Introduction

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_ Since a little story of mine called "The Peace Egg" appeared in _Aunt Judy's Magazine_, I have again and again been asked where the Mumming Play could be found which gave its name to my tale, and if real children could act it, as did the fancy children of my story.

As it stands, this old Christmas Mumming Play (which seems to have borrowed the name of an Easter Entertainment or Pasque Egg) is not fit for domestic performance; and though probably there are few nurseries in those parts of England where "mumming" and the sword-dance still linger, in which the children do not play some version of St. George's exploits, a little of the dialogue goes a long way, and the mummery (which must almost be seen to be imitated) is the chief matter.

In fact, the mummery _is_ the chief matter--which is what makes the play so attractive to children, and, it may be added, so suitable for their performance. In its rudeness, its simplicity, its fancy dressing, the rapid action of the plot, and last, but not least, its _bludginess_--that quality which made the history of Goliath so dear to the youngest of Helen's Babies!--it is adapted for nursery amusement, as the Drama of Punch and Judy is, and for similar reasons.

For some little time past I have purposed to try and blend the various versions of "Peace Egg" into one Mummery for the nursery, with as little change of the old rhymes as might be. I have been again urged to do so this Christmas, and though I have not been able to give so much time or research to it as I should have liked, I have thought it better to do it without further delay, even if somewhat imperfectly.

To shuffle the characters and vary the text is nothing new in the history of these "Mock Plays," as they were sometimes called.

They are probably of very ancient origin--"Pagan, I regret to say," as Mr. Pecksniff observed in reference to the sirens--and go back to "the heathen custom of going about on the Kalends of January in disguises, as wild beasts and cattle, the sexes changing apparel," (There is a relic of this last unseemly custom still in "The Old Tup" and "The Old Horse"; when these are performed by both girls and boys, the latter wear skirts and bonnets, the former hats and great-coats; this is also the case in Scotland where the boys and girls go round at Hogmanay.)

In the 12th century the clergy introduced miracle plays and Scripture histories to rival the performances of the strolling players, which had become very gross. They became as popular as beneficial, and London was famous for them. Different places, and even trade-guilds and schools, had their differing "mysteries."

Secular plays continued, and the two seem occasionally to have got mixed. Into one of the oldest of old plays, "St. George and the Dragon," the Crusaders and Pilgrims introduced the Eastern characters who still remain there. This is the foundation of "The Peace Egg." About the middle of the 15th century, plays, which, not quite religious, still witnessed to the effect of the religious plays in raising the standard of public taste, appeared under the name of "Morals," or "Moralities."

Christmas plays, masques, pageants, and the like were largely patronized by the Tudor sovereigns, and the fashion set by the Court was followed in the country. Queen Elizabeth was not only devoted to the drama, and herself performed, but she was very critical and exacting; and the high demand which she did so much to stimulate, was followed by such supply as was given by the surpassing dramatic genius of the Elizabethan age of literature. Later, Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones combined to produce the Court masks, one of which,--the well-known "Mask of Christmas," had for chief characters, Christmas and his children, Misrule, Carol, Mince Pie, Gambol, Post and Pair, New Year's Gift, Mumming, Wassel, Offering, and Baby's Cake. In the 17th century the Christmas Mummeries of the Inns of Court were conducted with great magnificence and at large cost.

All such entertainments were severely suppressed during the Commonwealth, at which time the words "Welcome, or not welcome, I am come," were introduced into Father Christmas's part.

At one time the Jester of the piece (he is sometimes called the Jester, and sometimes the Fool, or the Old Fool) used to wear a calf's hide. Robin Goodfellow says, "I'll go put on my devilish robes--I mean my Christmas calf's-skin suit--and then walk to the woods." "I'll put me on my great carnation nose, and wrap me in a rousing calf-skin suit, and come like some hobgoblin." And a character of the 18th century "clears the way" with--

"My name is Captain Calftail, Calftail--
And on my back it is plain to be seen,
Although I am simple and wear a fool's cap,
I am dearly beloved of a queen--"

which looks as if Titania had found her way into that mummery!

"The Hobby Horse's" costume was a horse's hide, real or imitated. I have no copy of a Christmas Play in which the Hobby Horse appears. In the north of England, "The Old Horse" and "The Old Tup" are the respective heroes of their own peculiar mummeries, generally performed by a younger, or perhaps a rougher, set of lads than those who play the more elegant mysteries of St. George. The boy who acts "Old Tup" has a ram's head impaled upon a short pole, which he grasps and uses as a sort of wooden leg in front of him. He needs some extra support, his back being bent as If for leap-frog, and covered with an old rug (in days when "meat" was cheaper it was probably a hide). The hollow sound of his peg-leg upon the "flags" of the stone passages and kitchen floor, and the yearly test of courage supplied by the rude familiarities of his gruesome head as he charged and dispersed maids and children, amid shrieks and laughter, are probably familiar memories of all Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Derbyshire childhoods. I do not know if the Old Horse and the Old Tup belong to other parts of the British Isles. It is a rude and somewhat vulgar performance, especially if undertaken by older revellers, when the men wear skirts and bonnets, and the women don great-coats and hats--the Fool, the Doctor, and a darker character with a besom, are often of the party, but the Knights of Christendom and the Eastern Potentates take no share in these proceedings, which are oftenest and most inoffensively performed by little boys not yet promoted to be "mummers." It is, however, essential that one of them should have a good voice, true and tuneful enough to sing a long ballad, and lead the chorus.

In the scale of contributions to the numerous itinerant Christmas Boxes of Christmas week--such as the Ringers, the Waits, the Brass Band, the Hand-bells, the Mummers (Peace Egg), the Superior Mummers, who do more intricate sword-play (and in the North Riding are called Morris Dancers), &c. &c., the Old Tup stands low down on the list. I never heard the Rhymes of the Old Horse; they cannot be the same. These diversions are very strictly localized and handed on by word of mouth.

Of the best version of "Peace Egg" which I have seen performed, I have as yet quite vainly endeavoured to get any part transcribed. It is oral tradition. It is practised for some weeks beforehand, and the costumes, including wonderful head-dresses about the size of the plumed bonnet of a Highlander in full-dress, are carefully preserved from year to year. These paste-board erections are covered with flowers, feathers, bugles, and coloured streamers. The dresses are of coloured calico, with ribbons everywhere; "points" to the breeches and hose, shoulder-knots and sashes.

But, as a rough rule, it is one of the conveniences of mumming play, that the finery may be according to the taste and the resources of the company.

The swords are of steel, and those I have seen are short. In some places I believe rapiers are used. I am very sorry to be unable to give proper directions for the sword-play, which is so pretty. I have only one version in which such directions are given. I have copied the "Grand Sword Dance" in its proper place for the benefit of those who can interpret it. It is not easy to explain in writing even so much of it as I know. Each combat consists of the same number of cuts, to the best of my remembrance, and the "shoulder cuts" (which look very like two persons sharpening two knives as close as possible to each other's nose!) are in double time, twice as quick as the others. The stage directions are as follows:--

   A. and B. fight
Cut I  ... ...  Crossing each other.
        (They change places, striking as they pass.)
Cut 2  ... ...    "     "     back.
Cut 3  ... ...    "     "     other.
Cut 4  ... ...    "     "     back.

Four shoulder cuts.

A. loses his sword and falls.

But I do not think the version from which this is an extract is at all an elaborate one. There ought to be a "Triumph," with an archway of swords, in the style of Sir Roger de Coverley. After the passing and repassing strokes, there is usually much more hand-to-hand fighting, then four shoulder cuts, and some are aimed high and some down among their ankles, in a way which would probably be quite clear to any one trained in broadsword exercise.

The following Christmas Mumming Play is compiled from five versions--the "Peace Egg," the "Wassail Cup," "Alexander the Great," "A Mock Play," and the "Silverton Mummer's Play" (Devon), which has been lent to me in manuscript.

The Mumming Chorus, "And a mumming we will go," &c., is not in any one of these versions, but I never saw mumming without it.

The Silverton version is an extreme example of the continuous development of these unwritten dramas. Generation after generation, the most incongruous characters have been added. In some cases this is a very striking testimony to the strength of rural sympathy with the great deeds and heroes of the time, as well as to native talent for dramatic composition.

Wellington and Wolfe almost eclipsed St. George in some parts of England, and the sea Heroes are naturally popular in Devonshire. The death of Nelson in the Silverton play has fine dramatic touches. Though he "has but one arm and a good one too," he essays to fight--whether Tippo Saib or St. George is not made clear. He falls, and St. George calls for the Doctor in the usual words. The Doctor ends his peculiar harangue with: "Britons! our Nelson is dead." To which a voice, which seems to play the part of Greek chorus, responds--"But he is not with the dead, but in the arms of the Living God!" Then, enter Collingwood--

    "_Collingwood_--Here comes I, bold Collingwood,
                    Who fought the French and boldly stood;
                    And now the life of that bold Briton's gone,
                    I'll put the crown of victory on"--

with which--"he takes the crown off Nelson's head and puts it on his own."

I have, however, confined myself in "The Peace Egg" to those characters which have the warrant of considerable antiquity, and their number is not small. They can easily be reduced by cutting out one or two; or some of the minor characters could play more than one part, by making real exits and changing the dress, instead of the conventional exit into the background of the group.

Some of these minor characters are not the least charming. The fair Sabra (who is often a mute) should be the youngest and prettiest little maid that can toddle through her part, and no old family brocade can be too gorgeous for her. The Pretty Page is another part for a "very little one," and his velvets and laces should become him. They contrast delightfully with Dame Dolly and Little Man Jack, and might, if needful, be played by the same performers.

I have cut out everything that could possibly offend, except the line--"Take him and give him to the flies." It betrays an experience of Asiatic battlefields so terribly real, that I was unwilling to abolish this unconscious witness to the influence of Pilgrims and Crusaders on the Peace Egg. It is easily omitted.

I have dismissed the Lord of Flies, Beelzebub, and (with some reluctance) "Little Devil Doubt" and his besom. I had a mind to have retained him as "The Demon of Doubt," for he plays in far higher dramas. His besom also seems to come from the East, where a figure "sweeping everything out" with a broom is the first vision produced in the crystal or liquid in the palm of a medium by the magicians of Egypt.

Those who wish to do so can admit him at the very end, after the sword dance, very black, and with a besom, a money-box, and the following doggrel:

In come I, the Demon of Doubt,
If you don't give me money I'll sweep you all out;
Money I want and money I crave,
Money I want and money I'll have.

He is not a taking character--unless to the antiquary! I have substituted the last line for the less decorous original, "If you don't give me money, I'll sweep you all to the grave."

It is perhaps only the antiquary who will detect the connection between the Milk Pail and the Wassail Cup in the Fool's Song. But it seems at one time to have been made of milk. In a play of the 16th century it is described as--

"Wassayle, wassayle, out of the mylke payle;
Wassayle, wassayle, as white as my nayle,"

and Selden calls it "a slabby stuff," which sounds as if it had got mixed up with frumenty.

Since the above went to press, I have received some extracts from the unwritten version of "Peace Egg" in the West Riding of Yorkshire to which I have alluded. They recall to me that the piece properly opens with a "mumming round," different to the one I have given, _that_ one belonging to the end. The first Mumming Song rehearses each character and his exploits. The hero of the verse which describes him singing (autobiographically!) his own doughty deeds in the third person. Thus St. George begins; I give it in the vernacular.

"The first to coom in is the Champion bould,
The Champion bould is he,
He never fought battle i' all his loife toim,
But he made his bould enemy flee, flee, flee,
He made his bould enemy flee."

The beauty of this song is the precision with which each character enters and joins the slowly increasing circle. But that is its only merit. It is wretched doggrel, and would make the play far too tedious. I was, however, interested by this verse:--

The next to come in is the Cat and Calftail,
The Cat and Calftail is he;
He'll beg and he'll borrow, and he'll steal all he can,
But he'll never pay back one penny, penny,
He'll never pay back one penny.

Whether "Cat and Calftail" is a corruption of Captain Calftail or (more likely) Captain Calftail was evolved from a Fool in Calf's hide and Cat's skins, it is hard to say. They are evidently one and the same shabby personage!

The song which I have placed at the head of the Peace Egg Play has other verses which also recite "the argument" of the piece, but not one is worth recording. A third song does not, I feel sure, belong to the classic versions, but to another "rude and vulgar" one, which I have not seen for some years, and which was played in a dialect dark, even to those who flattered themselves that they were to the manner born. In it St. George and the Old Fool wrangle, the O.F. accusing the Patron Saint of England of stealing clothes hung out to dry on the hedges. St. George, who has previously boasted--

I've travelled this world all round,
And hope to do it again,
I was once put out of my way
By a hundred and forty men--

--indignantly denies the theft, and adds that, on the contrary, he has always sent home money to his old mother. To which the Old Fool contemptuously responds--

All the relations thou had were few,
Thou had an Old Granny I knew,
She went a red-cabbage selling,
As a many old people do.

In either this, or another, rough version, the hero (presumably St. George) takes counsel with Man Jack on his love affairs. Man Jack is played by a small boy in a very tall beaver hat, and with his face blacked.

"My Man Jack, what can the matter be?
That I should luv this lady, and she will not luv me."

ST. GEORGE and MAN JACK.

  
  No, nor nayther will she walk {with me
                                {with thee.
  No, nor nayther will she talk {with me
                                {with thee.

But the true "Peace Egg," if _bludgy_, is essentially a heroic play, and I think the readers of _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ will be content that I have omitted accretions which are not the less vulgar because they are old.

In refining and welding the piece together, I have introduced thirty lines of my own, in various places. The rest is genuine.

J. H. E.

A CHRISTMAS MUMMING PLAY.

_Written expressly for all Mummers, to commemorate the Holy Wars, and the happy Festival of Christmas._ _

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