THE ENGLISH
FOLK-PLAY
ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON
THE ENGLISH
FOLK-PLAY
By
E. K. CHAMBERS
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1933
OXFORD
UNIVERSIXY PRESS
AMEN HOUSE, E.G. 4.
London Edinburgh Glasgow-
Leipzig; New York Toronto
Melbourne Capetown Bombay
Calcutta Madras Shanghai
HUMPHREY MILKORD
PUBLISHER TO THE
UNIVERSITY
PRINTED TN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD
BY JOHN JOHNSON, PRINTER TO THE TJNIVERSIXV
ANALYSIS
THE MUMMERS' PLAY AND ITS CONGENERS
PAGE
THE MUMMERS 9 PLAY ..... 3
THE PRESENTATION . . . . .13
THE COMBATANTS . . . . .23
THE DISPUTE . . . . . -33
THE LAMENT . . . . . .38
THE tTESTON-SUB-EDGE PLAT . . .41
THE CURE . . . . . .50
JACK FINNEY ...... 57
MULTIPLIED COMBATS . . . 59
THE QUfiTE . . . . . .63
THE MYLOR PLAY . . . . .71
COSTUME . . . . . .83
ABNORMAL MUMMERS' PLAYS . . .87
THE PLOUGH PLAY . . . . .89
THE REVESBY PLAY . . . . .104
THE SWORD DANCE . . . . .123
THE AMPLEFORTH PLAY . . . .131
THE MORRIS DANCE . . . . .150
JACK OF LENT . . . . .153
MEDIEVAL PARALLELS . . . .160
vi ANALYSIS
PAGE
SAINT GEORGE 170
THE SEPEN CHAMPIONS . . . .174
THE STAGE AND THE FOLK . . . .185
THE RESIDUAL PROBLEM . . .192
THE PROBLEM OF ORIGIN
PARALLELS FROM WESTERN EUROPE . . 197
PARALLELS FROM THE BALKANS . . .206
A PRIMITIVE LUDUS . . . . .211
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LUDUS . .216
WOOING PLATS . . . . .229
1/52" OF TEXTS 236
INDEX 245
ILLUSTRATIONS
1. ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. Drawing by THOMAS
FISHER in J. G. Nichols, Ancient Paintings at Stratford-
upon-dvon (1838), from Fresco in the Chapel of the
Gild of Holy Cross. frontispiece
2. A KIRMESS IN THE NETHERLANDS. Engraving in the
British Museum from Painting by PIETER BRUEGHEL
(c. I53~ 6 9)- facing p. 204
THE MUMMERS' PLAY AND ITS
CONGENERS
The Mummers' Play.
years ago, I attempted, in The Medi-
aeval Stage, to give an account of the Mummers'
Play, as one of several ludi of the folk which involve
an element of mimesis. Since then, much additional
material has been collected on the play and its
congeners, notably by the late Reginald Tiddy and
Cecil Sharp, and by Professor C. R. Baskervill,
Mr. Douglas Kennedy, and Mr. Stuart Piggott;
and fresh light has been thrown on the possible
origin of such ludi by the discovery of close analogues
still surviving in various parts of the Balkans. It
seems, therefore, worth while to go over the ground
again, and to bring together the threads of the
old and the new evidence with regard to this singular
and long-enduring seasonal ceremony. In 1903
I was able to make use of twenty-nine examples of
the play. I can now draw upon well over a hundred,
more or less complete, together with a few entangled
in ludi of other types. Probably there are others,
even in print, which have eluded my search, and
there are references, in Tiddy's valuable study and
elsewhere, to performances at various places from
which no texts, so far as I know, are upon record.
But my hundred or so examples cover the greater
part of the country, and extend to Wales, the Isle
of Man, the eastern coast-line of Ireland, and the
Lowlands of Scotland. From the more purely Celtic
4 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
parts of Scotland and Ireland I have none. In
England itself, they seem to come most thickly from
Wessex and from the areas of Oxfordshire and
Gloucestershire about the Cotswolds, but that may
be largely due to accidents of collection. The plays
are known in Surrey and Essex, but I have no texts. 1
No evidence is at present forthcoming for their
existence in Suffolk and Norfolk. Elements from
them form part of the composite Plough Monday
plays of Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, and
sometimes invade the characteristic Sword Dances
of Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland. The
performances are seasonal. The usual date, in most
districts, is Christmas, but in Cheshire All Souls'
Day (2 November), and in some other parts of the
north-west Easter. The Easter plays are called
'Pace Egg* plays. It should be 'Pasch Egg', from
Pascha, the liturgical name for Easter. In Derbyshire
Beelzebub sometimes gives a title. But generally
one is borrowed from the actors. They are normally
'Mummers', which may be perverted into 'Mum-
mies', but often also 'Guisers' or 'Guizards', which
only means 'Disguisers'. In Cornwall they become
'Geese-dancers' and the play is a 'Giz-dance'. In
Sussex they are 'Tipteers' or 'Tipteerers', possibly
from the 'tip' asked as a reward, but more likely
from 'tip', a dialectic form of 'tup', which is a
common name for a ram. 2 Other names are 'The
1 Lady Gomme in F.L. xl. 293 (Barnes, Surrey). Miss E. H. Evans
tells me of a performance at South Weald, Essex. 2 Cf. p. 21 5.
THE MUMMERS' PLAY 5
Seven Champions' in Kent, Johnny Jacks' in Hants
and Wilts, 'Soulers' or 'Soul-Cakers' in Cheshire,
'Paceakers' in Yorkshire, ' Christmas Boys' in Wilts
and the Isle of Wight, 'Christmas Rhymers' in
Belfast, 'White Boys' in the Isle of Man, 'Galatians'
in Scotland. Analogous customs have lent 'Sword
Dancers' in Cumberland and Durham, and 'Morris
Dancers', 'Murry Dancers' or 'Merry Dancers' in
Shropshire. Mummers' Plays, Plough Plays, and
Sword Dances are exclusively male performances,
even when there is a woman among the characters.
I owe to Dr. Marett the saying of an Oxfordshire
participant, 'Oh, you wouldn't have women in
that; it's more like being in church'; but I do not
suppose any such subconscious atavism, if it is
that, to be usual. Tiddy writes of the Mummers'
Play. 1
It is now performed by young lads, sometimes by the
schoolboys of a village ; while for the last fifty years it has
been unusual for married men to take part. Farmers, for
instance, never perform in the South or Midlands. Nor
have I any evidence that it was at any time performed by
the more well-to-do.
This is no doubt true, so far as the past fifty years,
or even more, are concerned. But it may be
doubted whether it was equally true of earlier
periods, before the present sharp social distinction
between tenant farmers and labourers had estab-
lished itself.
1 Tiddy, 89.
6 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
A normalized text may be given at the outset, as
a basis for discussion.
[Enter the Presenter]
Presenter. I open the door, I enter in ;
I hope your favour we shall win.
Stir up the fire and strike a light,
And see my merry boys act to-night.
Whether we stand or whether we fall, 5
We'll do our best to please you all.
[Enter the actors, and stand in a clump]
Presenter. Room, room, brave gallants all,
Pray give us room to rhyme ;
We're come to show activity,
This merry Christmas time; 10
Activity of youth,
Activity of age,
The like was never seen
Upon a common stage.
And if you don't believe what I say, 1 5
Step in St. George and clear the way.
[Enter St. George]
St. George. In come I, Saint George,
The man of courage bold ;
With my broad axe and sword
I won a crown of gold. 20
I fought the fiery dragon,
And drove him to the slaughter,
And by these means I won
The King of Egypt's daughter.
Show me the man that bids me stand; 25
I'll cut him down with my courageous hand.
Presenter. Step in, Bold Slasher.
THE MUMMERS' PLAY 7
[Enter Bold Slasher]
Slasher. In come I, the Turkish Knight,
Come from the Turkish land to fight.
I come to fight St. George, 30
The man of courage bold;
And if his blood be hot,
I soon will make it cold.
St. George. Stand off, stand off, Bold Slasher,
And let no more be said, 35
For if I draw my sword,
I'm sure to break thy head.
Thou speakest very bold,
To such a man as I ;
I'll cut thee into eyelet holes, 40
And make thy buttons fly.
Slasher. My head is made of iron,
My body is made of steel,
My arms and legs of beaten brass ;
No man can make me feel. 45
St. George. Then draw thy sword and fight.
Or draw thy purse and pay;
For satisfaction I must have,
Before I go away.
Slasher. No satisfaction shalt thou have, 50
But I will bring thee to thy grave.
St. George. Battle to battle with thee I call,
To see who on this ground shall fall.
Slasher. Battle to battle with thee I pray,
To see who on this ground shall lay. 55
St. George. Then guard thy body and mind thy head,
Or else my sword shall strike thee dead.
Slasher. One shall die and the other shall live;
This is the challenge that I do give.
[They fight. Slasher falls']
THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
Presenter. O cruel Christian, what hast thou done ? 60
Thou hast wounded and slain my only son.
St. George. He challenged me to fight,
And why should I deny't ?
Presenter. O, is there a doctor to be found
To cure this deep and deadly wound. 65
Doctor, doctor, where art thee ?
My son is wounded to the knee.
Doctor, doctor, play thy part,
My son is wounded to the heart.
I would put down a thousand pound, 70
If there were a doctor to be found.
[Enter the Doctor]
Doctor. Yes, there is a doctor to be found,
To cure this deep and deadly wound.
I am a doctor pure and good,
And with my hand can stanch his blood. 75
Presenter. Where hast thou been, and where hast come
from ?
Doctor. Italy, Sicily, Germany, France and Spain,
Three times round the world and back again.
Presenter. What canst do and what canst cure ?
Doctor. All sorts of diseases, 80
Just what my physic pleases;
The itch, the stitch, the palsy and the gout,
Pains within and pains without;
If the devil is in, I can fetch him out.
I have a little bottle by my side; 85
The fame of it spreads far and wide.
The stuff therein is elecampane;
It will bring the dead to life again.
A drop on his head, a drop on his heart.
Rise up, bold fellow, and take thy part. 90
[Slasher rises]
THE MUMMERS' PLAY 9
[Enter Big Head]
Big Head. In come I, as ain't been yet,
With my big head and little wit,
My head so big, my wit so small,
I will dance a jig to please you all.
[Dance and Song ad libitum]
[Enter Beelzebub"]
Beelzebub. In come I, old Beelzebub. 95
On my shoulder I carry a club,
In my hand a dripping-pan.
Don't you think I'm a jolly old man?
[Enter Johnny Jack]
Johnny Jack. In come I, little Johnny Jack,
With my wife and family at my back, roo
My family's large and I am small,
A little, if you please, will help us all.
[Enter Devil Dout]
Devil Dout. In come I, little Devil Dout;
If you don't give me money, I'll sweep you out.
Money I want and money I crave; 105
If you don't give me money, I'll sweep you to the
grave.
When I call this a normalized text, I do not mean
that anything just like it is found anywhere, or even
that I regard it as an archetype from which all the
existing texts were derived, but merely that it is
put together, as far as possible, from constantly
recurring formulas, and represents the general succes-
sion of incidents and run of dialogue which one may
conceive to lie behind the widely variant versions.
4024
io THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
An archetype, in any strict sense, is unattainable.
There have been too many cross-currents for that.
No doubt there was a common original, but it has
been much corrupted. The order of incidents has
been dislocated, and speeches have been transferred
from character to character. The result is often
incoherent. There is also, of course, much verbal
degradation. It is interesting to observe, however,
how rhyme helped the memory of the folk. A
rhyme-pair, or at least a rhyme-sound, often clings,
when the sense of the context has been hopelessly
perverted. But there must also have been a good
deal of deliberate rehandling, both in shortening
and in lengthening. One may guess at some of the
reasons. Shortening may be due, not merely to
lapse of memory, but also to a desire to get round
as many houses as possible, in the interests of the
qufae or collection of gifts, for which the perform-
ance had come to be little more than an excuse.
Lengthening, on the other hand, would provide
better entertainment for larger audiences. I am
not sure whether there was originally one combat or
more. 1 But in any case the sword-play, which per-
haps proved more exciting than the dialogue, has
often been much prolonged. For this additional
characters are brought in. Others appear, who are
altogether superfluous to the action; they merely
come and go. They are borrowed from related ludl*
or they are personages much in the national or local
1 Cf. p. 192.
THE MUMMERS' PLAY n
eye at this or that epoch. The dialogue also has
been much farced. Fragments have been written in
from Robin Hood and other ballads or from popular
songs, and from the repertories of travelling profes-
sional actors. And there are many bits, especially
in the Doctor episode, of purely rustic humour. On
the whole, the versions tend to be longer than my
norm, although some are much shorter, and so
logical a dialogue as mine is rarely preserved in full.
Some of the accretions are themselves so widespread
as to indicate much give and take among places,
even far apart. The migrations of individual per-
formers may help to account for this. The duplica-
tion of the fighting is sometimes effected by putting
together two distinct versions as two acts of a play.
And it is occasionally varied by letting one or more
contemplated combat come to nothing. An extreme
case of fertilization from a distance is at Icomb in
Gloucestershire, where a second act must have been
added from a Scottish source. Something must be
allowed for the dissemination of chap-book versions
of the play, such as emerge in the eighteenth century.
These are known to have been used, for example,
by local players in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
There is more trace of their influence in the north
than in the midlands and the south. They were
themselves, however, generally based on traditional
versions, with a certain amount of literary sophistica-
tion. The same version was often printed for book-
sellers in different towns. One type is found in
12 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
Lancashire and Yorkshire, another in Newcastle and
Whitehaven, a third in Belfast. There is not much
evidence for individual attempts at regularizing the
language of the plays by local parsons or school-
masters. For the most part the folk had it its own,
way. Clearly it was an illiterate folk, very differenf
from that which in earlier days became responsible
for the variations, often very beautiful, in the
medieval ballads. The original text, indeed, is no*
likely to have had the quality of a ballad. But in.
many versions it has suffered almost incredible-
degradation, both through the familiar processes of
oral transmission, and at the stage when one per-
former, for the benefit of his successors, or at the
request of Tiddy or another, tried to write down not
only his own part but also those of his fellows, which
he naturally knew even less well than his own. One
must remember that the life of the plays endureds
well into the middle of the nineteenth century, when
the advance of enclosures, in the interests of high
farming, had brought about the ultimate degenera-
tion of the agricultural labourer. In the remarks that
follow, by way of a commentary on my normalized
version, I shall not concern myself so much with the
state of the text, although that will incidentally
appear, as with the general structure and the nature
of the characters represented. It is, after all, the
origin of the play, rather than its latter end, which
is of interest to the folk-lorist.
It will be observed that there is a good deal of
THE PRESENTATION 13
metrical variation. Couplets, decasyllabic and octo-
syllabic, and quatrains all appear. I have given the
preference to decasyllabic couplets, where possible,
but the variation may quite well have been a charac-
teristic of the original. There is no prose, except a
lew words in the Doctor episode. Structurally, the
piece falls into three parts: the Presentation (11. i-
k i6), the Drama (11. 17-90), the Qufae (11. 91-106).
p\nd the Drama may further be resolved into the
Vaunts (11. 17-59) at the entry of the combatants
)eind in their dispute, the Combat or Agon, which is
dumb sword-play, the Lament (11. 60-71), and the
Cure (11. 72-90). On each of these sections much
comment is necessary.
The Presentation.
At Sudbury there is an opening 'promenade* of
performers with a Christmas wish, and at Ross they
l^ush in suddenly without knocking. But as a rule
they are introduced by a Presenter, and stand in a
clump by the door until each in turn is called upon
to step forward and take his part. At Rogate the
Presenter blows a cow-horn to announce the ap-
proach. The Presenter himself is often anonymous,
or has such colourless appellations as Caller, First
Man, First Speaker, Foreman, Headman, Leader,
Leading Man, Marshal, No. i , Open-the-Door, Page,
Prologue, Ringer-in, Talking Man. No doubt,
if we had descriptions as well as texts, his nature
would sometimes be clearer. At West Wittering
H THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
the First Man is addressed as Prince Feather*
In the south and midlands, by far the most common
presenter is Old Father Christmas. I believe him
to be an intruder upon the original play, but that
must be considered later. At Ovingdean Father
Christmas calls himself the Noble Captain. In the
north a more usual type is the Fool, Clown, Jester,
Punch, Hunchback or Johnny Funny. I think that
the Old Hind-before of Icomb is also a Fool. 1 The
midlands know the Fool as Hey Down Derry at
Wooburn and Old Don Derry at Penn. In the text
of the Lancashire and Yorkshire chap-books he
becomes Old Bold Ben. The Jack of Skelton is less
distinctive, since all the characters of the plays,
whatever their proper names, have a way of address-
ing each other as 'Jack'. The Fool presenter is clearly
related to the personages of the Quete. From here too
come the Beelzebub of Coxwold and Thenford and
the Little Devil Doubt of Leigh; from the Cure, as we
shall see, the John Finney of Weston-sub-Edge, who
may not be distinct, by origin, from Johnny Funny;
and from the combatants the Captain Slasher of Lut-
terworth, the Sambo of the Isle of Man, the Knight
of an unlocated Oxfordshire version, and the Alex-
ander of the Newcastle and Whitehaven chap-books,
and of an early Scottish version. The Rim Rhu of
Dundalk is probably a projection from the words
of the Presenter's speech, although the collector sug-
gests that Rhu may represent the Irish ruad^ 'red*.
1 Cf. p. 227.
THE PRESENTATION ij
An even more surprising projection, the Rumour
of Overton, may be helped by the use of Rumour
or Fame as a prologue-speaker in more sophisticated
drama. Very occasionally the Presenter is a woman,
who comes in as an anonymous old woman or girl at
Lower Heyford, Chiswick, Sudbury, and Halton,
as Molly at Islip and in Berkshire, as Old Molly at
Chesterfield, and as the Caller and Old Mother
Christmas at Ilmington. Occasionally one of the
combatants is introduced or referred to as the son
or eldest son of the Presenter. 1
The words of the Presentation show much diver-
gence. The two formulas I have given occur to-
gether at Newport, but more often singly. I will not
quote, here or elsewhere, too many trivial or merely
stupid variants. But there are some which illus-
trate the way in which, as already noted, the rhyme-
sound of a couplet persists in memory and leads
to the substitution of an alternative line when the
original one has been forgotten. Thus for line 2
we get:
Whether I lose or whether I win,
or,
To see a merry act begin,
or,
I hope the game will soon begin ;
and for line 4:
To see my merry active knight,
1 Cf. p. 225.
16 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
or,
For in this house there will be a fight,
or,
And see King George and the Turkey fight.
The second formula may be earlier than the first. Its
'room', 'gallants', Activity' are used in old-fashioned
senses which have puzzled the transmitters. 'Room'
is a good medieval term, which survives into the
seventeenth century, for the floorspace required
by dancers or other performers. Shakespeare has it
in Much Ado, n. i. 87, 'The revellers are entering,
brother: make good room', and with an alternative
in Romeo and yuliet y i. v. 28:
A hall, a hall ! give room ! and foot it, girls.
A call for room opens three of Ben Jonson's masks,
Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (1619), The Meta-
morphosed Gipsies (1621), and The Masque of Owls
(1626). In our texts 'Room' often becomes 'a
room', and further misconceptions, both of 'room'
and of 'gallants', yield some delightful results. Thus
Sapperton has:
A room for gallant store.
Sudbury has:
A room, a room, a garland room.
Overton has:
There 's room and room and gallons of room.
Camborne puts it into prose, 'I am come to ask you to
favour us with a few gallons of room in your house'.
THE PRESENTATION 17
If 'rum* is in the speaker's mind there may be a touch
of rustic humour, or even a hint at the quQte. A Hants
version regards 'acres' of room as more natural. A
variant of lines 8 and 10 links 'ride' and 'Christmas-
tide'. Tiddy suggested that this might be the original
form and a reminiscence of the St. George ridings.
Alternatively, the players might have come in on
hobby-horses. But it is better to regard the more
usual 'rhyme' and 'Christmas time' as original.
Sapperton, in fact, has 'rhyme' and 'tide'. Another
stumbling-block is 'activity'. Elizabethan 'common
stage' players used the term for acrobatic perform-
ances, which were often mimetic, and might, no doubt,
include sword-play. But it became obsolete, and
many curious variants emerge. Lines 1 1 and 1 2
become:
Activity of you, activity of me,
or,
Acting youth and acting age,
or,
I've acted youth, I've acted age,
or,
Acting well or acting vain,
or,
The night is young, and an act is old,
or,
Apt to the aged, apt to the life,
or even
Act Timothy of youth, act Timothy of age.
So, too, 'common stage* is replaced by 'public stage'
4024
i8 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
or Christmas stage or Christian stage* or King
George's stage' or by some name of local signi-
ficance, such as 'Andrew's stage' or 'St. Mary
Andrew's stage'.
There are several other formulas, and a good deal
of give and take between them. I need only quote
those which are fairly distinct. Some are much
shortened, but the call for 'room' is generally
preserved. The following furnishes another example
of a substituted rhyme-word.
Room, room, gallant room do I require;
Step in, King George, and show thy face like fire.
Another is:
I beg your pardon for being so bold,
I enter your house, the weather 's so cold.
Room, a room ! brave gallants, give us room to sport,
For in this house we do resort.
and another:
Room, gentlemen, room I pray,
And we'll quickly have the fighting men this way.
and another:
A room, a room,
I do presume,
For me and my brave men.
But this, as the failure to rhyme shows, is corrupt.
Elsewhere it is:
Room, room,
For me and my broom.
And in fact the Presenter sometimes comes in with
THE PRESENTATION 19
a broom in his, or her, hand, sweeping. Thus we
get:
In comes I, Old Hind-before,
I comes fust to open your door.
I comes fust to kick up a dust,
I comes fust to sweep up your house ;
and,
In comes I hind before.
With my broad broom to sweep up the floor;
and,
A room, a room, a rousty toust, 1
I've brought my broom to sweep the house;
and,
A room, a room,
A douse, a douse, 2
I'll sweep your house,
So clane, so dace,
So hansom nice.
The object of sweeping here might be merely to
clear a space or to reduce the dust made by the
leaps of the combatants. I may again quote Shake-
speare, M.N.D. v. i. 396, where Puck, introducing
a mask, says:
I am sent with broom before,
To sweep the dust behind the door.
But sweeping is also found in the Quete, and I shall
have to recur to it. 3
Another type of opening has nothing about
1 rouse, touse, 'bustle' (Wright, Dialect Dictionary).
2 douse, 'dust* (UU.). 3 cf. pp. 67, 211.
20 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
'room', but introduces the actors as a c jolly family'
or * merry* men.
We are the merry actors that traverse the street;
We are the merry actors that fight for our meat;
We are the merry actors that show pleasant play;
Step in, St. George, thou champion, and clear the way.
This is a chap-book version, but the following is
more traditional.
In comes I that 's never been before.
Six merry actors stand at your door,
They can merrily dance and sing,
And by your leave they shall walk in.
When Old Father Christmas is the Presenter, he
often works in one or more of the formulas already
quoted. But he also has, almost invariably, distinc-
tive lines of his own.
In come I, old Father Christmas,
Welcome or welcome not,
I hope old Father Christmas
Will never be forgot.
Tiddy would trace in the second line a hint of the
puritan hostility to Christmas rejoicing in the seven-
teenth century. Great Wolford has a special variant
of its own.
In comes I, Old Father Christmas,
In comes I to make the fun.
My hair is short, my beard is long,
And me hat 's tied on with a leathern throng.
To his normal lines Father Christmas may add others
which are not really 'proper* to the play, but are
THE PRESENTATION *i
also found as independent gwlfc-songs of the Christ-
mas season, and are indeed sometimes relegated in
the play itself to the Qu$te. Such are:
Christmas comes but once a year,
And when it comes it brings good cheer. 1
To this the Newcastle chap-book prefixes:
Bounser Buckler, velvet 's dear,
which was a seventeenth-century proverb of scorn as:
Bounce Buck-ram, velvet's dear. 2
An alternative is:
We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year,
A pocket full of money, and a cellar full of beer,
And a good fat pig to last you all the year. 3
Cornwall prefers 'a skin full of beer'. Father
Christmas does not, I think, sweep, although he has
a 'pop and touse' at Camborne. But at Cinderford
he makes room with a sword.
At the close of the harangue the first actor is sum-
moned forward, and each in turn may be similarly
introduced by his predecessor or by the Presenter.
Common signals are 'Step in', 'Walk in', 'Come in',
'I call in'. Possibly 'Enter' shows the influence of
a chap-book. Overton has 'Fall from the door',
where Tiddy thinks that 'Fall' may be an error for
'Forth'. In any case, the actors are probably already
in the room, huddled near the entrance, and each, as
1 J. Ray, A Collection of English Proverbs (1670), 211.
2 John Clarke, Pammiologia Latina (1639), 71.
3 G. F. Northall, English Folk-Rhymes, 183.
22 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
summoned, steps into the open space. I take 'clear
the way' to be addressed to the spectators. The
Nuntius in the Chester Nativity says :
Make rowme, lordinges, and geve us waie,
And let Octavian come and plaie. 1
But the Presentation is not always over yet. Before
the Drama begins, there are sometimes super-
numeraries to be introduced. We may call them sub-
Presenters. Father Christmas may be only a sub-
Presenter; it is another hint of his intrusive character.
Stragglers from the combat or the Quete bring their
normal rhymes with them. Mince Pie at Cocking,
St. Mary Bourne, and in Wiltshire, and probably
Fly at Wooburn are projections from the dialogue.
More interesting is the King of Egypt. He is fairly
widespread, although not common. It is just possible
that he is of chap-book origin. Occasionally he uses
borrowed lines, but his proper speech is as follows:
Here am I, the King of Egypt,
As plainly doth appear;
St. George he is my only son,
My only son and heir.
At Lutterworth he is replaced by the King of
England, with similar lines, and at Bampton by
the King of Prussia, with lines that savour of the
Napoleonic wars. Bearsted has a Guard. A Molly,
in two very corrupt versions from Badby and
Ilmington, seems to be mother of one of the com-
batants. At Stourton Miss Duchess and at Bovey
1 Chester Plays (ed. Deimling), vi. 177.
THE COMBATANTS 23
Tracey Mother Dolly sweeps as a sub-Presenter.
The Bovey Tracey lines run:
In comes I Mother Dolly.
Drinking gin is all my folly.
Before I begin I likes to make room;
I'll sweep it away with my little broom.
In the Scottish Galations the Presenter calls in
before the fighters a 'farmer's son*, who is 'afraid
he'll lose his love because he is too young'. This
appears to be a stray from the 'calling on' lines usual
before Sword Dances. 1 The Ripon play, which is
called a Sword Dance, similarly opens with 'calling
on' lines, which are sung by the whole company,
and the characters named are irrelevant to the
subsequent action.
The Combatants.
The culminating point of the Drama is of course
the Combat. It will be convenient to call the
champion who falls the Agonist and his vanquisher
the Antagonist. As a rule, each combatant enters
with a 'Here come I' or similar phrase and a lauda-
tory self-description. There are many of them, but
four are outstanding: St. George, Slasher, the
Turkish Knight, the Black Prince of Paradise.
George appears in almost all normal plays; I have
only seen about a dozen that lack him. He is apt
to be called King rather than Saint, once King
George the Third, once King George of Paradise,
1 Cf. p. 128.
*4 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
sometimes Prince George, twice Prince George of
Ville, once simply Great George. He is more often
Antagonist than Agonist, in the proportion of two
to one. His commonest opening speech is that given
in my normal text. It is often fragmentary, and has
minor variants. The 'crown of gold* (1. 20) may be
c three golden crowns', 'ten crowns of gold', c ten
tons of gold', 'ten thousand pounds in gold'. At
Chithurst the three crowns are:
The He, the She, and the Shamrock,
and at Hamstall Rid ware:
The emer-she-mer, sham-mer rock-a.
The 'daughter' (1. 24) may be 'King George's
daughter', 'King William's daughter', 'the King of
Briton's daughter', 'the queen's eldest daughter',
'Queen Alice's fairest daughter', and even, in a
performance of 1870, 'the Queen of Denmark's
daughter'. Once only, in Cornwall, is the lady
named, as
fair Sabra,
The King of Egypt's daughter.
The 'hand' (1. 26) may be 'bold', 'iron', 'mighty',
Victorious', and by more obvious auditory errors,
'creatious', 'creeagus', 'created', 'graded', 'gracious',
'audacious'. St. George has, however, an alternative
and longer narrative in decasyllabic lines. This also
is fairly widespread. It is fullest, but already corrupt,
in the Belfast chap-book, but there are fragments
also in other north-western and western versions,
THE COMBATANTS 25
and as far away as Mylor in Cornwall, Sudbury in
Middlesex, and Selmeston in Sussex, so that one can
hardly take it as a chap-book invention. I think it
originally went somewhat as follows:
I am St. George, who from Old England sprung,
My famous name throughout the world has rung.
Full seven years in prison I was kept,
And out of that into a cave I leapt,
And out of that into a rock of stone;
'Twas there I made my sad and grievous moan.
Many were the giants that I did subdue;
I ran the fiery dragon through and through,
'Twas I that freed fair Sabra from the stake.
What more could mortal man then undertake ?
Eccleshall misunderstands:
It's I who slew Slabberer from the stake;
and Broadway:
I have led the fair Sarepta from the snake.
For 'giants' the Isle of Man has 'lions'. Either would
fit, but the 'many a gallant' of Belfast points to
'giants', and so does a further confusion at Eccleshall.
It 's many a joint where I so do,
Where I'd ram the fiery dagger through.
The Isle of Man omits the Sabra couplet, and
substitutes:
With a golden trumpet in my mouth
I sounded at the gates divine the truth.
This might be a perversion of the Newcastle chap-
4024
?6 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
book, which has the normal shorter narrative, but
adds:
In Egypt's fields I prisoner long was kept,
But by my valour I from them soon 'scaped :
I sounded at the gates of a divine,
And out came a giant of no good design ;
He gave me a blow, which almost struck me dead,
But I up with my sword, and did cut off his head.
Here, too, 'divine* can hardly be right. 1 The
Yorkshire chap-book has neither of the usual narra-
tives, but has:
I followed a fair lady to a giant's gate,
Confined in dungeon deep to meet her fate ;
Then I resolved, with true knight-errantry,
To burst the door and set the prisoner free,
When a giant almost struck me dead,
But by my valour I cut ofF his head.
The traditional biography, in whichever form, may
be followed or replaced by a bit of patriotic fervour.
I am Prince George, a worthy knight,
I'll spend my blood for England's right,
England 's right I will maintain,
I'll fight for old England once again.
Or it may be:
For England's rights, for England's wrongs,
For England 's my salvation.
A memory, clinging to the rhyme-sound, substitutes
at Mylor:
England's wright, England admorration,
and in the Isle of Man:
Right from Egypt's station.
' Cf. p. 177-
THE COMBATANTS 27
Mr. Piggott finds at Hoe Benham:
With ist manells so brave and vallets so true.
and as it follows the daughter* line, conjectures
'menials' or 'meinie' and 'varlets'. But, as he notes,
Burghclere has :
Manhood so free and valiant of old.
Another phrase is :
I fought them all courageously,
And still have gained the victory,
And will always fight for liberty.
Stanford-in-the-Vale has:
I fought the man at Tollatree,
And still I gained the victory.
At Selmeston it is Tillowtree and at Tenby Tillotree.
One might conjecture Talavera (1805). But the
Stanford reporter, whose version apparently came
from Tetbury in Gloucestershire, said, 'You can
say what you like, but we always said Tollatree*.
Broadway makes of it:
Stand forth! thou figure of a tree,
And see who gains the victory !
St. George goes in the popular mind with the
Turkish Knight, who is by no means so omnipresent,
but where he comes generally takes part in the
primary combat, if there is more than one. His
gambit is:
In come I, the Turkish Knight,
Come from the Turkish land to fight.
28 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
He is almost invariably Agonist. The name is some-
times Turkish Champion, or by corruption, Turkish
or Turkey Snipe. A Bulgard at Hamstall Ridware
and a Boldgier at Repton are both 'from Turkey
land*. Perhaps Bulgarians and Turks have been
confused or perhaps a descriptive Bold Soldier has
become Boldgier and that Bulgard. In Cheshire the
Turkish Knight is addressed as 'black Morocco dog';
and in fact he is generally replaced in the north,
perhaps under chap-book influence, by a very
similar personage, the Black Prince of Paradise,
Paradine, or Paladine, who is also 'Morocco dog'
or 'Morocco King'. A version, rather doubtfully
ascribed to north Somerset, makes him also Black
Prince of Darkness, and here the insult is 'black
and American dog'. His opening lines are usually:
I am Black Prince of Paradise, born of high renown,
Soon I will fetch St. George's lofty courage down.
In the north Somerset version he is 'born in a fiery
hole'.
In some ways the most interesting combatant is
Slasher. This is a description rather than a name,
and has many variants; Captain Slasher, Valiant
Slasher, Bold Slasher, Beau Slasher, Bue Slash, Bull
Slash, Stacker (perhaps a mere misprint in a chap-
book), Bold Slaughterer, Bold and Slalter, Bold
Striker, Bold Captain Rover, Bold Roamer, Bold
and Hardy, Cuterman Slasherman, Cutting Star,
Whip him and Slash Him, Swish Swash and Swagger,
THE COMBATANTS 29
Tall and Smart, Flashard. Sometimes he is merely
Valiant Soldier. His opening lines are those of my
text. The buckler being obsolete, we get c sword
and buckle', 'sword and drawn buckle', 'bockel
and staff', 'broadsword and cutlash and buckle',
'broadsword and spear', 'broadsword and bayonet',
'broadsword and jolly Turk' (dirk), 'bow and jolly
Turk', 'sword and pistol', and even 'gold-laced
hat and dagger'. Slasher is more widespread than
the Turkish Knight, coming in the north as well as
elsewhere. He more often comes in a secondary
combat, and is Agonist and Antagonist in about
equal proportions. The two types remain fairly dis-
tinct, although very occasionally Slasher is also called
a Turkish Knight or a Turkey dog, or comes from
Turkey land.
One would expect the Dragon to be among the
combatants, but as a rule he is remarkably successful
in concealing himself. 1 Naturally where he does
appear, he is Agonist. Probably, although his vaunt
is borrowed and he describes himself as the biggest
man in Northumberland, he is the Speckleback who
fights Slasher at Sapperton. He was in a perform-
ance at South Weald in Essex, of which I have
not the text. In three other cases his opponent is
George. At Swallowfield he is again a borrower, and
in Cornwall, although he has a distinctive speech,
neither this nor that of St. George, to which it is a
reply, is quite free from echoes.
' Cf.p.i 77 .
30 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
St. George. Here come I, St. George, from Britain did I
spring,
I'll fight the Dragon bold, my wonders to begin,
Pll clip his wings, he shall not fly;
I'll cut him down, or else I die,
Dragon. Who 's he that seeks the Dragon's blood,
And calls so angry, and so loud ?
That English dog, will he before me stand ?
I'll cut him down with my courageous hand.
With my long teeth and scurvy jaw,
Of such I'd break up half a score,
And stay my stomach, till I'd more.
Much the same dialogue, with 'scurly' for 'scurvy'
and 'mourn' for 'more', passes at Weston-sub-Edge
between George and the Turkish Knight, who must
have inherited it from the Dragon, and at the Cure
in this play a wolf's tooth is removed from the
Agonist. At Bovey Tracey some one wore 'a wooden
thing for a head with bullock's teeth', and after the
Drama comes:
Here am I the Giant from the Giant's rest,
With my long teeth and scury jaws
I'll tear the flesh from off thy nose.
There are many other fighters, some of whom only
take part in secondary combats. Probably they are
all either perversions or accretions. A few are heroic.
Singuy, also called Singhiles, at Newport, Sing Ghiles
at Eccleshall and St. Gay in Derbyshire probably
represent Sir Guy of Warwick, who like St. George
was a dragon-slayer. Giant Turpin appeared fitfully
in Cornwall. The Newcastle-Whitehaven chap-
THE COMBATANTS 31
book has Alexander, who is also found at Peebles in
Scotland, and by some accident at Icomb in
Gloucestershire. Falkirk has St. Lawrence. But the
chief feature of the Scottish versions is the regular
replacement of St. George by a hero called Galatian,
Galations, Golashans, Galacheus, or Galgacus. Pre-
sumably this last is the original form, since Tacitus
makes Galgacus or Calgacus the leader of the Picts
in their battle with Agricola at the Mons Graupius.
Irish versions naturally introduce St. Patrick, with
a gibe in which St. George is called St. Patrick's
boy. But Braganstown deals more honestly with the
source by putting it the other way round. 1 King
Charles at Skelton is presumably a derivative from
King George, who is also called 'the druded White
King* at Repton. Later substitutes are King William
and even the Royal Prussian King. And here, per-
haps, comes in the influence of the Napoleonic wars,
which also give Bonaparte, 'just come from Thum-
berloo', and a Noble Captain or French Officer.
In comes I, the valiant soldier,
Just arrived from France,
With my broad sword and spear,
I'll make King George to dance.
History may possibly explain a mysterious personage
whom I cannot unravel. At Great Wolford King
George says:
And if any man can conquer me,
The French Captain Collier he shall be.
Cf.p. 182.
32 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
In fact he only fights Slasher. But at Penn he fights
Captain Curly 'from the Isle of Wight', who is
similarly described at Wooburn, where he is 'Kearley'
and fights a Duke of Cumberland, who is also
'George', and at Stourton, where he fights a Duke
of Northumberland. Moreover, the Turkish Knight
is described as 'curly' at Rugby, Beelzebub has a
'curly wig' at Sapperton, and Curly is the name of
the Fool in a Leicestershire Morris Dance. 1 Sir
George Collier (1738-95) was a naval officer, and
so were Sir Robert Calder (1745-1818), Sir Ben-
jamin Caldwell (1737-1820), Sir William Corn-
wallis (1744-1819) and Lord Collingwood (1750-
1810). Any name can be corrupted by the folk,
but none of these heroes were French. Calder,
whose action against Villeneuve helped to stave off
invasion by Bonaparte in 1804, is the most likely.
The only George Duke of Cumberland was Queen
Anne's husband (1689-1708). A more probable
personage is William Augustus, the 'butcher of
Culloden' (1726-65). The Duke of Northumber-
land also appears at Islip. The only military Duke
was Hugh, of the 'Smithson' house (1742-1817).
Scotland has an Admiral of the Hairy Caps, who
'won the battle of Quinbeck'. Is it Quebec (1759),
which is also mixed up with an admiral in the
Mylor text? 2 Anyway, the 'hairy caps' must be
play costume. 3 Combatants who have strayed
from other parts of the play are Father Christmas,
1 Mediaeval Stage, i. 198. 2 Cf. p. 83. 3 Cf. pp. 85, 90, 126.
THE DISPUTE 33
the King of Egypt, Mince Pie, Room, Activity
and Age, who are again 'projections', Beelzebub,
Twing Twang, and Jack Vinney. With Sambo
and Hector I shall deal later. 1 Farmer Dick, in
Cumberland, may have strayed from a Sword
Dance. 2 Prince Valentine, at Ross and in the
Isle of Man, might be a 'projection 5 from Valiant'
or might come from the stage-play of Valentine
and Orson. 3 In Dorset, however, General Valentine
is coupled with Colonel Spring, and suggests St.
Valentine's Day. Hy Gwyer, at Hollington, 'with
my face red as fire' owes his position to a rhyme
which we have also found in the Presentation. The
Bold Prince of Steyning and the Grenadier of Burgh-
clere are quite colourless. But at Hoe Benham the
Grenadier is amusingly transformed into Bold
Granny Dear.
The Dispute.
The distribution in my text of the vaunting which
follows the introductory speeches is an arbitrary one.
The dialogue shows the tendency to cumulative
repetition characteristic both of folk-rhymes and of
ballads. It is seldom so long as I have made it, and
the formulas, or fragments of them, are freely
interchangeable among the participants, with the
exceptions that the warning not to speak so bold is
generally addressed to the Turkish Knight, and that
the lines about iron and steel are nearly always put
1 Cf. p. 60. 2 Cf. p. 128. 3 cf. p. 191.
4024 F
34 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
in Slasher's mouth. To their origin I shall have
to recur. 1 They not unnaturally became unintelli-
gible. The first two lines are fairly well preserved,
although 'brass* or 'lead' or 'cannon-balls' may be sub-
stituted for 'iron* or 'steel', and a touch of rational-
ism may replace 'made of by 'lined with', and even
give:
My hamlet 's (helmet 's ?) lined with steel,
or, still more plausibly:
My body 's not lined with brass,
My head 's not lined with steel.
The two last lines show greater variation. 'Beaten
brass' was thought less plausible than 'knuckle-bones'
or 'crooked bones', although it is not so easy to
explain 'pipe-stalks' and 'paven-stones', and the last
line became:
I challenge thee to feel,
and then,
I challenge thee to field.
There is often a more complete and comic recast:
My trousers touch my ankle-bones.
That thou shalt quickly feel,
or,
My garter fits my legs so tight,
My trousers drag my heel.
There is a similar adaptation to the milieu of the
performers in lines 56-7. Some Bentley, more
1 Cf.p. 178.
THE DISPUTE 35
familiar with fisticuffs than with sword-play, be-
thought him of:
So mind your eyes and guard your blows,
Or else I'll tap you on the nose.
One other passage gets a very odd development.
As it stands in my text, it is:
Pll cut thee into eyelet holes,
And make thy buttons fly.
This is only my reconstruction. The nearest ap-
proach to it is at Mylor.
I will cut thy doublats ful of Hylent hols
And make thy buttens fly.
I think that 'Hylent hols' can only be 'eyelet holes'
and both this and 'doublet' suggest an early date.
I do not find 'eyelet holes' again, although this or
'doublets' may account for the Derbyshire
I'll jam his giblets full of holes,
And in those holes put pebble stones,
or,
I'll fill thy body full of pellets,
And make thy buttons fly.
and the Rogate
I'll cut your driblets through and through,
And make your buttons fly.
Other combinations of 'cut' and 'fly' are not un-
common, especially in outlying areas. Thus, in
Cumberland:
I'll cut his body in four parts,
And make his buttons fly,
36 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
and in the Isle of Man:
He cut my coat so full of rents,
And made my buttons fly.
Lutterworth has:
I'll cut you down the middle,
And make your blood to fly.
Here 'blood', I suppose, might be either a perversion
of the 'buttons' or its origin. And now, at Hepton-
stall, comes, in prose, a link with a very widespread
formula:
I struck his doublet into ten parts and sent 'em over the
sea. I sent 'em over the sea to Jamaica to make mince pies.
There is no 'fly' here, but it is generally part of a
mince-pie threat, in some such form as this:
I'll cut him and slash him as small as flies,
And send him to Jamaica to make mincepies.
The threat is very persistent. I have noted about thirty
examples, from all parts, but largely from the mid-
lands. Very rarely 'flies' becomes 'dust' and even
'mint-dust', and the rhyme is to 'mincepie crust'.
The verb is generally 'cut', sometimes replaced or
supplemented by 'pierce', 'hack', 'hew', 'hit', or 'slay'.
Obviously the connexion with the Christmas season,
as well as the rhyme, helps to explain the mince-pies.
Mylor has 'appel pyes'. I do not think that the
appearance of the formula at Mylor, side by side
with the 'Hylent hols', necessarily militates against
my theory of its origin. Why 'Jamaica', I do not
know, except that criminals were transported to
Jamaica in the seventeenth century. It is the
THE DISPUTE 37
commonest destination for the mince-pies in the
formula, but by no means the only one. They
may be sent, through another association with
Christmas feasting, to Turkey, or again to Gibraltar,
to London, to Yorkshire, to Blacksand, to Black
Sam, to Satan, to the Devil, to the Old Man, to
King George, and more reasonably to the kitchen,
to the bakehouse, to the cookshop. Sometimes there
are repetitive lines, which work in the street-cry
'Mince pies hot, mince pies cold!' and add as a rhyme
'Nine days old*. Mince-pies were a traditional viand
at the London Lord Mayor's feast on November 9.
Mr. Percy Manning would trace a relation to the
Bringing in the Fly, which was a Whitsun custom
of Oxford cooks. He thinks that they ate the fly, and
notes that in Lincolnshire flies were said to disappear
in autumn, because they were made into flies for
Scawby Feast. 1 But surely the Whitsun Fly was the
butterfly, as a symbol of spring, or perhaps, for
cooks, the mayfly, which brings the trout. I have
not used in my text an occasional formula in which
one combatant says that another 'swears he will
come in', and expresses fear that he will 'pierce' or
'brace* or 'tan' his skin. This is certainly an accretion.
It comes from the actors' 'jig' of Singing Simpkin.
Servant. He swears and tears he will come in.
And nothing shall him hinder.
Simpkin. I fear hee'l strip me out my skin,
And burn it into tinder.
1 Folk-Lore 9 xxv. 198.
38 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
The jig is in Robert Cox's Acteon and Diana (n.d.,
2nd ed. 1656) and in The Wits, or Sport Upon Sport
(1662), but is already adapted in the German
Engelische Comedien und Tragedien ( 1 620). Perhaps
Professor Baskervill is a little hazardous in identi-
fying it with a jig of William Kempe's, registered
on 21 October 1595.'
The Lament.
This episode is handled in several ways. It often
contains the three formulas of my text, the Re-
proach, the Apology, the Call for the Doctor.
The Reproach and Call may be given either to
the Presenter or to a character, usually the King
of Egypt or a Woman, who may already have been
a sub-Presenter, or, in the north, may now intervene
for the first time. At Frodsham she is Martha. The
'cruel Christian', or, as it may be, 'cursed Christian'
of the Reproach is not, of course, appropriate to
every Antagonist. The Newcastle-Whitehaven
chap-book uses it in error of Alexander. Some-
times it is replaced by 'O George, O George'
or the like, or by 'Horrible, terrible*, on which
we shall come again. The chap-books seem also
to be responsible for some variant forms of
Apology.
He gave me a challenge, no one it denies,
How high he was, but see how low he lies.
1 Baskervill, The Elizabethan Jig, 108, 123, 235, 444 (text).
THE LAMENT 39
and,
Please you, my liege, my honour to maintain ;
Had you been there, you might have fared the same.
There are Scottish versions in which the Antagonist
attempts to throw the blame upon a bystander. 1
The Apology is sometimes omitted, and if so the
Reproach may either remain unaltered, or be merged
in the lamenting Call for the Doctor. The most
constant element in all this variation is the assertion
of the sonship of the Agonist to the lamenter. He
is generally called 'only* son, less often 'eldest* or
'chiefest' son. Multiplied combats produce two sons
at Overton and Witley, and four in the Isle of Wight.
At Overton the Presenter, who is Father Christmas,
says after the first fight, 'Oh dear, oh dear, out of
eleven sons I've only got one left', and after the
second fight, 'Oh dear, oh dear, out of eleven sons
I haven't got one left'. And this links with a set
of rhymes which belongs in the Quete to Beelzebub
at Icomb, and more plausibly to Johnny Jack in
several Wessex plays.
Out of children eleven I've got but seven,
And they be started up to heaven ;
Out of the seven I've got but five,
And they be starved to death alive ;
Out of the five I've got but three,
And they be popped behind a tree;
Out of the three I've got but one,
And he got round behind the sun.
I do not find this in Northall's Folk-Rhymes,
1 Cf. p. 129.
40 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
although there are some sets of numerical rhymes
used in forfeit games to test rapidity and accuracy
of speech. 1 Another, in Lady Gomme's Traditional
Games, is The Twelve Days of Christmas, and possibly
those days or the twelve months may be intended
here. 2 But this hardly explains the sonship of the
laments, since the lamenter is by no means always
Father Christmas. And although he is sometimes
the King of Egypt, it is not so in all cases in which
the King calls George his 'son and heir' in the
Presentation. Nor again, is the son of the Lament
always George. In one exceptional case, at Bearsted
in Kent, the Reproach is simply:
Oh King George, what have you done ?
and the Antagonist himself says:
IVe killed my own beloved son.
Another form of the episode, particularly favoured
in Sussex, but also found so far away as Sudbury,
Leigh, Malvern, and Tenby, has no Reproach and
no Apology in the strict sense. Either the Presenter
or the Antagonist may call the Doctor; but first the
Antagonist, addressing either the Presenter, or occa-
sionally the audience as 'Ladies and gentlemen',
exclaims:
See what I have done,
I have cut him down like the evening sun.
At Ovingdean it becomes 'like a flying eagle in the
sun*. I can only suppose that 'sun' here is a perver-
1 Northall, 405. 2 Gomme, ii. 315.
THE WESTON-SUB-EDGE PLAY 41
sion of a forgotten 'son', and possibly 'evening' of
Eleventh'. There may be a link at Peebles, where
the outcry is:
I've killed my brother Jack, my father's only son.
At Bursledon an eighteenth-century Antagonist sub-
stituted a vaunt:
Oh you turkey snipe,
Go home to your own lands to fight,
And tell the Americans what I have done;
I've killed ten thousand to your one.
Finally, there may be no preliminary dialogue, but
merely the Call to the Doctor by the Presenter or
an intervener or the Antagonist. This is probably
the commonest method, and as it never, I believe,
incorporates any hint of sonship, it may be the
original one. At Pillerton the Doctor comes without
being called. There is no very great variation in the
formulas of the Call, but lines 66-9 of my text
are really a variant of lines 64-5, rather than their
complement. With the offer of a reward I shall
deal presently.
The Weston-sub-Edge Play.
The structure of the Mummers' Play is that of a
melodrama, and it is to the Cure that it looks for
its comic relief. This has led to a good deal of farcing
of the original text. Much of it turns on the social
and professional pretensions of the Doctor, and in
particular on his financial ability, as seen from the
4024
42 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
angle of village humour. But there are other elements
involved, and it will enable me to be more brief,
if I give, for comparison with the normalized text,
a much elaborated version from Weston-sub-Edge
in Gloucestershire.
John Finney. A room, a room, a roust, a roust
I brought this old broom to sweep your house.
Father Christmas. In comes I old Father Christmas,
Christmas or Christmas not
I hope old Father Christmas will never be forgot.
I am not here to laugh or to cheer,
But all I want is a pocket full of money and a cellar full
of beer.
So, Ladies and gentlemen, if you don't believe what
I say,
Step in Turkish Knight and clear the way.
Turkish Knight. Open your doors and let me in
For your favour I am sure to win.
Whether I rise or whether I fall
I do my best to please you all.
For King George is here and swears he will come in,
And if he do he'll pierce me to my skin.
So, Ladies and gentlemen, if you don't believe what I
say,
Step in King George and clear the way.
King George. I am King George, this noble Knight
Came from foreign lands to fight
To fight that fiery dragon who is so bold
And cut him down with his blood cold.
Turkish Knight. Who 's he who seeks the Dragon's blood
And curse so angry and so loud ?
King George. I'm he who seeks the Dragon's blood
And curse so angry and so loud.
THE WESTON-SUB-EDGE PLAY 43
Turkish Knight. You? you black-looking English dog,
will you before me stand ?
I'll cut thee down with my courageous hand.
With my long teeth and scurly jaws I break up half a
score
And stay my stomach till I mourn.
So to battle to battle and you and I will try
To see which on the ground shall lie.
Father Christmas. Oh is there a doctor to be found or any
near at hand
To heal this deep and deadly wound and make this dead
man stand ?
Doctor. Oh yeas, here is a doctor to be found all ready
near at hand
To heal this deep and deadly wound and make this dead
man stand.
Take one of my pills, bold fellow, rise up and fight
again.
The Turkish Knight and King George fight.
Father Christmas. Oh is there a doctor to be found or any
near at hand
To heal this deep and deadly wound and make this dead
man stand ?
Doctor. Oh yes, here is a doctor to be found all ready near
at hand
To heal this deep and deadly wound and make this dead
man stand.
Ladies and gentlemen, all here a large wolf's tooth
growing in this man's head and must be taken out
before he'll recover.
Father Christmas. What 's thy fee, Doctor ?
Doctor. Ten guineas is my fee,
But fifteen will I take of thee.
Before I set this gallant free.
44 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
Father Christmas. Work thy will, Doctor.
Doctor. I will. Where's Jack?
John Finney. Oh yer 's Jack. Jack 's coming.
Doctor. Hold my horse, Jack Finney.
John Finney. My name ain't Jack Finney, my name 's
Mr. John Finney, a man of great strength. Cured an
old magpie of the toothache, twisted his old yud off,
throwed his body in a dry ditch and drowned him; I
went off the morrow about nine days after, picks up this
little yud magpie, romed my arm down his throat,
turned him inside outwards, and made as good a mag-
pie as ever walked in a pair of pattens.
Doctor. Hold my hoss, Mr. John Finney.
John Finney. Will he bite?
Doctor. No.
John Finney. Will he kick ?
Doctor. No.
John Finney. Take tow to hold him ?
Doctor. No.
John Finney. Hold him yourself then.
Doctor. What 's that, you saucy young rascal ?
John Finney. Oh, I hold him, sir.
Doctor. Give him a bucket of ashes and a fusket for his
supper and well rrrrom down with the bissum stick.
John Finney. Do it yerself, sir.
Doctor. What 's that, you saucy young rascal ?
John Finney. Oh, I do it, sir.
Doctor. Bring me my spy glass, Mr. John Finney.
John Finney. Fetch it yerself, sir.
Doctor. What 's that, you saucy young rascal?
John Finney. Oh, I fetch it, sir. There it is, sir.
Doctor. What 's throw it down there for ?
John Finney. Ah, for thee to pick it up agen, sir.
Doctor. What 's that, you saucy young rascal ?
THE WESTON-SUB-EDGE PLAY 45
John Finney. Oh, for me to pick it up agen, sir.
Doctor. Fetch me my lance, John Finney.
John Finney. Fetch it yerself, sir.
Doctor. What 's that, you saucy young rascal ?
John Finney. Oh, I fetch it, sir.
Doctor. What 's throw it down there for ?
John Finney. Ah, for thee to pick it up again, sir.
Doctor. What 's that, you saucy young rascal ?
John Finney. Ah, for me to pick it up again, sir.
Doctor. Fetch me my pinchers, John Finney.
John Finney. Fetch them yerself, sir.
Doctor. What 's that, you saucy young rascal ?
John Finney. Oh, I fetch them, sir.
Doctor. What 's throw them down there for ?
John Finney. Ah, for thee to pick them up agen, sir.
Doctor. What 's that, you saucy young rascal ?
John Finney. Oh, for me to pick them up agen, sir.
Doctor. Fetch me one of the strongest hosses you've got
in yer team.
John Finney. Fetch um yerself, sir.
Doctor. What's that, you saucy young rascal?
John Finney. Oh, I'll fetch him, sir.
John Finney brings in one of the mummers and -pre-
tends he is a horse.
woa, woa, woa; woa, woa, woa.
Doctor. You call that the strongest hoss you've got in the
team ?
John Finney. That's him, sir.
Doctor. Hold him tight then, John Finney.
John Finney. Hold him yerself.
Doctor. What 's that, you saucy young rascal ?
John Finney. Oh, I've got him, sir, fast by the tail.
Doctor. Hold him fast then.
This is repeated until all the other mummers have
46 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
been brought on in turn, with the exception of Father
Christmas who remains in the room watching and
sweeping with his broom to make fun.
Doctor. Now boys, a long pull short pull, pull all together
boys. Oh, we've got him this time, John Finney. Ladies
and gentlemen, all this large wolf's tooth has been
growing in this man's head ninety-nine years before his
great grandmother was born : if it had n't have been
taken out to-day, he would have died yesterday. I've
a little bottle by my side called Eelgumpane, one spot
on the roof of this man's tongue, another on his tooth,
will quickly bring him to life again. Rise up, bold
fellow, and fight again.
King George and the Turkish Knight fight.
Father Christmas. Peace, peace, peace. Walk in Beel-
zebub.
Beelzebub. In comes I old Belzebub
And on my back I carries my club
And in my hand the dripping-pan,
I thinks myself a jolly old man.
Round hole, black as coal,
Long tail and little hole.
I went up a straight crooked lane. I met a bark and he
dogged at me. I went to the stick and cut a hedge, gave
him a rallier over the yud jud killed him round stout
stiff and bold from Lancashire I came, if Doctor has n't
done his part, John Finney wins the game.
Last Christmas night I turned the spit,
I burnt me finger and felt it itch,
The sparks flew over the table,
The pot-lid kicked the ladle,
Up jumped spit jack
Like a mansion man
Swore he'd fight the dripping pan
THE WESTON-SUB-EDGE PLAY 47
With his long tail,
Swore he'd send them all to jail.
In comes the grid iron, if you can't agree
I'm the justice, bring um to me.
As I was going along, as I was standing still,
I saw a wooden church built on a wooden hill,
Nineteen leather bells a going without a clapper
That made me wonder what was the matter.
I went on a bit further, I came to King Charles up a
cast iron pear tree. He asked I the way to get down. I
said put thee feet in the stirrup iron and pitchee poll
headfust into a marl pit where ninety-nine parish
churches had been dug out besides a few odd villages.
I went on a bit further, I came to a little big house, I
knocked at the door and the maid fell out. She asked
if I could eat a cup of her cider and drink a hard crust
of her bread and cheese. I said 'No thanks, yes if yer
please.' So I picked up me latters and went me ways.
I went on a bit further.
I came to two old women winnowing butter.
That made me mum mum mummer and stutter.
I went on a little bit further: I came to two little whipper
snappers thrashing canary seeds: one gave a hard cut,
the tother gen a driving cut, cut a sid through a wall
nine foot wide killed a little jed dog tother side. I went
of the morroe about nine days after, picks up this little
jied dog, romes my arm down his throat, turned him
inside outards, sent him down Buckle Street barking
ninety miles long and I followed after him.
John Finney. Now my lads we've come to the land of
plenty, rost stones, plum puddings, houses thatched
with pancakes, and little pigs running about with
knives and forks stuck in their backs crying 'Who'll
eat me, who'll eat me ?'
48 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
Father Christmas. Walk in clever legs.
Cleverlegs. In comes I ain't been hit.
With me big hump and little wit.
Me chump's so big, me wit's so small,
But I can play you a tune to please yer all.
Father Christmas. What tune's that then ?
Cleverlegs. One of our old favourites tunes Ran tan tinder
box Cat in the fiddle bag Jonnie up up the orchard.
Father Christmas. Let 's have him the.
Now the three-handed reel takes place.
Father Christmas. If this old frying pan had but a tongue,
He'd say 'chuck in yer money and think it no wrong.'
Here and elsewhere, the elaborations of the Cure
are mainly, like its nucleus, in prose. There is some
rough fun in the loutish impudence of Jack Finney.
But most of the patter is such as appeals solely to the
unlettered. It is purely verbal jesting, without salt
of mind. It may take the form of an incongruous
juxtaposition of contradictories:
I went up a straight crooked lane
and,
I said 'No thanks, yes if yer please.'
Or there may be a simple inversion of ideas:
I met a bark and he dogged at me,
and,
She asked if I could eat a cup of her cider and drink
a hard crust of her bread and cheese.
All this comes straight from the village. It is the
folk at its worst. 'Rustic paradox*, one may call
it; 'topsy-turvydom', says Tiddy, but it is a far-
THE WESTON-SUB-EDGE PLAY 49
fetched suggestion that it might c be regarded as an
art-form of magical incantations, like saying the
Lord's Prayer backwards'. 1 He finds it in the clown
Mouse of Mucedorus, who says, 'A was a littel, low,
broad, tall, narrow, big, wel favoured fellow', and
'I can keepe my tongue from picking and stealing,
and my handes from lying and slaundering'. 2 In
company with all this dross is found the romantic
touch of adventure in an Earthly Paradise. Tiddy
traces it rightly to the early fourteenth-century
anti-monastic satire of The Land of Cokayne*
Ther is a wel fair abbei,
Of white monkes and of grei.
Ther beth bowris and halles.
Al of pasteiis beth the walles,
Of fleis, of fisse, and rich met,
The likfullist that man mai et.
Fluren cakes beth the scingles alle,
Of cherche, cloister, boure, and halle.
The pinnes beth fat podinges,
Rich met to princes and kinges . . .
Yite I do yow mo to witte,
The Gees irostid on the spitte
Fleegh to that abbai, God hit wote. 4
The theme is found in popular matter of Germany,
but may be of literary origin. Through what
channel it reached the Mummers' Play is not clear.
There is a bit of it in Jonson's Bartholomew Fair: 5
1 Tiddy, 84, 115. 2 Mucedorus, i. 4. 128; iv. 2. 56.
3 Tiddy, 116.
4 F. J. Furnivall, Early English Poems (1862, Trans, of Philological
Soc. for 1858), from Bar/. MS. 913. s Barth. Fair, iii. 2.
4024 H
50 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
Good mother, how shall we finde a pigge, if we doe not
looke about for't ? will it run off o'the spit, into our mouths
thinke you? as in Lubberlandl and cry, we, we?
Both the rustic paradox and Lubberland seem to have
their main home in the Cure, but they overflow into
the Quete, as at Weston-sub-Edge, and also into
the Presentation.
The Cure.
I return to the normalized text. In the north
and the west midlands the Doctor is often:
Dr. Brown,
The best doctor in the town.
This is, no doubt, for the sake of the rhyme. So,
too, Dr. Good (Berks) will 'stop his blood', and
Dr. Lockett (Chesterfield) has 'a bottle in his
pocket*. Elsewhere the character is usually anony-
mous. But I find Dr. Hero (Cinderford), Dr. Airo
(Long Hanborough), Mr. Peter Lamb (Burgh-
clere), Mr. Peter Gray (Hoe Benham), William
Bentinck (Bovey Tracey), Dr. Ball (Thame),
Dr. Dodd (Penn). Some of these may be the
names of real local practitioners. A Dr. William
Dodd of Wing in Bucks, who however was not a
physician but a divine, was hanged for forgery in
1777. Jack' or 'Mr.' Viney (Ilmington), Mr.
Spinney (Islip), Philip Vincent (Somerset), Dr.
Finley (Stourton), are due to a confusion with
the Doctor's assistant, of whom more below. For
Es-vo I-vo Ick-tick-tay (Coxwold), the medicine
THE CURE 51
chest itself must account. Broadway has a 'little
Italian Doctor'. Tiddy reports the Doctor as
saying at Chadlington, from which I have no text,
'In comes I, one of the seventeenth sons of an over
Doctor', and finds a better version in the Ampleforth
Sword-Dance, 'In comes I the seventh son of a new-
born doctor.' 1 It is, of course, to the seventh son of
a seventh son that popular belief attributed excep-
tional powers. But in the plays this is quite an
isolated phrase.
The Doctor's opening speech gives another ex-
ample of incremental repetition. His colloquy with
the Caller, which follows, deals, not always in the
same order, with his travels and his skill, and with
his fee, if that has not already been disposed of by
the Caller's offer of a reward. I think that the reward
was the original conception. It may, in the texts,
be anything from five shillings to ten thousand
pounds, and often no more is said about it. But
sometimes the offer of a low reward has to be raised
or, absurdly, lowered, before the Doctor will come.
And as a rule, a reward at discretion is less within
the experience of the performers than a fee to be
bargained about. The Doctor may be straight-
forward:
King. What is your fee ?
Doctor. Ten pounds is true.
King. Proceed, noble Doctor.
You shall have your due.
' Tiddy 88.
52 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
He may be confident:
My fee 's ten pounds, but only five,
If I don't save this man alive.
He may be generous:
Twenty pounds down is my fee,
But half of that I'll take from thee,
If it is St. George's life I save,
That sum this night from you I crave,
or,
Fifteen pounds, it is my fee,
The money to lay down,
But as 'tis such a rogue as he,
I'll cure him for ten pound.
He may, elsewhere, as at Weston-sub-Edge, be
paradoxically grasping.
Five pounds, Martha. Thee being an honest woman,
I'll charge thee ten.
or,
Well, as you are a poor man, I will throw off a
farthing: that will make it fourteen pounds, nineteen
shillings and eleven pence three farthings.
There may be an elaborate dispute, and a threat to
go away. Some hard bargaining is in a Scottish
play. The Doctor wants ten pounds and a bottle of
wine, and won't even bate the bottle. But in the
Yorkshire chap-book he meets his match, for the
Presenter has an aside, 'You'll be wondrous cunning
if you get any'. The travels, of course, point to a
time when a medical qualification was best acquired
THE CURE 53
abroad. An alteration in the order of the countries
named may lead to a variant rhyme.
From France, from Spain, from Rome I come,
I've travelled all parts of Christendom.
Sicily proved a stumbling-block, and a jingling
rhyme to Italy was substituted. I find Jitaly, Pitaly,
Spittaly, Titaly, Tickerly. An insular temper gave
'England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales' and an
imperialist one at Sunningwell, 'all the biggest
parts of the Dominion*. A journey to Cockaigne
and one 'from bedside to fireside, and from fireside
to my mother's cupboard* are found in northern ver-
sions. c We be n't like you Bee Shee Shard doctors.
We travels for ours' is a vaunt at Leafield. Conceivably
the obscure phrase, which puzzled Tiddy, might
conceal the description of some diploma such as
B.Sc. But Longborough has 'one of these yer shim-
shams', which sounds much the same. A repudiation
in some form of the charge of being a quack doctor
often occurs.
The list of curable diseases naturally takes some
odd forms, of which that at Heptonstall is an extreme
instance:
Itchy pitchy polsh of a golsh.
It is also expanded by others, such as rheumatism
and corns, familiar in rustic life. Camborne gives us:
The hipigo limpigo and no go at all.
But there has also been a literary influence. Tiddy
cites The Infallible Mountebank; Or, Quack Doctor,
54 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
published without date by J. Robinson, who is
doubtless Jacob Robinson (i 737-58). l
All ills
Past, present and to come ;
The Cramp, the Stitch,
The Squirt, the Itch,
The Gout, the Stone, the Pox,
The Mulligrubs,
The Bonny Scrubs,
And all Pandora s Box.
This may itself owe something to the play. But its
'Mulligrubs* and 'Pandora's Box' are clearly recog-
nizable at Lockinge in 'the squolly grubs, the molly-
grubs', at Sunningwell in 'Molly-grubs, Polly-grubs
or any Ran-tan-tory disieces', at Shipton-under-
Wychwood in 'all the rantantorious boxes', and at
Ilmington in 'the Mullygrups and all other vain-
glorious diseases'. The line about the devil gets
much variation, such as
If there 's nine devils in, I can kick ten out,
and there is a distinct formula, which rings the
changes on two different rhymes:
Fetch me an old woman, seven years dead and seven
years laid in her grave,
I'll maintain her life and soul to save,
and,
Bring me an old woman, fourscore and ten,
If she 's ne'er a tooth in her head,
I'll bring her round young and plump again.
1 Tiddy, 213.
THE CURE 55
This last links with an episode to which we shall
come.
The elecampane of the cure was a remedy well
known in the seventeenth century. It appears as
'halycompagne', 'helly com pain', 'elecome pain',
'hallecomb pain', 'elegant paint', 'elegant plaint',
'jollup and plain', and even at Cuddesdon, where,
as Tiddy points out, there is a theological college, as
'champagne'. Probably it is also the 'inkum pinkum'
found in Scotland, although Maidment says that
c inky pinky' was a Scottish eighteenth-century name
for the smallest kind of beer. As 'hokum smokum
alecampane' or 'icum spicome, spinto of Spain' it
merges in the mere 'hocus pocus' or gibberish of
'the okum pocum drop', 'im-cum-curum', 'oham,
poham, githeram, oceam', 'ekee-okee, adama pokee',
'hocum slocum aliquid spam', 'nixum-naxum,
prixum-praxum, with i-cock-o'-lory'. Other popular
medicaments, of various dates, are discernible.
There is Jerusalem balsam. Golden Philosopher
Drops yield 'golden foster drops', 'Golden Slozenger
drops', and 'frosty drops'; Tic Doloureux Pills 'tic
tolerune pills'. There are galvanic drops, Jupiter
pills, virgin pills, silver pills, Dutch pills, and Scotch
pills. Mr. Piggott cites a payment for Scotch pills
in a Berkshire farmer's account of 1760.' The
formula of administration varies. It may be:
Take a little of this bottle,
And run it down thy throttle,
1 Folk-Lore^ xxxix. 272.
56 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
or: Take a little of my nip-nap,
And run it down thy tip-tap.
Sometimes the cure takes place in silence. And the
victim generally rises in silence. The play is over.
If he gets a speech, I suspect that it is always an
accretion. Scottish versions give him:
Once I was dead, and now I am alive,
Blessed be the doctor that made me to revive.
Ireland adds an 'other world' touch.
Aloft, aloft, where have I been,
And oh! what strange and foreign lands I've seen.
or,
I have been half puffed and huddled in the sky :
These moons and stars have caused me to die.
Chap-books have :
O hark ! St. George, I hear the silver trumpet sound,
That summons us from off this bloody ground ;
Farewell, St. George ; we can no longer stay.
Down yonder is the way.
More common is the following:
Oh horrible, terrible, the like was never seen,
A man drove out of seven senses into seventeen.
I find it or something like it chiefly in the north, but
also so far afield as Newport in Shropshire, Malvern
and Leigh in Worcestershire, Waterstock in Oxford-
shire, and Keynsham in Somersetshire. And it is
certainly an accretion, being borrowed from a speech
of Mouse when frightened by a bear in Mucedorus?
'O horrible, terrible! Was ever poore Gentleman so
1 Muccdorus, i. 2. I.
JACK FINNEY 57
scard out of his seauen Senses?' The origin is con-
firmed by George's addition in the Isle of Man:
It was neither by a bull, nor yet by a bear,
But by a little devil of a rabbit there.
yack Finney.
I pass now to an elaboration of the Cure, which
appears to be mainly confined to the Cotswolds and
some other parts of the central area, where in one
stage or other of its development it is common.
It occurs, sporadically, as far north as Chesterfield.
Weston-sub-Edge gives a good example. Three
factors are involved, which may occur separately or
in combination. Firstly, the normal healing by a
medicament may be replaced or supplemented by
drawing of a tooth from the Agonist. Occasionally
the episode is detached from the combat, and the
patient is a woman. This links up with one of the
Doctor's vaunts. 1 At Weston-sub-Edge, as already
noted, the tooth is called a wolf's tooth, and the
Turkish Knight, who is the Agonist, is called a
dragon. It is humorously described as 'more like
a helephant's tooth than a Christian's'. It will 'hold
a sack of beans one side and a quart of best ale
t'other'. It is 'as long as a two-inch nail, and got
roots like a poplar-tree'. At Icomb and Drayton
an actual horse's tooth was shown, at Pillerton a
donkey's tooth, at Hardwick a cow's tooth. Secondly
the Doctor may be represented as coming on horse-
' Cf. p. 54.
4024
$8 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
back. 1 How far this was visualized is not always
clear from the texts and descriptions of the plays.
Sometimes the horse seems to be merely spoken of,
and may be supposed to be outside the door. But
in three or four cases the Doctor certainly rode in
on the back of one of the other mummers. At
Longborough, we are told, 'they called Beelzebub,
on whose back the Doctor came in, "the doctor's
horse": but Beelzebub was also known to them as
the "old woman" and was dressed in a frock.' And
thirdly with the horse generally goes a horse-boy.
He is called Jack and much of the patter of the
scene belongs to him. It generally yields another
toothy reference. Jack has 'cured an old magpie of
the toothache, twisted his old yud off, throwed his
body in a dry ditch and drowned him'. Often Jack
is not a mere horse-boy, but the Doctor's assistant,
and then he is generally Jack Finney, resents the
Jack', and claims to be Mr. Finney. Occasionally
the name is Vinney or Pinney. He fetches the
instruments for the tooth-drawing and may help to
give the pull. The team of mummers, which he
organizes at Weston-sub-Edge for the purpose, is
exceptional. At Stanford-in-the-Vale, it is Mary
who fetches the instruments in his place. And finally
he may become the Doctor's substitute in working
the cure. The Doctor, having perhaps already
cured a wound, may hesitate before the death of the
same Agonist or another, and Jack Finney may step
1 Cf. p. 212.
MULTIPLIED COMBATS 59
in, with the tooth cure or a normal one. On some
other plays Jack Finney has merely left a shadow.
The Doctor himself may bear that name or one
derived from it, or under some other name may
claim the 'Mr.', or may use the 'magpie* joke. At
Chithurst it is a jackdaw. Occasionally Jack Finney
is a combatant, or is in the Quete, from which,
indeed, he possibly came. 1
Multiplied Combats.
The Jack Finney episode, it will be observed,
may involve a duplication of the combat. But this
is only one example of the way in which the Sword-
play, more exciting both to performers and spectators
than the dialogue, is often extended. Even when
there is only one combat, it may be diversified. A
pardon is craved and when it is refused, the sword-
play continues. The Agonist inflicts a wound, before
he himself falls. He is cured and again slain by the
same Antagonist. But there is often a series of
distinct combats. The Agonist, wounded and spared
by one Antagonist, is taken on and slain by another.
The victorious Antagonist is vanquished in his turn
by a third combatant. Sometimes the prolongation
is artless enough. Entirely fresh pairs of adversaries
appear, to renew the vaunting and the fight. More
often, however, a single Antagonist, almost invariably
St. George, faces a succession of opponents, perhaps
only disputing with some and slaying others. An
' Cf. p. 68.
60 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
extreme case is at Ross, where St. George slays in
turn Prince Valentine, Bold Captain Rover, the
Turkey Snipe, Little John, Bold Bonaparte, Sambo,
and when they are cured, is finally himself slain by
the Doctor. It is likely, from the variety of the
devices used and their reliance for dialogue upon
orts and scraps of the normal vaunts, that as a rule
we have to do with nothing more than independent
attempts in various places to spin out the interest of
the piece. In two cases, however, the introduction
of a second Presentation suggests that a version from
elsewhere has been tacked on to that proper to the
locality. At Bampton the second part may have
been contributed by a Somersetshire rector. That of
Icomb in Gloucestershire almost certainly comes
from as far as Scotland. The only figure in the
extensions which needs any further comment is that
of Sambo. At Ross he is called upon by Bold
Bonaparte to revenge him as his master. At Mylor
in Cornwall, in the Isle of Man, and in the Newcastle-
Whitehaven chap-book he has a similar role, al-
though here the appeal comes from the Agonist's
father. And in the Yorkshire chap-book and in
Derbyshire the episode recurs with the substitution
of Hector for Sambo. There is a fairly constant
formula, somewhat as follows:
King of Egypt. O Sambo! Sambo! help with speed,
For I was never in more need;
For thou to stand with sword in hand,
And fight at my command.
MULTIPLIED COMBATS 61
Sambo. Yes, yes, my liege, I will obey,
And by my sword I hope to win the day.
If that be he who doth stand there,
That slew my master's son and heir,
If he be sprung from royal blood,
I'll make it flow like Noah's flood.
Generally the champion fails. In the Newcastle-
Whitehaven version he excuses himself from fight-
ing, because 'my sword-point is broke 5 . But in the
Isle of Man he does revenge the original Agonist
to whom, rather awkwardly, the broken sword is
transferred.
Apart from the Jack Finney cases, the duplication
of combats only rarely leads to a duplication of the
Cure scene. Sometimes two or more Agonists may
be comprehended in a single cure. Sometimes an
alternative wind-up is adopted for the subsidiary
conflicts. Pardon may be given or peace made by
the bystanders. The chap-books might be respon-
sible for the adjournment of a dispute with an offer
to 'cross the water at the hour of five'. But this is
found also in the south at Sudbury and Rogate, and
it recurs in the children's game of Lady on Yonder
Hilly where also the lady is stabbed and revives. 1
Finally, as on the Elizabethan stage, a dead body
may be disposed of by carrying it out. This is done
at Ross and at Bovey Tracey, and very elaborately
at Camborne.
Beelzebub. I have a fire that is long lighted,
To put the Turk who was long knighted.
1 A. B. Gomme, Traditional Games > i. 303.
6z THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
With the help of the others he gets the Turk on to his
back and goes out with him, saying,
Here I goes old man Jack
With the Turk upon my back.
The Mason comes in with a trowel in his hand and
a hod on his shoulder.
The Mason. Here comes I little Tom Tarter,
I am the boy for mixing marter.
He takes St. George by the hand and walks him out
saying,
With my trowel and my hod
I will build a house for you and God.
There was an alternative ending.
Father Christmas. We must bury the child.
Let two take his feet and two take his arm
And we will carry him out like a ship in a storm.
He takes a book out of his pocket.
We will sing a tune to him.
You will find the Hymn 120 pound beef
If you can't find it there, turn over a leaf.
Then they carry him out, singing.
This poor old man is dead and gone,
We shall never see him no more,
He used to wear an old gray coat
All buttoned down before.
In an unlocated version we get :
Another performer enters and says,
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
If uncle Tom Pearce won't have him. Aunt Molly
must.
THE QUfiTE 63
Evidently folk-rhymes were drawn upon. An Easter
qufae song recorded from Oxfordshire by White
Kennett (1660-1728) had :
Here sits a good wife,
Pray God save her life ;
Set her upon a hod,
And drive her to God. 1
A version of the children's burial game of Jenny
Jones has :
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
If God won't have you, the devil must. 2
And in fact such endings merge in the variety
entertainment, which accompanies that inevitable
feature of the play, the Qu$te.
The Quete.
The four types of my text Big Head, Beelzebub,
Jack with the wife and family, the Sweeper are
all common and reasonably distinct, although it
need hardly be said that they occasionally get each
other's lines or functions. Big Head seems to be
primarily a musician and dancer; Jack and the
Sweeper collectors of money. Beelzebub may take
over either activity, but more often is content with
his burst of self-laudation. Any of them may con-
tribute patter, or scraps of lines also found in the
Presentation. I do not think that they ever all come
together. Jack belongs to the southern and the
1 J. Aubrey, Remains ofGentilism and Judaism (1881), 161.
2 A. B. Gomme, Traditional Games, ii. 432.
64 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
Sweeper to the northern half of the country. The
confusions between them are on the boundary of their
areas. Both are found at Rugby, but here Beelzebub
is missing. Their nomenclature suggests that they
have diverged from a common original Jack.
Big Head is also Head Per Nip, Fool, Tom Fool,
Clown, I as Ain't Been Yet, Mazzant Binnit, Fiddler,
Fiddler Wit, Old Father Scrump, Boxholder, Little
Man Dick, Little Dick Nipp. The formula in his
opening line may be 'that never come yet', 'that's
never been yet', 'that's never been in it', 'that didn't
come yet', 'that haven't been yet', 'as ain't been it',
'as hant been it', 'as ain't been yet', 'as ain't been hit',
'as can't be hit', 'which ain't been yet', 'who hant
bin it', 'who's never been yet', 'who've never been
hit'. I enumerate these variants, partly to show the
flexibility of the English language, and partly to
note the persistence of the rhyme to 'wit'. 1 The
fourth line is also subject to modification. It may
promise 'a song', 'a tune', 'my music', 'my fiddle',
'my hurdy-gurdy'. It may borrow a phrase from
the Presentation :
I'll do my duty to please you all,
or it may abandon the rhyme to 'small' and repeat
that to 'wit'.
Here comes I that never come yet
With a quat head and little wit,
If you please to throw in my hat what you think fit.
1 Cf. p. 10.
THE QUfiTE 65
Beelzebub becomes Beelzebub the Fool, Old Billy
Beelzebub, Belcibub, Belzeebug, Bellzie Bub, Bellsie
Bob, Bellesy Bob, Bells Abub, Baal Zebub, Hub-bub-
bub-bub, Lord Grubb. On the whole, apart from
orthography, the Bible has kept his name in remem-
brance. Instead of a 'club', he may carry a 'nub' or
c nob', and the 'frying-pan' may be a 'dripping-pan',
'warming-pan', 'pack and pan', 'empty can'. His
last line may be:
Pleased to get all the money I can.
Lockinge furnishes a different rhyme:
And on my elbow I carries my bell,
And don't you think I cut a great swell.
and Sapperton another:
With my hump back and curly wig
You play me a tune, I'll dance you a jig.
Jack, to whose name 'Little' is generally prefixed,
may be Johnny Jack, Jim Jack, Black Jack, Fat Jack,
Happy Jack, Hump-backed Jack, Humpty Jack,
Saucy Jack, Little Man Jack. His last line may be:
I think myself the best man of you all,
or,
I am the biggest rogue among you all,
or,
I've brought a rattle to please you all.
Rugby has a variant:
Times hard, money small,
Every copper will help us all,
4024
66 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
and Burghclere an addition:
The roads are dirty, my shoes are bad,
So please put a little into my bag.
The reference to a wife and family is persistent, and
may be elaborated by :
Some at the workhouse, some at the rack,
I'll bring the rest when I come back,
or by the cumulative rhymes already given in
connexion with the Lament. And its third line is
curiously echoed in a version of a song used at the
Hunting of the Wren on St. Stephen's Day (Decem-
ber 26).
The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,
St. Stephen's Day was caught in the furze,
Although he is little, his family 's great,
I pray you, good landlady, give us a treat.
The custom is known in Essex and the Isle of Man,
but this particular third line comes from the south
of Ireland. Essex has :
Although he be little, his honour is great, 1
The coastal counties of Hants and Sussex seem to be
responsible for an accretion by which Jack is also
Little or Tommy Twing Twang or Twin Twain,
Headman of this press-gang,
and in taking recruits for a 'man-o'-war'. Corruption
produces:
Nobleman of this press-gang,
1 T. F. Dyer, British Popular Customs, 497; Northall, English Folk-
Rhymes, 229; citing T. C. Croker, Researches in the South of Ireland
(1824), 233.
THE QUfiTE 67
and,
Left hand of this press-gang,
and,
With my left-handed press-gang.
The press-gang got as far north as Witley in Berks
and Alton Barnes in Wilts, but at Alton Barnes
its point is forgotten; Twing Twang and Jack, each
referring to his family, are distinct figures in the
Quete and Twing Twang says :
I'm the best in this rough gang.
At Ovingdean Twin Twain is a sub-Presenter and
Jack a queteur. At Overton and Witley, Twing
Twang's qufae is preceded by victory in a subsidiary
combat, after which he laments:
Oh dear, oh dear, see what I've been and done,
Killed my poor old Father, Abraham Brown.
The Sweeper is most often Devil Dout, which
may be modified into Dairy Dout, Jerry Dout,
Diddle Dout, Dilly Dout, Diddie Dout, Diddlie
Dots, while one very modern small boy made it
Chucker Out. Devil Dout, too, gets the prefix
Tittle'. You 'dout' a fire or a light. 1 But Dout often
becomes Doubt. Tiddy would, I suppose, have
scented theological influence here. Newport, at any
rate in genteel households, substituted Jack Dout,
but Sometimes we say, ma'am, Little Jack Devil
Dout'. The lines show little variation, where Dout
1 Cf.p.2I2.
68 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
is concerned. Some alternative names lead to changes
of rhyme. Thus Johnny or Billy Sweep has :
All the money I get I mean to keep.
Dicky Hissum comes
With a new second-hand old bissum,
which is a good example of the rustic paradox.
Johnny Funny or Little Bibble and Funny has :
I am the man to collect the money.
It would seem natural to regard Johnny Funny's
name as leading to that of Jack Finney. It may be
so. But in the plays before me, while Jack Finney
is a southerner, I only find Johnny Funny in Cum-
berland and Ireland, and although Jack Finney,
whether he has been in the Cure or not, is sometimes
a queteur, it is always Big Head's lines and not the
Sweeper's that he borrows. On the other hand at
Chesterfield it is Fat Jack, with the wife and family,
who replaces Jack Finney in the Cure. Jack is,
indeed, an uncomfortably generic name on which
to base any argument.
The Woman invades the Quete, as she does other
parts of the play. She has Big Head's lines as Molly
Tinker at Stanford-in-the-Vale, Molly at Kingsclere,
the Old Woman at Burghclere, and Mother Christ-
mas in the Isle of Wight. Here she also sweeps.
She replaces Beelzebub as Mrs. Beelzebub at Repton,
Slipslop in Derbyshire, and Molly or Mary Tinker,
who is also Old Mother Alezeebub, at Lockinge.
Perhaps this perversion explains her use at Lockinge
THE QUfiTE 69
and Stanford-in-the-Vale of lines traced by Mr.
Piggott to the folk-song When Joan's Ale was New. 1
The next to come in was a tinker,
Likewise no small beer drinker.
Elsewhere in Berkshire Molly, who is Presenter,
collects the money in silence, and so does a Little
Judy at Icomb. Was she once Judas, who takes his
boy round at Peebles? Perhaps the latest recruit
for the play is the Suffragette of HeptonstalL
In steps I, a suffragette,
Over my shoulder I carry my clogs.
One would expect to find Sabra in a St. George play,
but there is very little trace of her. Sometimes she
would c step out', generally as a mute, in Cornwall.
She is not in the published Dorset versions, but
Thomas Hardy appears to have seen her. 2 Coxwold
in Yorkshire had and lost a Bride.
Other figures appear in the Quete. The Presenter,
the Doctor, or a combatant may speak again. The
Bloody Warer of My lor is an epitome of the play.
Oliver Cromwell, 'with my copper nose', and Lord
Nelson are from history. The Prince of Peace, Old
Almanac, and Compliments of the Season belong
to Christmas itself. The Giant from the Giant's
Rest of Bovey Tracey I have already noted. Little
Box explains himself. Familiar village types are
represented by the Policeman, Farmer Toddy, and
1 Folk-Lore, xxxix. 273. The song is in A. Williams, Folk-Songs of the
Upper Thames, 276.
2 W. Archer, Real Conversations, 34.
70 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
Tom the Tinker, who gets at Hampton the 'drinker'
rhyme given in Berkshire to Molly Tinker. The
Old Squire 'as black as any Friar' of an unlocated
version may be a variant of the Old Fool. The Old
Tosspot or Tossip of Midgley and Heptonstall is
proper to the Easter date there favoured.
Although I am ragged and not so well dressed,
I can carry a pace egg as well as the best.
Essentially, of course, the Quete is the collection of
a reward. It sometimes ends with a blessing of the
'pocket full of money' type on the household visited. 1
Music, dance and song, helped by patter, often turn
it into an afterpiece, something like a revue. The
musical instrument is generally a fiddle, or a rustic
substitute called a hurdy-gurdy or humpen-scrump.
It may be a drum or even a tin whistle, a mouth-
organ, or a rattle. The dances named are the jig,
the step-dance, the three-handed reel, the broom-
stick dance. There are sword-dances, performed
singly, in Derbyshire. The tune Greens/eeves was
probably once traditional in several southern districts.
It has left traces in some characteristic textual corrup-
tions: 'Blue sleeves and yellow laces', 'Green sleeves
and yellow waists', 'Green sleeves and yellow leaves'.
I need not dwell on most of the songs, which may
be anything from carols or other folk-songs to
patriotic or music-hall ditties. An exceptionally
interesting one is at Keynsham in Somerset. This
is a wooing-dialogue. It begins, as Professor Basker-
1 Cf. p. 21, 220.
THE MYLOR PLAY 71
vill points out, with a passage between Father
Christmas and a Shepherdess, which is from a
droll of Diphilo and Granida in The Wits (1673),
and slips into another between the Shepherdess and
a Prince, which is from the Wessex folk-song Old
Mo!/. 1 A bit of this is also used at Broadway.
The My/or Play.
The after-piece itself becomes definitely dramatic
in the very singular text from Mylor in Cornwall,
which I will now give.
William Solomon first -part (Presenter: Turkish
Knight's Father}
Rume, rume, gallants, rume, give me rume to rime,
For in this house I mine to shew some of my past time.
Now, gentlemen an Ladys, it is Christmas time.
I am a blade,
That knew my trade,
All people doth a dear 2 me;
I will swagger and banter an I
Will drive the town before me;
If I am naked 3 or if I am prict,
I will give a man an answer;
The very first man or boy I mits,
My soard shall be is fencer.
Behind the doar
Thare lye a scoar;
Pray Git it out, if you can, sur.
1 Baskervill, Modem Philology, xxi. 270, and Elizabethan Jig, 165;
A. Williams, Folk-Songs of the Upper Thames, 95.
2 adore. 3 knocked.
72 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
I walke away,
Have nothing to pay,
An let in the swagering man, sur.
John Rowe fart the second
Father Christmas
Here comes I, ould father Christmas, welcom or welcom
not;
I hope ould father Christmas will never be forgot.
Ould father Christmas a pair but woance a yare;
He lucks like an ould man of 4 score yare.
Penty Landin part the third (Turkish Knight}
Hopen the doar and Lat me in,
I hope your faver I shall wind ;
Wether I rise or wether I foil,
I will do my endeavour to please you all.
St. George is at the doar,
And swear he will com in
With soard and buckler by is side
I fear he will purs my skin.
I now he is no fool,
I now he is some stoute,
Whyke will say more by wan inch of candle than I can
performe while ten pound born out;
And if you would not believe what I say,
Let the king of Eagipt com in and clare the way.
Wm Williams King of Egipt Fourth
Here am I the King of Eagipt,
Ho plainly doth apare;
St. George he is my only son,
My only son an hear.
Walk in, St. George, and boldly act they part;
Let all the royal family see the royal act.
THE MYLOR PLAY 73
F. Rowe (Beelzebub} *
Here comes I, ould belzey bob,
Upon my shoulder I carry my club,
And in my hand a drippen and. 1
Ham I not a hansom good looking ould man.
Henry Crossmans part 5 (St. George)
Hear comes I, son George,
From England have I sprung.
Sum of my wondras works
Now for to begin;
First into a Closet I was put,
Then into a Cave was lock;
I sot my foot upon a Rokke stone,
Their did I make my sad an grievus mone.
How many men have I slew,
And runnd the firche 2 dragon thrue ;
I fought them all Courrageously,
And still got thire Victory,
England's wright, England admorration.
Now ear I drow my bloody weepon ;
Ho is the man that doth before me Stand ?
I will cut him down with my courrageous hand.
Penty Landin 6 (Turkish Knight}
Hear comes I the Turkish Knight,
Come from the Turkish land to fight;
I will fight Sun George, that man of courage
And if his blood is hot, soon will I make it Could.
Henry Grossman 7 (St. George)
Thee come so far,
To fight such a man as I !
I will cut thy doublats ful of Hylent 3 hols
And make thy buttens fly.
1 pan. 2 fiery or fierce. 3 eyelet?
4024
74 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
Penty Landin 8 (Turkish Knight}
I am a man of vallour
I will fight untill I die
Sun George, thou never will face me,
But a way from me will fly.
Henry Grossman 9 (St. George)
Ha ! proud Turk, what, will thou tell me so
With threting words and threting oaths ?
Drow thy sord and fight,
Draw thy fees and pay,
For satisfaction I will have
Be fore I go away.
Penty Landin 10 (Turkish Knight}
No satisfaction shall you have,
But in a moment's time I will bring thee to thy grave.
Henry Grossman 1 1 (St. George}
Thee bring me to my grave !
I will fight with thee, no pardon shall you have ;
So drow thy sord and fight,
For I will concour you this night.
(Fight. Turkish Knight falls}
Solomon 12 (Presenter)
docter, docter, wat is thy fee,
This champion for to rise ?
The site of him doth trouble me,
To see how dead he lies.
W. Williams 13 (Doctor}
Full fifty ginnes is my fee,
And money to have down,
But sunes tis for is majesty,
1 will do it for ten pound.
THE MYLOR PLAY 75
I have a little bottle in the wrestbond of my britches that
goes by the name of halycompane,
Shall make this goodly champion rice and fight a gain.
Are, 1 Jack! take a little of my drip drop, pour it up in the
tip top, arise, Jack, slash and fight again.
Behold this motal now reviving be ;
Tis by my sceel and strength the ficik, see,
Which make this goodly night revive
And bring is aged father now alive.
Awacke thou lustros 2 knight also,
And I will take thee by the hand and try if thou canst go.
P. Langdon 14 (^Turkish Knight}
What places is are !
What seens appare !
Whare ever I torn mine eye,
Tis all around
In chantin ground
And soft delusions 3 rise:
Flowry mountins,
Mossy fountins,
What will 4 veriety Surprize.
Tis on the alow 5 walks we walks,
An hundred ecos round us stock: 6
From hils to hils the voices tost,
Rocks rebounding,
Ecos resounding,
Not one single words was lost.
Henry Grossman 15 (St. George)
Behold on yander risen ground
The bour that woander,
1 Here or Ah. 2 illustrious. 3 Elysiums.
4 With wild. 5 hollow. 6 talk.
76 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
Ever ending,
Ever blending,
Glades an 1 glades,
Shades an shades,
Running on eternal round.
(Another Fight)
P. Langdon 16 (Turkish Knight)
O pardon, pardon, St. George, one thing of thee I crav;
Spair me my life and I will be thy constant slave.
H. Grossman 17 (St. George)
Yes, proude Torke, but arise, and go in to thy on land
and tell
What a bould champion there doth in England stand.
Had it been a thousand or ten thousand such men as thee, I
would fight,
For to man tain grait Britain's right;
Great Britian's right I will mentain,
And fight for England wance again.
Wm. Solomon (Presenter)
As I gist stiping 2 out of my bed,
In hearing this my honly son was dead,
cruel Christan, what ast thou don ?
Thou ast ruin'd me and killed my only Son.
Henry Grossman (St. George)
He was the first that chalins'd me, and how can I deny
To see the Turkish dog stand up and folldon and die ?
William Solomon (Presenter)
1 will seek the bouldest champion in my relam,
This cruel Christan's blood to overwealam.
O help me, Sampo, help me; was thare ever a man in
greater need?
To fight like a sowlejar make thy hart to bleed.
1 on. 2 just stepping.
THE MYLOR PLAY 77
John Rowe (Sambo)
Are am I, Sampo, I will slafter the man that spilt my
master blood,
And with my body I will make the oacken 1 flood.
(Another fight)
William Solomon (Presenter)
O docter, docter, is there nary docter to be found,
Or to be had this night,
Can cuer this bloody wound,
And make him stand upright ?
William Williams (Doctor)
is there 2 a docter to be found,
Or to be had this night,
Can heal this man's bloody wound
And make him stand upright.
Wm. Solomon (Presenter}
Pray ware ast thou travld ?
Williams (Doctor)
1 have travld to London, Garmenay, Scotland and Spain,
By all my rich fortune safe returned to England again.
Solomon (Presenter)
What canst thou cure ?
Williams (Doctor)
I can cure the hick, the stick, the pox, the gout,
All deses and comppleases.
If any man as got a scolin wife,
My balsom will cure her;
Take but one drop of this, upon my life,
She will never scoul no more.
1 ocean. 2 there is.
78 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
(Part if)
Wm. Williams 1 9 (Bloody Warrior}
Hear am I, the bloody Warer 1 O, have I spent my time
in bloody War! Slash, cornary, 1 dam the Ribal's carse!
Sholl I walk ones, twoes, thrise over the dark with out hat,
stockin? Shart I bow dack to every drunkerd or proud
sot ? No, by this Etarnal sord ! The man that is not fit to
dye is not fit to live. Stand, delever, push your pikestaf
by the Hyeway ! Hoop ! that man 's neck is not very big
that fears a little rope. I pray, Mrs. Doldorty, git me
gud shir for supper, for I main to have gud shir. 2 'Tis not
your fether fowl nor Apple pyes I main, as your chised 3
ches crids 4 nor crym; I can't eat none. Ad it been a bit
soceen 5 pig, I might have a chance to pic a bone. All I
leve and all I lack, in come my man Jack, and carried all
away in my nalsack 6
Wm. Solomon 20 (Little John}
Here comes I, little man John, with a Sord in my hand,
And if any man offend me I will make him to stand.
I will cut him and slash him so small as the flys,
And send him to Jemecka to make Appel pyes.
Wm. Solomon 21 (King of France}
Hear am I, the King of France! King Henry I har is
Riseing a army against France. But let him come, I will
thonder him back, he can not me with stand. My milk
wite corls, my rid caps, my yallow fethers, deccar my
resoralson stout and bould. The Crown I will not spear.
I am the King of France, and with my sord I will advance.
Penty 22 (Page}
My mester sent me onto you.
Ten ton of gold that is due to him,
1 cuckold, fool. 2 cheer. 3 chiselly, friable.
4 curds. s sucking. 6 knapsack.
THE MYLOR PLAY 79
And if you dont send him is tribut home,
Sone he in France land you see.
William Solomon 23 (King of France)
Go tell your mester that he is yung and of tender years,
Not fit to come within my degree,
And I will send three tennas bols,
That with him he may learn to play.
Penty Landin 24 (English Page)
Hark, hark! wot sending vads my ears?
The conquers a porch I hear.
'Tis Henry's march, 'tis Henry time I now.
He comes, victorus Henry comes !
With obboys, Tropets, fifes and drums
Send from afar
And sound of war,
Foil of grief and every wind.
From walk to walk, from shade to shade,
From strim to poolin strim convaid,
Thrue all the minglin of the grove,
Thrue all the minglin tracks of love,
Tyrnin,
Burnin,
Changin,
Rangin,
Full of grife and full of woe,
Impashent from my Lord's return.
Henry Grossman 25 (Henry V}
Whot nuse, whot nuse, my lovely Page,
Whot nuse have you brought onto me ?
(Penty Landin: Page)
I have brought such nuse from the King of France,
That you and he will never agree.
8o THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
For he says you am young and of tender years,
Not fit to come in your degree,
And he will send you three tinnes bolls,
That with them you may Learn to play.
Henry Grossman 26 (Henry V}
From yender march King Henry,
With all my gallent company.
Now I have taken upon me a charge,
To govern these poor ants,
That the may wolk more large,
And in these wonts
That the may wolk more safe,
And bring home thire relife,
And keep that wich I have
From every Idol Theft.
But now the King is hear,
I will bow down lowe my knee.
All those that ventered hear
Is subject unto me.
God bless the Roral King,
And send him a long to reain,
And joy in Everything,
And free him from all pain.
I an my men and mine,
My Ants and all I have,
I command them the her mime,
So the King god save.
Wm. Solomon 27 (King of France}
O pardon, pardon, King Henry!
The Ton of gould I will pay to thee,
And the finest flour that is in all France
To the rose of Ingland I will give free.
THE MYLOR PLAY 81
P. Langdon 28 (Admiral Byng}
Hear am I, bing bing,
Ho in an alter of to swing,
Ho did the battle falter.
O corced was the day,
That first I went to sea,
To fight the French,
And then to run away.
Now are I stand,
With sord in hand,
And now I will fight any man.
H. Grossman 29 (Edward Fernori)
Here am I vornal bould.
Took six ships and lead the Spanyard gould,
Took shear of thare castle and port below,
Made the proud Spanyards look dismal and yellow,
But we was not daunted a toll, 1
Until their come a boll,
And took us in the goll,
And Queback foil
From our hands.
The first brod side the Frinch did fire,
They kild our Englesh men so free.
We keeld ten thousand of the Frinch,
The rest of them the rund away.
O ! as we march to the Frinch gates
With drums and Trumpets so merrely,
O ! then be spock the old king of France,
So he foil on his bended knee,
Prince Henry.
I one of his gallent company,
I soon forsook bold London Town.
We went and took the Spanish crown.
* at all.
4024 M
82 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
We soun then won.
And now we have shoud you all our fun.
30 (Presenter*)
Gentlemen and ladies, all your sport is don, I can no
longer stay;
Remember, still St. George will bear the sway.
Gentlemon and ladies all, I hope you will be free
For to subscribe a little part to pay the doctor's fee.
31 (Big Head}
Here comes I that never come yet,
With a quat 1 head and little wit,
If you please to throw in my hat what you think fit.
The original text is written continuously in prose,
and I have divided it metrically. The Bloody
Warrior's speech is really prose, and may be a late
addition. I have introduced some capitalization and
punctuation and indicated the characters in angular
brackets, but left the spelling alone. It will be
observed that there is some doubling of parts.
I am not sure whether Sambo is meant to fight. 2
In any case the Cure has been much dislocated.
Tiddy found most of the quatrains in the late
eighteenth-century ballad of King Henry Fifth's
Conquest of France, but those of Speech 26 must be
from another source. 3 The lyrical passages he found
in Addison's opera Fair Rosamond (1707). He
identified the Vornal of Speech 29 with Edward
Vernon, who boasted that he would take Portobello
from the Spanish with six ships and did take it with
1 squat. * Cf. p. 60. 3 Child, no. 164.
COSTUME 83
nine in 1 739. But the event has been mixed up with
the capture of Quebec by Wolfe in 1759, as we ^ as
with Henry V. The Admiral Byng of speech 28
was shot, not hung, in 1757.
Costume.
It is unfortunate that the recorders of Mummers'
Plays have not always been careful to describe the
appearance of the performers. As to this, therefore,
the material is comparatively scanty. One may start
from the account given in dialect by William Sandys
for the Cornwall of I846. 1 Most of the company
were 'en white weth ribands tied all upon their shirt
sleeves with nackins and swords and sich caps as I
never seed. They was half a fathom high maade of
pastyboord, weth powers of beads and leaking glass,
and other noshions, and strids of ould cloth stringed
'pon slivers of pith hanging down'. Old Father
Christmas came 'weth a make-wise feace possed on
top of his aun, and es long white wig'; the Doctor
'with a three-corner piked hat, and es feace all
rudded and whited, with spurticles on top of es
nawse'. It was presumably Sabra who wore 'a
maiden's bed-gound and coats with ribands, and a
nackin en es hand and a gowk', which Sandys
glosses as a bonnet with a flap or curtain behind.
Many of the features here noted are still, in one
place or another, de rigueur. Nowadays, no doubt,
the combatants often wear military uniform or
1 Uncle Jan Trenoodle, Specimens of Cornish Provincial Dialect, 52.
84 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
some colourable pretence thereof. But this is pro-
bably a modern development; the uniform is in
fact khaki at Drayton. The white shirt or smock
gave a name to the White Boys of the Isle of Man,
and occasionally survives elsewhere. But the smock
of the English agricultural labourer is practically
extinct, and ordinary clothes have generally replaced
it as the basis of the costume. There is still, however,
the same overlay of floating ribbons or bits of cloth,
or of closely laid strips of paper, often gaily coloured
wall-paper. I have not noticed any special use of
'nackins' or 'napkins', although this is likely enough.
It is largely a matter of the rustic conception of orna-
ment. Thomas Hardy writes of a Dorsetshire play:
The girls could never be brought to respect tradition in
designing and decorating the armour: they insisted on
attaching loops and bows of silk and velvet in any situation
pleasing to their taste. Gorget, gusset, bassinet, cuirass,
gauntlet, sleeve, all alike in the view of these feminine eyes
were practicable spaces whereon to sew scraps of fluttering
colour. 1
Whether a representation of armour was ever in-
tended, I am not clear. One folk-lorist has thought
that the 'paper scales' of certain costumes once in
the Anthropological Museum at Cambridge imitated
the leaves of trees. 2 Another found in them the
scales of the dragon. 3 A third sees in Berkshire
examples 'a strange garb resembling sheep-skins',
1 Return of the Native, Bk. ii, ch. 3.
2 G. L. Gomme in Nature (23 Dec. 1897).
3 T. F. Ordish in Folk-Lore, iv, 163.
COSTUME 85
and that indeed is rather the impression which
Mr. Long's Hampshire photographs leave upon me. 7
The tall head-dresses of the Cornish play also
survive, here and there. They are described as
4 conical' or 'pointed', or as 'foolscaps' or 'mitres'.
They may be adorned with plumes; at Kempsford
in Gloucestershire, with flags from the river. In the
Isle of Man they are turbans, with holly-sprigs.
On the other hand, a combatant at Thenford wore
a fox- or hare-skin cap, and in Scotland we have the
Admiral of the Hairy-caps. At Broadway Beelze-
bub's large black hat is said to have been called his
'dripping pan', but that may rest upon a misunder-
standing. Sometimes the head-dress, too, has pen-
dant strips of paper, which cover the face. Occasion-
ally masks are worn, or faces are blackened. All the
performers had black faces at Witley, Longborough,
and Ross. More usually it is a peculiarity of one
or more of them, Beelzebub or Little Devil Dout,
or again, the King of Egypt or the Black Prince.
A black-faced Doctor in the Isle of Man is ex-
ceptional. But Beelzebub has a red mask at Bally-
brennan, and the Fool's face, too, may be ruddled.
Here we get the explanation of the formulas 'black
as a friar' and 'red as fire'. At Camborne the
lamenter uses red ochre to simulate blood on the
neck of the Agonist. Beelzebub has a tail at Weston-
sub-Edge, and says he had one, but dropped it on
the way, at Dundalk. Many things have got dropped
1 P. H. Ditchfield, Qld English Customs, 9.
86 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
on the way in the history of our play, and many
things picked up. Thus at Ballybrennan the Fool
was dressed as Punch, and he is so figured in the
Manchester chap-book. More often he, or Big
Head, has a bauble, or a bladder on a stick. At
Thenford there is a calf's tail at the other end of the
stick. St. George may wear a red cross; it is less
congruous that the Turkish Knight should wear
another at Newbold. Father Christmas has usually
a white beard. I do not know what his 'pop and
touse' at Camborne may have been; perhaps it means
no more than 'bustle'. 1 The Doctor's piked hat of
Cornwall has usually become a top hat, but his
appearance remains professional, with black clothes,
spectacles, and a black bag. The Giant, or Dragon,
at Bovey Tracey wore 'a wooden thing for a head with
bullock's teeth', a mask with whiskers, and a long-
tailed coat with tin buttons. Two other recurrent
features require mention. One is the use of a bell.
At Sapperton Beelzebub wears a sheep-bell and
Morris bells, and Big Head has a bell on his rump.
Beelzebub also wears a bell on his back at Eccleshall
and Newport, and a bell on his, or rather her, elbow
at Lockinge. At Compton he opens the Qufoe with
'my old bell shall ring'. In Derbyshire no such
adornment is mentioned, but a bell rings all through
his part. At Eversley, where 'nob' replaces 'club' in
his lines, he wears a ball of silver paper on a top hat.
At Thenford the Doctor has a bell on his back.
1 Cf. p. 19.
ABNORMAL MUMMERS' PLAYS 87
Secondly, one or other of the characters often has his
jacket or head-dress padded with straw to represent a
hump. It may be Big Head, or Beelzebub, or Father
Christmas, or the Doctor. But it is most noticeable
in Jack, who nearly always either has a hump, or
has a number of rag dolls tied on his back and
regarded as his wife and family.
Abnormal Mummers' Plays.
So far I have been dealing with a widespread
mass of texts, which bear evidence, for all their
innumerable oblivions, accretions, and verbal per-
versions, of gradual derivation from a common
original archetype. I must now consider some major
variants, of much more limited range.
Thame, in Oxfordshire, but remote from the
Cotswold area, yields a quite exceptional version.
The combatants, who enter in turn without a Pre-
senter, are King Alfred and his Bride, King Cole,
King William 'of blessed memory', Giant Blunder-
bore and his man Little Jack, St. George accompanied
by a Morris Dance, and the Dragon. The fight
takes the form of a general melde, after which Dr.
Ball cures all the company except the Dragon, whom
his pill kills. Finally appears Father Christmas who
conducts a Qufae. The play is said to have been given
as far back as 1807, but to me it suggests a literary
remaniement. Except for a phrase or two in the
Doctor's part, there is little trace of the normal
formulas.
88 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
From west Dorsetshire come three texts. In one
the main action and its dialogue follow more or less
ordinary lines. King George successively van-
quishes the Turkish Knight, Marshalee, Slasher,
Cutting Star and the sub-Presenter Room, all of
whom are said to be sons of the Presenter Father
Christmas, and the Doctor cures the lot. In the other
two, which are from Symondsbury, the dialogue,
although normal in substance, has been rewritten
in paraphrase throughout. Room is again a sub-
Presenter, with Anthony, the Egyptian King. And
St. George is accompanied by St. Patrick, whom he
had delivered from a 'wretched den', and who in
gratitude disposes for him of Captain Bluster, leaving
Gracious King, General Valentine, and Colonel
Spring to fall before George himself. The Doctor,
too, is an Irishman, Mr. Martin Dennis, and his
fee will keep him in whisky for a twelve-month.
But all three versions are peculiar, in that the Qu$te
is replaced by a comic after-piece, in which there is a
quarrel between Father Christmas, also called Jan,
and his wife, Old Bet, also called Dame Dorothy,
who has Big Head's lines in the single version, but in
the others is only 'rather fat, but not very tail*. Jan
knocks her down and the Doctor's services are again
required. In the single version the quarrel is for a
quid of baccy, but after the Cure it is resumed about
the way to cook an old jack hare. Father Christmas
then rides off on a hobby-horse. The other versions
have only the hare quarrel, and the wind-up is a
THE PLOUGH PLAY 89
rhyming dialogue between Father Christmas and a
Servant Man. I should add that in the Isle of Wight
version the Qu$fe is preceded by a similar fight
between Father and Mother Christmas. Here, too,
she has Big Head's lines and annoys her husband
by sweeping the house. They belabour each other
with cudgel and broom on backs stuffed with straw.
Two versions, from Kempsford in Gloucestershire
and Shipton-under-Wychwood in Oxfordshire, may
have been conflated with some play from the Robin
Hood cycle, which had been dramatized, possibly
for use in folk-/W/, in the fifteenth or sixteenth
century. 1 There is no St. George. The combatants
are Robin Hood, Arthur Abland, and Little John,
and the dialogue is based on the ballad of Robin
Hood and Arthur a Bland, the Tanner of Notting-
ham. 2 There are traces of the same ballad in the
Presentation at Keynsham. Little John is an Agonist
at Ross. Both Robin Hood and Little John are
qutteurs at Bampton, and Little Man John at Mylor
and Potterne. He seems to merge into the Little
Man Jack or Little Jack of the Qu$te. I am told that
a distinct Robin Hood play is still known in Derby-
shire.
The Plough Play.
More important than these minor variants are the
Plough Plays, of which over a dozen specimens are
on record. They are almost entirely confined to
1 Mediaeval Stage, \. 177. 2 Quid, no. 126.
4024
90 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
Lincolnshire, but there are two from Nottingham-
shire, which seems to have been a border-line area,
since Clayworth yields both a Plough Play and
one of the normal type. They belong, broadly
speaking, to the Christmas season, but more precisely
to Plough Monday, the first Monday after Epiphany,
on which agricultural labour was resumed after the
mid-winter holiday. Plough Monday observances
are found in a long range of other north-eastern
and northern counties, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire,
Huntingdonshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire,
Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Northumberland. Plough-
boys, often in white shirts, harness themselves to a
Fool Plough, Fond Plough, White Plough, or Stot
Plough, and drag it in procession round the village.
There is a Quete. The churl, who does not contribute,
runs the risk of having the ground before his
house ploughed up. The performers call themselves
Plough Jacks, Plough Jags, Plough Stots, Plough
Bullocks, Plough Boggons, Plough Witchers, or
Morris Dancers. They sometimes wear patches of
cloth, cut in the shapes of ploughs and farm animals.
In Northants they blacken their faces. Their leader
is a Fool, Billy Buck, or Captain Cauf's Tail, and
with them goes a man in woman's clothes called the
Bessy. One or other of these, or the driver, may
wear a bullock's tail, or a fox-skin hood, or a coat
of skins or shreds of cloth, or flourish a whip with a
bladder tied to it. In Northants there are two Red
Jacks or Fools, with hunched backs, and knaves of
THE PLOUGH PLAY 91
hearts sewn on them. Henry Parker, in his Dives
and Pauper (1493), speaks of 'ledinge of the Ploughe
aboute the Fire as for gode begynnyng of the yere,
that they shulde fare the better all the yere follow-
yng'. The charm acquired ecclesiastical sanction.
John Bale tells Bishop Bonner in irony that he ought
to be punished 'for not sensing the Ploughess upon
Plough Monday', and many churchwardens' ac-
counts show that the proceeds of the 'gathering', or
part of them, went to the maintenance of a 'plough-
light' in the village church. Hence the day in
Norfolk is Tlowlick Monday'. At Holbeach the
plough, or a representation of it, appears to have
been kept in the church. 1
The Plough Plays, as a group, differ from the
normal type, in that, while there is generally a
Combat with its Cure, this is only loosely attached to
a sentimental drama, which may be called The Poors
Wooing. Many of the texts are degenerate. The
best preserved were written down in the first quarter
of the nineteenth century, and found by Professor
Baskervill in a British Museum manuscript. From
him I borrow the Bassingham play, premising that I
have pieced together two versions, neither of which
seems to be logically quite complete.
The main text is the men's play; the passages in
1 Mediaeval Stage, i. 120, 150, 208; Frazer, Golden Bough*, viii. 325;
J. Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities (ed. H. Ellis), i. 278;
T. F. T. Dyer, British Popular Customs, 37 ; P. H. Ditchfield, Old English
Customs, 47; County Folk-Lore (F.L.S.), ii. 231; v. 171; Folk-Lore,
iv. 163; xli. 196.
92 THE ENGLISH FOLK-PLAY
square brackets are from the children's play; the
directions in angular brackets are editorial.
(Enter Fool)
Good evening, Ladys and Gentlemen all !
This merry time at Christmas I have made it bold to call.
I hope you will not take it ill what I am a going to say.
I have some more Boys & Girls drawing on this way,
I have some little Boys stands at the Door,
In Ribons they are neatly dressed,
For to please you all they shall do their best.
Step in Merrymen all.
(Enter players and sing}
Good Master and good Mistress,
As you sit by the Fire,
Remember us poor Ploughlads,
That runs through Mud and Mire.
The mire it is
