Performance of sword dances in the folklore of Scotland is recorded from as early as the 15th century.
Related customs are found in the Welsh and English Morris dance, in Austria, Germany, Flanders, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Romania. Moreover, some ezpatadantza (Basque sword dances) seem strikingly similar to their Scottish cousins, which makes some scholars suspect a common origin in the medieval period.
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The earliest reference to these dances in Scotland is mentioned in the Scotichronicon, compiled in Scotland by Walter Bower in the 1440s. The passage regards Alexander III and his second marriage to the French lady Yolande de Dreux at Jedburgh in Roxburghshire on 14 October 1285.
In 1573 Scottish mercenaries are said to have performed a Scottish Sword dance before the Swedish King, John III, at a banquet held in Stockholm Castle. The dance, "a natural feature of the festivities," was used as part of a plot to assassinate the King, where the conspirators were able to bare their weapons without arousing suspicion. Fortunately for the King, at the decisive moment the agreed signal was never given.
"Sword dance and Hieland Dances" were included at a reception for Anne of Denmark at Edinburgh in 1589 and a mixture of sword dance and acrobatics was performed before James VI in 1617 [3] and again for Charles I in 1633, by the Incorporation of Skinners and Glovers of Perth,
Many of the Highland dances now lost were once performed with traditional weapons that included the Lochaber axe, the broadsword, a combination of targe and dirk, and the flail.
The old Skye dancing song, Bualidh mi u an sa chean (Buailidh mi thu anns a' cheann "I will break your head"), may indicate some form of weapon play to music, 'breaking the head' was the winning blow in cudgelling matches throughout Britain, "for the moment that blood runs an inch anywhere above the eyebrow, the old gamester to whom it belongs is beaten, and has to stop."
A combative sword dance called the Highland Dirk Dance still exists and is often linked to the sword dance or dances called "Macinorsair," the "Broad Sword Exercise" or the "Bruicheath" (Battle Dance). These dances are mentioned in a number of sources, and may have been performed in a variety of different forms, by two performers in a duelling form and as a solo routine.