The Mummers. 79 
their hue and ery; therefore our custom with respect to them is, 
that when they be taken, they undergo the punishment of the 
‘Coking Stole :” and there stand barefoot, and their hair down 
their backs, so as to be seen by all passers by, as long as our bailiff 
shall determine.” It was called by the Saxons the “ Scealfing 
Stole,” or “Scolding Stool.” 
I have been thus particular in describing the two species of 
Cucking Stools, viz. :—the tumbrels at Wootton Basset, Kingston 
upon Thames, and Gravesend, and the trebuchets at Liverpool, the 
Green Park, Banbury, near Worthing, and also those mentioned 
by Messrs. Manning and Bray, and Mr. Bellamy, and referred to 
in the poems of Gay and West, and by M. Misson in his travels, 
as entries will no doubt be found as to Wiltshire Cucking Stools, 
some of which would hardly be intelligible without this ex- 
planation. 
2.—THE MUMMERS. 
In several parts of Wiltshire, groups of persons grotesquely 
dressed go round from house to house on the morning of Christmas 
Day, and act a sort of drama, founded on a legend of St. George. 
There were a few years ago and probably are still, Mummers at 
Wootton Rivers, and on Christmas Day, 1852, a party of Mummers 
came from Avebury, and after performing there, came round to 
the neighbouring villages, when going from house to house they 
acted their Drama and after it sung a Hymn. 
The verses repeated by the Mummers of the different places are 
all founded on the same origin, but as they are not committed to 
writing they vary in a trifling degree, and have in some instances 
considerable interpolations. 
About fifteen years ago one of my friends applied to different sets 
of Mummers, and wrote down their verses from their dictation. The 
interpolations were of course not the same with different sets of 
Mummers, but the original verses were so—indeed some of the 
