Janet Heatley Blunt (1859–1950) was a British

folklorist Folklore studies (also known as folkloristics, tradition studies or folk life studies in the UK) is the academic discipline devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currency in the 1950s to distinguish the ac ...

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

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. She then moved to

Adderbury Adderbury is a winding linear village and rural Civil parishes in England, civil parish about south of Banbury in northern Oxfordshire, England. The settlement has five sections: the new Milton Road housing Development and West Adderbury, towar ...

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Glouceste ...

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 in costume, usually wearing bell pads on their shins, their shoes or both. A band or single musi ...

. 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 collector of folk songs, folk dances and instrumental music, as well as a lecturer, teacher, composer and musician. He was a key figure in the folk-song revival in England dur ...

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 certain other countries and territories, to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving a ...

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 British people in colonial India