always be a cultural tradition in the Britain. For centuries the European mainland have acknowledged this as a British thing.
@@1220b But not unique to Britain. EC Cawte in his book 'Ritual Animal Disguise' notes that across Europe various types of hobby-horses and similar 'animals' are accompanied by a 'shemale' - 'from Iceland to Spain and from Ireland to Romania'. And he quotes an early church homily from about 400AD in which both animal disguise and 'men turned into women' are condemned.
@Wotsitorlabart not unique to britain, but definitely a strong hold of this tradition. Norse, Anglo-Saxon it held strong religious connections of shape shifting. Either to animal or female form. It's interesting to see it in Shakespeare and Later panto. The French called it the British kink ! It's most definitely a British cultural tradition in the sense many of our comedy stars would cross dress and appeal to a wide audience. My local rugby team quite often head out on a pub crawl dressed to the Nines. I can imagine Vikings in york doing similar. The power of the female form when worn by a 6.3 man age old..