THE MUMMERS’ PLAY
[_Bibliographical Note._--The subject is treated by T. F. Ordish,
_English Folk-Drama_ in _Folk-Lore_, ii. 326, iv. 162. The
Folk-Lore Society has in preparation a volume on Folk-Drama to be
edited by Mr. Ordish (_F. L._ xiii. 296). The following is a list
of the twenty-nine printed versions upon which the account of the
St. George play in the present chapter is based. The Lutterworth
play is given in Appendix K.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
1. _Newcastle._ Chap-book--W. Sandys, _Christmastide_, 292, from
_Alexander and the King of Egypt. A mock Play, as it is acted by
the Mummers every Christmas_. Newcastle, 1788. (Divided into Acts
and Scenes.)
CUMBERLAND.
2. _Whitehaven._ Chap-book--Hone, _E. D. B._ ii. 1646.
(Practically identical with (1).)
LANCASHIRE.
3. _Manchester._ Chap-book--_The Peace Egg_, published by J.
Wrigley, 30, Miller Street, Manchester. (Brit. Mus. 1077, _g_/27
(37): Acts and Scenes: a coloured cut of each character.)
SHROPSHIRE.
4. _Newport._ Oral. Jackson and Burne, 484. (Called the Guisers’
(gheez-u´rz) play.)
STAFFORDSHIRE.
5. _Eccleshall._ Oral. _F. L. J._ iv. 350. (Guisers’ play:
practically identical with (4). I have not seen a version from
Stone in W. W. Bladen, _Notes on the Folk-lore of North Staffs._:
cf. _F. L._ xiii. 107.)
LEICESTERSHIRE.
6. _Lutterworth._ Oral. Kelly, 53; Manly, i. 292; _Leicester F.
L._ 130.
WORCESTERSHIRE.
7. _Leigh._ Oral. 2 _N. Q._ xi. 271.
WARWICKSHIRE.
8. _Newbold._ Oral. _F. L._ x. 186 (with variants from a similar
Rugby version).
OXFORDSHIRE.
9. _Islip._ Oral. Ditchfield, 316.
10. _Bampton._ Oral. Ditchfield, 320.
11. _Thame._ Oral. 5 _N. Q._ ii. 503; Manly, i. 289.
12. _Uncertain._ Oral. 6 _N. Q._ xii. 489; Ashton, 128.
BERKSHIRE.
13. _Uncertain._ Oral. Ditchfield, 310.
MIDDLESEX.
14. _Chiswick._ Oral. 2 _N. Q._ x. 466.
SUSSEX.
15. _Selmeston._ Oral. Parish, _Dict. of Sussex Dialect_ (2nd ed.
1875), 136.
16. _Hollington._ Oral. 5 _N. Q._ x. 489.
17. _Steyning._ Oral. _F. L. J._ ii. 1. (The ‘Tipteerers’’ play.)
HAMPSHIRE.
18. _St. Mary Bourne._ Oral. Stevens, _Hist. of St. Mary Bourne_,
340.
19. _Uncertain._ Oral. 2 _N. Q._ xii. 492.
DORSETSHIRE.
20. (A) _Uncertain._ Oral. _F. L. R._ iii. 92; Ashton, 129.
21. (B) _Uncertain._ Oral. _F. L. R._ iii. 102.
CORNWALL.
22. _Uncertain._ Oral. Sandys, _Christmastide_, 298. (Slightly
different version in Sandys, _Christmas Carols_, 174; Du Méril,
_La Com._ 428.)
WALES.
23. _Tenby._ Oral. Chambers, _Book of Days_, ii. 740, from _Tales
and Traditions of Tenby_.
IRELAND.
24. _Belfast._ Chap-book. 4 _N. Q._ x. 487. (‘The Christmas
Rhymes.’)
25. _Ballybrennan, Wexford._ Oral. Kennedy, _The Banks of the
Boro_, 226.
UNCERTAIN LOCALITY.
26. _Sharpe’s London Magazine_, i. 154. Oral.
27. _Archaeologist_, i. 176. Chap-book. H. Sleight, _A Christmas
Pageant Play or Mysterie of St. George, Alexander and the King
of Egypt_. (Said to be ‘compiled from and collated with several
curious ancient black-letter editions.’ I have never seen or
heard of a ‘black-letter’ edition, and I take it the improbable
title is Mr. Sleight’s own.)
28. Halliwell. Oral. _Popular Rhymes_, 231. (Said to be the best
of six versions.)
29. _F. L. J._ iv. 97. (Fragment, from ‘old MS.’)]
The _degollada_ figures of certain sword-dances preserve with some
clearness the memory of an actual sacrifice, abolished and replaced
by a mere symbolic dumb show. Even in these, and still more in
the other dances, the symbolism is very slight. It is completely
subordinated to the rhythmic evolutions of a choric figure. There is
an advance, however, in the direction of drama, when in the course
of the performance some one is represented as actually slain. In a
few dances of the type discussed in the last chapter, such a dramatic
episode precedes or follows the regular figures. It is recorded in
three or four of the German examples[728]. A writer in the _Gentleman’s
Magazine_ describes a Yorkshire dance in which ‘the Bessy interferes
while they are making a hexagon with their swords, and is killed.’
Amongst the characters of this dance is a Doctor, and although the
writer does not say so, it may be inferred that the function of the
Doctor is to bring the Bessy to life again[729]. It will be remembered
that a precisely similar device is used in the German Shrove Tuesday
plays to symbolize the resurrection of the year in spring after its
death in winter. The Doctor reappears in one of the Durham dances, and
here there is no doubt as to the part he plays. At a certain point the
careful formations of the dance degenerate into a fight. The parish
clergyman rushes in to separate the combatants. He is accidentally
slain. There is general lamentation, but the Doctor comes forward, and
revives the victim, and the dance proceeds[730].
It is but a step from such dramatic episodes to the more elaborate
performances which remain to be considered in the present chapter, and
which are properly to be called plays rather than dances. They belong
to a stage in the evolution of drama from dance, in which the dance
has been driven into the background and has sometimes disappeared
altogether. But they have the same characters, and especially the same
grotesques, as the dances, and the general continuity of the two sets
of performances cannot be doubted. Moreover, though the plays differ
in many respects, they have a common incident, which may reasonably be
taken to be the central incident, in the death and revival, generally
by a Doctor, of one of the characters. And in virtue of this central
incident one is justified in classing them as forms of a folk-drama in
which the resurrection of the year is symbolized.
I take first, on account of the large amount of dancing which remains
in it, the play acted at the end of the eighteenth century by ‘The Plow
Boys or Morris Dancers’ of Revesby in Lincolnshire[731]. There are
seven dancers: six men, the Fool and his five sons, Pickle Herring,
Blue Breeches, Pepper Breeches, Ginger Breeches, and Mr. Allspice[732];
and one woman, Cicely. The somewhat incoherent incidents are as
follows. The Fool acts as presenter and introduces the play. He fights
successively a Hobby-horse and a ‘Wild Worm’ or dragon. The dancers
‘lock their swords to make the glass,’ which, after some jesting, is
broken up again. The sons determine to kill the Fool. He kneels down
and makes his will, with the swords round his neck[733]; is slain and
revived by Pickle Herring stamping with his foot. This is repeated with
variations. Hitherto, the dancers have ‘footed it’ round the room at
intervals. Now follow a series of sword-dances. During and after these
the Fool and his sons in turn woo Cicely, the Fool taking the name of
‘Anthony[734],’ Pickle Herring that of ‘the Lord of Pool,’ and Blue
Breeches that of ‘the Knight of Lee.’ There is nothing particularly
interesting about this part of the play, obviously written to ‘work in’
the woman grotesque. In the course of it a morris-dance is introduced,
and a final sword-dance, with an obeisance to the master of the house,
winds up the whole.
Secondly, there are the Plough Monday plays of the east Midlands[735].
These appear in Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire.
Two printed versions are available. The first comes from Cropwell in
Nottinghamshire[736]. The actors are ‘the plough-bullocks.’ The male
characters are Tom the Fool, a Recruiting Sergeant, and a Ribboner or
Recruit, three farm-servants, Threshing Blade, Hopper Joe[737], and the
Ploughman, a Doctor, and Beelzebub[738]. There are two women, a young
Lady and old Dame Jane. Tom Fool is presenter. The Ribboner, rejected
by the young Lady, enlists as a recruit. The Lady is consoled by Tom
Fool. Then enter successively the three farm-servants, each describing
his function on the farm. Dame Jane tries to father a child on Tom
Fool. Beelzebub knocks her down[739], and kills her. The Doctor comes
in, and after some comic business about his travels, his qualifications
and his remedies[740], declares Dame Jane to be only in a trance, and
raises her up. A country dance and songs follow, and the performance
ends with a _quête_. The second version, from Lincolnshire, is very
similar[741]. But there are no farm-servants, and instead of Beelzebub
is a personage called ‘old Esem Esquesem,’ who carries a broom. It is
he, not an old woman, who is killed and brought to life. There are
several dancers, besides the performers; and these include ‘Bessy,’ a
man dressed as a woman, with a cow’s tail.
The distinction between a popular and a literary or heroic type of
personification which was noticeable in the sword-dances persists in
the folk-plays founded upon them. Both in the Revesby play and in the
Plough Monday plays, the drama is carried on by personages resembling
the ‘grotesques’ of the sword-and morris-dances[742]. There are no
heroic characters. The death is of the nature of an accident or an
execution. On the other hand, in the ‘mummers’ play’ of St. George, the
heroes take once more the leading part, and the death, or at least one
of the deaths, is caused by a fight amongst them. This play is far more
widely spread than its rivals. It is found in all parts of England, in
Wales, and in Ireland; in Scotland it occurs also, but here some other
hero is generally substituted as protagonist for St. George[743]. The
following account is based on the twenty-nine versions, drawn from
chap-books or from oral tradition, enumerated in the bibliographical
note. The list might, doubtless, be almost indefinitely extended. As
will soon be seen, the local variations of the play are numerous. In
order to make them intelligible, I have given in full in an appendix
a version from Lutterworth in Leicestershire. This is chosen, not as
a particularly interesting variant, for that it is not, but on the
contrary as being comparatively colourless. It shows very clearly and
briefly the normal structure of the play, and may be regarded as the
type from which the other versions diverge[744].
The whole performance may be divided, for convenience of analysis,
into three parts, the Presentation, the Drama, the _Quête_. In
the first somebody speaks a prologue, claiming a welcome from
the spectators[745], and then the leading characters are in turn
introduced. The second consists of a fight followed by the intervention
of a doctor to revive the slain. In the third some supernumerary
characters enter, and there is a collection. It is the dramatic
nucleus that first requires consideration. The leading fighter is
generally St. George, who alone appears in all the versions. Instead
of ‘St. George,’ he is sometimes called ‘Sir George,’ and more
often ‘Prince George’ or ‘King George,’ modifications which one
may reasonably suppose to be no older than the present Hanoverian
dynasty. At Whitehaven and at Falkirk he is ‘Prince George of Ville.’
George’s chief opponent is usually one of two personages, who are not
absolutely distinct from each other[746]. One is the ‘Turkish Knight,’
of whom a variant appears to be the ‘Prince of Paradine’ (Manchester),
or ‘Paradise’ (Newport, Eccleshall), perhaps originally ‘Palestine.’
He is sometimes represented with a blackened face[747]. The other is
variously called ‘Slasher,’ ‘Captain Slasher,’ ‘Bold Slasher,’ or,
by an obvious corruption, ‘Beau Slasher.’ Rarer names for him are
‘Bold Slaughterer’ (Bampton), ‘Captain Bluster’ (Dorset [A]), and
‘Swiff, Swash, and Swagger’ (Chiswick). His names fairly express his
vaunting disposition, which, however, is largely shared by the other
characters in the play. In the place of, or as minor fighters by the
side of George, the Turkish Knight and Bold Slasher, there appear,
in one version or another, a bewildering variety of personages, of
whom only a rough classification can be attempted. Some belong to the
heroic cycles. Such are ‘Alexander’ (Newcastle, Whitehaven), ‘Hector’
(Manchester), ‘St. Guy’ (Newport), ‘St. Giles’ (Eccleshall)[748], ‘St.
Patrick’ (Dorset [A], Wexford), ‘King Alfred’ and ‘King Cole’ (Brill),
‘Giant Blunderbore’ (Brill), ‘Giant Turpin’ (Cornwall). Others again
are moderns who have caught the popular imagination: ‘Bold Bonaparte’
(Leigh)[749], and ‘King of Prussia’ (Bampton, Oxford)[750], ‘King
William’ (Brill), the ‘Duke of Cumberland’ (Oxford) and the ‘Duke of
Northumberland’ (Islip), ‘Lord Nelson’ (Stoke Gabriel, Devon)[751],
‘Wolfe’ and ‘Wellington’ (Cornwall)[752], even the ‘Prince Imperial’
(Wilts)[753], all have been pressed into the service. In some cases
characters have lost their personal names, if they ever had any,
and figure merely as ‘Knight,’ ‘Soldier,’ ‘Valiant Soldier,’ ‘Noble
Captain,’ ‘Bold Prince,’ ‘Gracious King.’ Others bear names which defy
explanation, ‘Alonso’ (Chiswick), ‘Hy Gwyer’ (Hollington), ‘Marshalee’
and ‘Cutting Star’ (Dorset [B]). The significance of ‘General
Valentine’ and ‘Colonel Spring’ (Dorset [A]) will be considered
presently; and ‘Room’ (Dorset [B]), ‘Little Jack,’ the ‘Bride’ and
the ‘Fool’ (Brill), and the ‘King of Egypt’ (Newcastle, Whitehaven)
have strayed in amongst the fighters from the presenters. The fighting
generally takes the form of a duel, or a succession of duels. In the
latter case, George may fight all comers, or he may intervene to subdue
a previously successful champion. But an important point is that he
is not always victorious. On the contrary, the versions in which he
slays and those in which he is slain are about equal in number. In two
versions (Brill, Steyning) the fighting is not a duel or a series of
duels, but a _mêlée_. The Brill play, in particular, is quite unlike
the usual type. A prominent part is taken by the Dragon, with whom
fight, all at once, St. George and a heterogeneous company made up of
King Alfred and his Bride, King Cole, King William, Giant Blunderbore,
Little Jack and a morris-dance Fool.
Whatever the nature of the fight, the result is always the same. One or
more of the champions falls, and then appears upon the scene a Doctor,
who brings the dead to life again. The Doctor is a comic character. He
enters, boasting his universal skill, and works his cure by exhibiting
a bolus, or by drawing out a tooth with a mighty pair of pliers. At
Newbold he is ‘Dr. Brown,’ at Islip ‘Dr. Good’ (also called ‘Jack
Spinney’), at Brill ‘Dr. Ball’; in Dorsetshire (A) he is an Irishman,
‘Mr. Martin’ (perhaps originally ‘Martyr’) ‘Dennis.’ More often he is
nameless. Frequently the revival scene is duplicated; either the Doctor
is called in twice, or one cure is left to him, and another is effected
by some other performer, such as St. George (Dorset [B]), ‘Father
Christmas’ (Newbold, Steyning), or the Fool (Bampton).
The central action of the play consists, then, in these two episodes
of the fight and the resurrection; and the protagonists, so to speak,
are the heroes--a ragged troop of heroes, certainly--and the Doctor.
But just as in the sword-dances, so in the plays, we find introduced,
besides the protagonists, a number of supernumerary figures. The nature
of these, and the part they take, must now be considered. Some of them
are by this time familiar. They are none other than the grotesques
that have haunted this discussion of the village festivals from the
very beginning, and that I have attempted to trace to their origin in
magical or sacrificial custom. There are the woman, or lad dressed in
woman’s clothes, the hobby-horse, the fool, and the black-faced man.
The woman and the hobby-horse are unmistakable; the other two are a
little more Protean in their modern appearance. The ‘Fool’ is so called
only at Manchester and at Brill, where he brings his morris-dance with
him. At Lutterworth he is the ‘Clown’; in Cornwall, ‘Old Squire’; at
Newbold, ‘Big Head and Little Wits.’ But I think that we may also
recognize him in the very commonly occurring figure ‘Beelzebub,’ also
known in Cornwall as ‘Hub Bub’ and at Chiswick as ‘Lord Grubb.’ The
key to this identification is the fact that in several cases Beelzebub
uses the description ‘big head and little wit’ to announce himself on
his arrival. Occasionally, however, the personality of the Fool has
been duplicated. At Lutterworth Beelzebub and the Clown, at Newbold
Beelzebub and Big Head and Little Wits appear in the same play[754].
The black-faced man has in some cases lost his black face, but he
keeps it at Bampton, where he is ‘Tom the Tinker,’ at Rugby, where he
is ‘Little Johnny Sweep,’ and in a Sussex version, where he is also a
sweep[755]. The analogy of the May-day chimney-sweeps is an obvious
one. A black face was a feature in the mediaeval representation of
devils, and the sweep of some plays is probably in origin identical
with the devil, black-faced or not, of others. This is all the more
so, as the devil, like the sweep, usually carries a besom[756]. One
would expect _his_ name, and not the Fool’s, to be Beelzebub. He is,
however, ‘Little Devil Dout’ or ‘Doubt,’ ‘Little Jack Doubt’ or ‘Jack
Devil Doubt.’ At Leigh Little Devil Doubt also calls himself ‘Jack,’
‘With my wife and family on my back’;
and perhaps we may therefore trace a further avatar of this same
personage in the ‘John’ or ‘Johnny Jack’ who at Salisbury gives a name
to the whole performance[757]. He is also ‘Little Jack’ (Brill, St.
Mary Bourne), ‘Fat Jack’ (Islip), ‘Happy Jack’ (Berkshire, Hollington),
‘Humpty Jack’ (Newbold). He generally makes the remark about his wife
and family. What he does carry upon his back is sometimes a hump,
sometimes a number of rag-dolls. I take it that the hump came first,
and that the dolls arose out of Jack’s jocular explanation of his own
deformity. But why the hump? Was it originally a bag of soot? Or the
_saccus_ with which the German _Knechte Ruperte_ wander in the Twelve
nights?[758] At Hollington and in a Hampshire version Jack has been
somewhat incongruously turned into a press-gang. In this capacity he
gets at Hollington the additional name of ‘Tommy Twing-twang.’
Having got these grotesques, traditional accompaniments of the play, to
dispose of somehow, what do the playwrights do with them? The simplest
and most primitive method is just to bring them in, to show them to the
spectators when the fighting is over. Thus Beelzebub, like the Fool at
one point in the Revesby play, often comes in with
‘Here come I; ain’t been yit,
Big head and little wit.’
‘Ain’t been yit!’ Could a more naïve explanation of the presence of a
‘stock’ character on the stage be imagined? Similarly in Cornwall the
woman is worked in by making ‘Sabra,’ a _persona muta_, come forward
to join St. George[759]. In the play printed in _Sharpe’s London
Magazine_ the ‘Hobby-horse’ is led in. Obviously personages other than
the traditional four can be introduced in the same way, at the bidding
of the rustic fancy. Thus at Bampton ‘Robin Hood’ and ‘Little John’
briefly appear, in both the Irish plays and at Tenby ‘Oliver Cromwell,’
at Belfast ‘St. Patrick,’ at Steyning the ‘Prince of Peace.’
Secondly, the supernumeraries may be utilized, either as presenters of
the main characters or for the purposes of the _quête_ at the end. Thus
at Leigh the performance is begun by Little Devil Doubt, who enters
with his broom and sweeps a ‘room’ or ‘hall’ for the actors, just as
in the sword-dances a preliminary circle is made with a sword upon the
ground[760]. In the Midlands this is the task of the woman, called at
Islip and in Berkshire ‘Molly,’ and at Bright-Walton ‘Queen Mary[761].’
Elsewhere the business with the broom is omitted; but there is nearly
always a short prologue in which an appeal is made to the spectators
for ‘room.’ This prologue may be spoken, as at Manchester by the Fool,
or as at Lutterworth by one of the fighters. The commonest presenter,
however, is a personification of the festal season at which the plays
are usually performed, ‘Old Father Christmas.’
‘Here comes I, Father Christmas, welcome or welcome not,
I hope Old Father Christmas will never be forgot.’
At St. Mary Bourne Christmas is accompanied by ‘Mince-Pie,’ and
in both the Dorset versions, instead of calling for ‘room,’ he
introduces ‘Room’ as an actual personage. Similarly, at Newport and
Eccleshall, the prologue speaker receives the curious soubriquet of
‘Open-the-Door.’ After the prologue, the fighters are introduced.
They stand in a clump outside the circle, and in turns step forward
and strut round it[762]. Each is announced, by himself or by his
predecessor or by the presenter, with a set of rhymes closely parallel
to those used in the sword-dances. With the fighters generally
comes the ‘King of Egypt’ (occasionally corrupted into the ‘King of
England’), and the description of St. George often contains an allusion
to his fight with the dragon and the rescue of Sabra, the King of
Egypt’s daughter. In one or two of the northern versions (Newcastle,
Whitehaven) the King of Egypt is a fighter; generally he stands by. In
one of the Dorset versions (A) he is called ‘Anthony.’ Sabra appears
only in Cornwall, and keeps silence. The Dragon fights with St. George
in Cornwall, and also, as we have seen, in the curious Brill _mêlée_.
The performance, naturally, ends with a _quête_. This takes various
forms. Sometimes the presenter, or the whole body of actors, comes
forward, and wishes prosperity to the household. Beelzebub, with his
frying-pan or ladle, goes round to gather in the contributions. In the
version preserved in _Sharpe’s London Magazine_, this is the function
of a special personage, ‘Boxholder.’ In a considerable number of cases,
however, the _quête_ is preceded by a singular action on the part of
Little Devil Dout. He enters with his broom, and threatens to sweep
the whole party out, or ‘into their graves,’ if money is not given. In
Shropshire and Staffordshire he sweeps up the hearth, and the custom is
probably connected with the superstition that it is unlucky to remove
fire or ashes from the house on Christmas Day. ‘Dout’ appears to be a
corruption of ‘Do out[763].’
Another way of working in the grotesques and other supernumeraries
is to give them minor parts in the drama itself. Father Christmas or
the King of Egypt is utilized as a sort of chorus, to cheer on the
fighters, lament the vanquished, and summon the Doctor. At Newbold the
woman, called ‘Moll Finney,’ plays a similar part, as mother of the
Turkish Knight. At Stoke Gabriel, Devon, the woman is the Doctor’s
wife[764]. Finally, in three cases, a complete subordinate dramatic
episode is introduced for their sake. At Islip, after the main drama
is concluded, the presenter Molly suddenly becomes King George’s wife
‘Susannah.’ She falls ill, and the Doctor’s services are requisitioned
to cure her. The Doctor rides in, not on a hobby-horse, but on one of
the disengaged characters who plays the part of a horse. In Dorsetshire
the secondary drama is quite elaborate. In the ‘A’ version ‘Old Bet’
calls herself ‘Dame Dorothy,’ and is the wife of Father Christmas,
named, for the nonce, ‘Jan.’ They quarrel about a Jack hare, which
he wants fried and she wants roasted. He kills her, and at the happy
moment the Doctor is passing by, and brings her to life again. Version
‘B’ is very similar, except that the performance closes by Old Bet
bringing in the hobby-horse for Father Christmas to mount.
I do not think that I need further labour the affiliation of the
St. George plays to the sword-dances. Placed in a series, as I have
placed them in these chapters, the two sets of performances show a
sufficiently obvious continuity. They are held together by the use
of the swords, by their common grotesques, and by the episode of the
Doctor, which connects them also with the German Shrovetide and Whitsun
folk-ceremonies. They are properly called folk-drama, because they are
derived, with the minimum of literary intervention, from the dramatic
tendencies latent in folk-festivals of a very primitive type. They are
the outcome of the instinct of play, manipulating for its own purposes
the mock sacrifice and other débris of extinct ritual. Their central
incident symbolizes the _renouveau_, the annual death of the year or
the fertilization spirit and its annual resurrection in spring[765].
To this have become attached some of those heroic _cantilenae_ which,
as the early mediaeval chroniclers tell us, existed in the mouths
of the _chori iuvenum_ side by side with the _cantilenae_ of the
minstrels. The symbolism of the _renouveau_ is preserved unmistakably
enough in the episode of the Doctor, but the _cantilenae_ have been
to some extent modified by the comparatively late literary element,
due perhaps to that universal go-between of literature and the folk,
the village school-master. The genuine national heroes, a Stercatherus
or a Galgacus, have given way to the ‘worthies’ and the ‘champions
of Christendom,’ dear to Holophernes. The literary tradition has
also perhaps contributed to the transformation of the _chorus_ or
semi-dramatic dance into drama pure and simple. In the St. George
plays dancing holds a very subordinate place, far more so than in
the ‘Plow-boys’ play of Revesby. Dances and songs are occasionally
introduced before the _quête_, but rarely during the main performance.
In the eccentric Brill version, however, a complete morris-dance
appears. And of course it must be borne in mind that the fighting
itself, with its gestures and pacings round the circle and clashing of
swords, has much more the effect of a sword-dance than of a regular
fight. So far as it is a fight, the question arises whether we ought to
see in it, besides the heroic element introduced by the _cantilenae_,
any trace of the mimic contest between winter and summer, which is
found here and there, alternating with the resurrection drama, as a
symbolical representation of the _renouveau_. The fight does not, of
course, in itself stand in any need of such an explanation; but it is
suggested by a singular passage which in several versions is put in the
mouth of one or other of the heroes. St. George, or the Slasher, or the
Turkish Knight, is made to boast something as follows:
‘My arms are made of iron, my body’s made of steel,
My head is made of beaten brass, no man can make me feel.’
It does not much matter who speaks these words in the versions of
Holophernes, but there are those who think that they originally
belonged to the representative of winter, and contained an allusion to
the hardness of the frost-bound earth[766]. Personally I do not see why
they should refer to anything but the armour which a champion might
reasonably be supposed to wear.
A curious thing about the St. George play is the width of its range.
All the versions, with the possible exception of that found at Brill,
seem to be derived from a common type. They are spread over England,
Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and only in the eastern counties do
they give way to the partly, though not wholly, independent Plough
Monday type. Unfortunately, the degeneracy of the texts is such that
any closer investigation into their inter-relations or into the
origin and transmission of the archetype would probably be futile.
Something, however, must be said as to the prominence, at any rate
outside Scotland, of the character of St. George. As far as I can
see, the play owes nothing at all to John Kirke’s stage-play of _The
Seven Champions of Christendom_, printed in 1638[767]. It is possible,
however, that it may be a development of a sword-dance in which, as
in the Shetland dance, the ‘seven champions’ had usurped the place
of more primitive heroes. If so the six champions, other than St.
George, have singularly vanished[768]. In any case, there can have
been no ‘seven champions,’ either in sword-dance or mummers’ play,
before Richard Johnson brought together the scattered legends of the
national heroes in his _History of the Seven Champions_ in 1596[769].
This fact presents no difficulty, for the archetype of our texts need
certainly not be earlier than the seventeenth century[770]. By this
time the literary dramatic tradition was fully established, even in the
provinces, and it may well have occurred to Holophernes to convert the
sword-dance into the semblance of a regular play.
On the other hand, the mediaeval period had its dramatic or
semi-dramatic performances in which St. George figured, and possibly it
is to these, and not to the ‘seven champions,’ that his introduction
into the sword-dance is due. These performances generally took the
form of a ‘riding’ or procession on St. George’s day, April 23. Such
ridings may, of course, have originally, like the Godiva processions
or the midsummer shows, have preserved the memory of the pre-Christian
perambulations of the fields in spring, but during the period for
which records are available they were rather municipal celebrations
of a semi-ecclesiastical type. St. George was the patron saint of
England, and his day was honoured as one of the greater feasts, notably
at court, where the chivalric order of the Garter was under his
protection[771]. The conduct of the ridings was generally, from the end
of the fourteenth century onwards, in the hands of a guild, founded not
as a trade guild, but as a half social, half religious fraternity, for
the worship of the saint, and the mutual aid and good fellowship of
its members. The fullest accounts preserved are from Norwich where the
guild or company of St. George was founded in 1385, received a charter
from Henry V in 1416, and by 1451 had obtained a predominant share in
the government of the city[772]. The records of this guild throw a good
deal of light on the riding. The brethren and ‘sustren’ had a chapel in
the choir of the cathedral, and after the Reformation held their feasts
in a chapel of the common hall of the city, which had formerly been
the church of a Dominican convent. The riding was already established
by 1408 when the court of the guild ordered that ‘the George shall go
in procession and make a conflict with the Dragon and keep his estate
both days.’ The George was a man in ‘coat armour beaten with silver,’
and had his club-bearer, henchmen, minstrels and banners. He was
accompanied by the Dragon, the guild-priest, and the court and brethren
of the guild in red and white capes and gowns. The procession went
to ‘the wood’ outside the city, and here doubtless the conflict with
the dragon took place. By 1537 there had been added to the _dramatis
personae_ St. Margaret, also called ‘the lady,’ who apparently aided
St. George in his enterprise[773]. Strange to say, the guild survived
the Reformation. In 1552, the court ordered, ‘there shall be neither
George nor Margaret, but for pastime the dragon to come and show
himself, as in other years.’ But the feast continued, and in spite of
an attempt to get rid of him under the Long Parliament, the Dragon
endured until 1732 when the guild was dissolved. Eighteenth-century
witnesses describe the procession as it then existed. The Dragon was
carried by a man concealed in its body. It was of basket work and
painted cloth, and could move or spread its wings, and distend or
contract its head. The ranks were kept by ‘whifflers’ who juggled with
their swords, and by ‘Dick Fools,’ in motley and decked with cats’
tails and small bells. There is one more point of interest about the
Norwich guild. In the fifteenth century it included many persons of
distinction in Norfolk. Sir John Fastolf gave it an ‘angell silver and
guylt.’ And amongst the members in 1496 was Sir John Paston. I have
already quoted the lament in the _Paston Letters_ over William Woode,
the keeper, whom the writer ‘kepyd thys iij yer to pleye Seynt Jorge
and Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Nottyngham,’ and who at a critical
moment went off to Bernysdale and left his master in the lurch[774]. I
have also identified his Robin Hood play, and now it becomes apparent
where he played ‘Seynt Jorge.’ It is curious how the fragments of the
wreckage of time fit into one another. The riding of the George is not
peculiar to Norwich. We find it at Leicester[775], at Coventry[776],
at Stratford[777], at Chester[778], at York, at Dublin[779]. An
elaborate programme for the Dublin procession is preserved. It included
an emperor and empress with their train, St. George on horse-back, the
dragon led by a line and the king and queen of Dele. But no princess is
mentioned. The ‘may’ or maiden figured at York, however, and there was
also a St. Christopher. At other places, such as Reading, Aston[780]
and Louth[781], an equestrian figure, called a ‘George,’ is known to
have stood on a ‘loft’ in the church, and here, too, an annual ‘riding’
may be presumed.
There is no proof that the dramatic element in these ‘ridings’ was
anything more than a _mystère mimé_, or pageant in dumb show. On the
other hand, there were places where the performance on St. George’s
day took the form of a regular miracle-play. The performance described
by Collier as taking place before Henry V and the Emperor Sigismund at
Windsor in 1416 turns out on examination of Collier’s authority to be
really a ‘soteltie,’ a cake or raised pie of elaborate form. But the
town of Lydd had its St. George play in 1456, and probably throughout
the century; while in 1490 the chaplain of the guild of St. George at
New Romney went to see this Lydd play with a view to reproducing it at
the sister town. In 1511 again a play of St. George is recorded to have
been held at Bassingbourne in Cambridgeshire, not on St. George’s, but
on St. Margaret’s day[782].
Obviously the subject-matter of all these pageants and miracles was
provided by the familiar ecclesiastical legend of St. George the
dragon-slayer, with which was occasionally interwoven the parallel
legend of St. Margaret[783]. Similar performances can be traced on the
continent. There was one at Mons called _le lumeçon_[784]. Rabelais
describes one at Metz, of which, however, the hero was not St. George,
but yet another dragon-slayer, St. Clement[785]. There is no need to
ascribe to them a folk origin, although the dragon-slaying champion
is a common personage in folk-tale[786]. They belong to the cycle of
religious drama, which is dealt with in the second volume of this book.
And although in Shropshire at least they seem to have been preserved in
a village stage-play up to quite a recent date[787], they obviously
do not directly survive in the folk-play with which we are concerned.
As far as I know, that nowhere takes place on St. George’s day. The
Dragon is very rarely a character, and though St. George’s traditional
exploit is generally mentioned, it is, as that very mention shows,
not the motive of the action. On the other hand the legend, in its
mediaeval form, has no room for the episode of the Doctor[788]. At the
same time the Dragon does sometimes occur, and the traditional exploit
is mentioned, and therefore if any one chooses to say that the fame of
St. George in the guild celebrations as well as the fame of the ‘seven
champions’ romance determined his choice as the hero of the later
sword-dance rhymes, I do not see that there is much to urge against the
view[789].
With regard to the main drift of this chapter, the criticism presents
itself; if the folk-plays are essentially a celebration of the
_renouveau_ of spring, how is it that the performances generally take
place in mid-winter at Christmas? The answer is that, as will be shown
in the next chapter, none of the Christmas folk-customs are proper to
mid-winter. They have been attracted by the ecclesiastical feast from
the seasons which in the old European calendar preceded and followed
it, from the beginning of winter and the beginning of summer or spring.
The folk-play has come with the rest. But the transference has not
invariably taken place. The Norfolk versions belong not to Christmas
but to Plough Monday, which lies immediately outside the Christmas
season proper, and is indeed, though probably dislocated from its
primitive date, the earliest of the spring feasts. The St. George
play itself is occasionally performed at Easter, and even perhaps on
May-day, whilst versions, which in their present form contain clear
allusions to Christmas, yet betray another origin by the title which
they bear of the ‘Pace-eggers’’ or ‘Pasque-eggers’’ play[790].
Christmas, however, has given to the play the characteristic figure
of Old Father Christmas. And the players are known as ‘mummers’ and
‘guisers,’ or, in Cornwall, ‘geese-dancers,’ because their performance
was regarded as a variety of the ‘mumming’ or ‘disguising’ which,
as we shall see, became a regular name for the Christmas revel or
_quête_[791].