Shepherd's Warning - Paul Melhuish

Will You Dance With Death?

Morris dancing; national joke or quant historical tradition? There is nothing funny or quaint about Shepherd's Warning, also known as the Dance of Death, the lost Morris dance from the Bracewell tradition. The legend says that anyone who dances Shepherd's Warning will die before next harvest is finished.

Nathan Moss is a Morris dancer who doesn't believe in the legend, and he has found the dance in a pile of papers that Cecil sharp, dance collector and folklorist, tried to destroy over a hundred years ago.

Nathan and his Morris team ignore the omens and warnings, strap on their bells and baldrics then dance the dance of death. Only after the strange and horrific fatalities begin does Nathan begin to believe he's released a curse on them all.

Nathan must delve into the past and face the ghostly Black Lake Morris Men if he is to break the curse. An encounter that will not just cost him his life but his soul.