Janet Heatley Blunt (1859–1950) was a British

folklorist Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...

. Daughter of a British general ( Charles Harris Blunt), she spent her first thirty years in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. She then moved to

Adderbury Adderbury is a winding linear village and rural civil parish about south of Banbury in northern Oxfordshire, England. The settlement has five sections: the new Milton Road housing Development & West Adderbury towards the southwest; East Adderb ...

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

where she became interested in local folk traditions. Her primary contribution to folklore is her preservation of the Adderbury traditions of folk song and dance, particularly

Morris dancing Morris dancing is a form of English folk dance. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers, usually wearing bell pads on their shins. Implements such as sticks, swords and handkerchiefs may ...

. Morris dance was common in the area in the early 19th century but had disappeared by the late 1880s. It was revived in 1974 from the extensive notes made by Janet Blunt and

Cecil Sharp Cecil James Sharp (22 November 1859 – 23 June 1924) was an English-born collector of folk songs, folk dances and instrumental music, as well as a lecturer, teacher, composer and musician. He was the pre-eminent activist in the development of t ...

in 1916 and 1918. The village of Adderbury commemorates Janet Blunt every year as part of its annual Morris festivities, and a

blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...

was installed at Le Hall Place in Adderbury in 2009.

Bibliography

*Foxworthy, Tony. ''Forty Long Miles: Twenty-Three English Folk Songs from the Collection of Janet Heatley Blunt''. London: Galliard-EFDSS, 1976. *Pickering, Michael. ''Village Song & Culture: A Study Based on the Blunt Collection of Song from Adderbury, North Oxfordshire''. London: Croom Helm, 1982.

References

External links

The English Folk Dance Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blunt, Janet English folklorists British women folklorists English folk dance 1950 deaths 1859 births