Page 43 - "It is Wrong, Wrong to Dance"?? An Introduction to Cheticamp-Area Dance Prohibition with Folklorist Barbara LeBlanc

ISSUE : Issue 51

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1989/1/1

that were burnt, because it was considered the devil's instrument. So there was also --within the Scottish communities to a certain extent--there must have been that type of prohibition of music and dance. (Oh, yes. And there are so many stories of warnings, stories of people playing cards, for instance--usually on the Sabbath, but maybe playing cards any time. And then, bending down to pick up a card you dropped, and real? izing that the stranger who's at the table with you, his feet are....) Hoofed. (That's right.) In the legend, too, of? ten that's how they would discover that the stranger was the devil. They'd see he had hoofs. Or also, he'd have gloves on, and the glove would come off or something and he'd have some kind of clawed hand or hoofed hand. In some of the versions of the legend that I've seen, that's one way they discover that it's the devil. An Example of Dance Legend It happened in March, 1919, in South Sydney, Nova Scotia. At that time I was woi1 baddeck]

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