42 GUISING AND MUMMING IN DERBYSHIRE. 



are not always easy to procure. According to Plot's Staff or d- 

 shire reindeer heads were worn at Abbot's Bromley, in Stafford- 

 shire, at the Christmas hobby-horse dance. 



The blackened faces, or masks, are significant, because adepts 

 in magic wore masks. ^ The old woman seems originally to 

 have been a sibyl, or witch, and the Old English hcegtesse, a 

 witch, is related to our modern Jtag. The strence, gifts, or 

 handsels, 2 forbidden by the Council of Auxerre, correspond in 

 some way to the presents of money given to the guisers. 



Guising was known amongst the old Norsemen as skin-play 

 {skinn-leikr)!'^ This word would be represented in O.E. as 

 scinn-lac. According to Dr. Sweet, scinn-ldc means, amongst 

 other things, magic trick or art. He states, however, that 

 scitin or scut means phantom, demon, devil.* 



The photographs were done by an amateur, and I regret 

 that they are not better. It would be a good thing if mem- 

 bers of the Society would publish versions, or further details, 

 from other parts of Derbyshire. ^ At this late hour they may 

 not be easy to get, but one cannot believe that Castleton is 

 the only place where guisers still go round. Much can be 

 done by the patient questioning of old people. 



1 Grimm, op. cit. (English trans.), p. 1045. 



" S/rena, Anselle. — Wright-Wulcker, Vocab., 613, 41. 



^ See Vigfusson and Powell, Corpus Foeticum Borealc, ii. 386. 



■• The Student's Diet, of Anglo-Saxon, O.xford, 1897. 



5 Guisers certainly exist in various forms in many parts of the county. 

 At Aston-on-Trent, about fifteen years ago, they used to go about the 

 parish at Christmas time dressed up, and I have known them march 

 straight into the kitchen, to the terror of the domestics, and go through 

 a kind of mummery. — Editor. 



