in Provençal or Comtadine with the different clothing nuances provided by the local santonnier. The dancers and the drummer wear an almost identical costume made up of white pants tightened by a taiole, a typical belt from Provence made up of a strip of red woolen fabric, and a white shirt tied at the collar by a cord. As the drummer is notable, he has put on his most elegant costume, wears a wide-brimmed felt hat, and under his velvet jacket appears his embroidered waistcoat on his white shirt. Nicknamed "Guillaume", by tradition, it is he who leads the farandole with his tambourine and his galoubet. This scene is one of the major subjects of the Provençal crib, to which it is essential. Etymology No satisfactory derivation has been given of the name. Diez (Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Romanischen Sprachen) connects it with the Spanish Farandula, a company of strolling players, which he derives from the German fahrende. A still more unlikely derivation has been suggested from the Greek Φάλαγξ and δούλος, because the dancers in the Farandole are linked together in a long chain. It has been also suggested that farandole may be an alteration of Provençal barandello, from brandello (derivative of branda: stir), under the influence of Occitan derivatives such as flandina (cajoler) and flandrina (dawdle) . However, this hypothesis is not very convincing because it comes up against the fact that b(a)randello is defined as being a Languedocian farandole. Historical context The dance is very probably of Greek origin, and seems to be a direct descendant of the Cranes’ Dance, the invention of which was acribed to Theseus, who instituted it to celebrate his escape from the Labyrinth. This dance is alluded to at the end of the hymn to Delos of Callimachus: it is still danced in Greece and the islands of the Ægean, and may well have been introduced into the South of France from Marseilles. Folklorists of the early 20th century (e.g. Alford 1932) interpreted most folk dances as being very ancient, and postulated even for the Farandole an ancestry traceable to ancient Greece, remaining more or less unchanged "during its two or three thousands years of life". Many recent websites, older encyclopedias, and some music history books claim that the Farandole is a medieval dance, but never provide an actual medieval quote mentioning the Farandole. While there exist Renaissance descriptions of chain and circle