176 



NA TURE 



[December 23, 1897 



Like other things which are done by the peasantry 

 periodically, it is done by tradition, and traditional 

 doings have a habit of getting weather-worn, so to speak. 

 Some portions of them will remain fairly prominent, 

 other portions will be more obscured ; and so the proper 

 sense of proportion among the different parts of the 

 once perfect whole has disappeared. This is what has 

 happened with the mumming play. St. George and his 

 Eastern companions have remained in undue prominence 

 with reference to other characters, and hence it has come 

 about that the really archaic character of these plays 

 has been lost sight of. 



I need not describe the performance. Versions have 

 been printed in the Transactions of the Folk-lore Society, 

 and they have been examined scientifically by Mr. Fair- 

 man Ordish ; but I will try briefly to explain the origin 

 of these mimic representations of forgotten things. 



The first thing to observe about the play is that the 

 dialogue is in a state of decay. To restore it to any- 

 thing like its earlier form would require the careful 

 collation of all the versions with a view of ascertaining 

 the portions that are practically common to all, the 

 portions that are common to only a few variants, and 

 the portions that are unique. This operation needs ex- 

 tension, too, beyond the mere mummers' play, for there 

 are the Pace Egg play, the sword dance, and the Plough 

 Monday play, which have most of the characteristic 

 features of the mummers' play, and cannot but be pro- 

 ducts of the same original. After the dialogue is duly ' 

 examined, there is the action of the play to consider. 

 It is remarkable that all the actors in the different parts 

 of the country from North England to Cornwall, how- 

 ever widely they differ in their dialogue and in the names 

 of their characters, differ very little, if at all, in their 

 action. The chief features of this action are found to 

 be (i) the drawing of a circle with a broom for the 

 place in which the play is to be performed ; (2) the 

 fight, in which the swords are very carefully locked 

 together round the neck ; (3) the death and revivifica- 

 tion of the champions ; (4) the costume of the characters, 

 partly made of paper to imitate armour, as some writers 

 have thought, but leaves of trees, as I think I shall 

 be able to prove, and partly in imitation of animal 

 characters. 



Now in this traditional form of acting and of dressing 

 there is more of archaic survival than in the dialogue 

 part of the play. The circle which is formed for the 

 players to act in is meaningless, unless it be interpreted 

 as a magic ring drawn or constructed by the broom — 

 that is the magic weapon of the witch, about which Prof 

 Karl Pearson has recently written so ably. The in- 

 variable position of the sword leads us to its parallel in 

 the sword dance of the north of England, and hence to 

 ' innumerable links with Scandinavian ritual. The death 

 and revivification of the warriors is the reproduction of 

 that eternal contest between winter and spring, which is 

 to be found throughout the agricultural ceremonials of 

 the European people, and which Mr. Frazer has ex- 

 amined so thoroughly. The costume of the players, 

 some examples of which, thanks to Mr. Fairman Ordish, 

 are to be found in the Anthropological Museum at 

 Cambridge, connects the characters with the ritual 

 belonging to the tree and animal cults of an almost 

 dateless past. And in the whole thing we have, I doubt 

 not, one of those " manifold though never developed 

 germs of dramatic representation" of which Grimm 

 gives some interesting examples, and which he explains 

 "can be traced up to the most antique festivities." 



Let me shortly state the arguments in support of this 

 view. The contest, the death, and the revivification, are 

 the central factors which need explanation, and this can 

 best be done by examining their accompaniments, the 

 setting, so to speak, in which they are embedded. We 

 first of all dismiss the period of Christmas as being the 



NO. 1469, VOL. 57] 



special period of these mumming plays. It has grown to 

 be so now ; but that this is a late growth is shown by the 

 fact that the same play is to be found, performed under 

 another name, the Pace Egg, at Easter, and that signifi- 

 cant parts of the same play are to be found performed as 

 the Plough Monday play of early spring time. This 

 agrees with the rule of most of the surviving traditional 

 festivals attached to particular periods or dates of the 

 Christian calendar. They are at some places attached 

 to one festival, in other places attached to another, and 

 it seems certain that these ancient ceremonies were trans- 

 ferred to the Christian season most favourable locally to 

 their continuance, but not necessarily the same period of 

 the year as they were originally performed. Without 

 then fixing upon any of the Christian festivals as the 

 archaic season for the play taking place, we may leave 

 the question of date open, to be settled by other con- 

 siderations. The next important point is the costume. 

 Examining this carefully from the very modern examples 

 which are preserved, we may conclude that the use of 

 paper is but the adaptation of the cheapest material to be 

 got for the purpose required. Now the paper dress is 

 formed by stitching together a series of small pieces in a 

 sort of scaly fashion, and the only two suggestions to 

 account for this are first scale armour, secondly leaves. 

 Against the idea of scale armour being present in the 

 minds of the rustic performers there is much to be said, 

 and particularly that scale armour is not in accordance 

 with the other conditions of the play. In favour of 

 leaves being intended there are many examples, notably 

 the Jack-in-the-Green of May Day, of such dresses being 

 used in these popular dramas ; and, further, there is the 

 fact that some of the mummers, or maskers as the name 

 implies, formerly disguised themselves as animals — goats, 

 oxen, deer, foxes, and horses being represented at dif- 

 ferent places where details of the mumming play have 

 been recorded. It seems, then, that we have as data for 

 ascertaining the principal features of the mumming play : 

 (i) the undoubted fact of animals being represented ; (2) 

 the deduction that trees were also represented ; (3) a 

 contest, which resulted in the death of one of the 

 opponents ; (4) the restoration of the dead to life. Now 

 mimic representations of an archaic ceremony in which 

 actors take the parts, both of animals and trees, are found 

 all over Europe, and they take place at spring time, just 

 when leaves have once more appeared after the desola- 

 tion of winter. This association of facts in the spring- 

 time festivals can be equated with the association of facts 

 in the mumming plays with sufficient precision to make 

 it safe to conclude that the equation is due to a descent 

 from a common original. 



What is that original ? In the personages who are 

 thus slain in mimicry, to adopt Mr. Frazer's language, it 

 is impossible not to recognise representatives of the tree 

 spirit, or spirit of vegetatiort, as he is supposed to mani- 

 fest himself in spring. The object of slaying the spirit 

 of vegetation at any time, and above all in spring, when 

 his services are most wanted, is that the divine life, in- 

 carnate in a material and mortal body, should be con- 

 veyed from the old representative of the god to a new 

 incarnation. The killing of the god is only a necessary 

 step to his revival or resurrection in a better form. 

 Students of Mr. Frazer's work will not need to be re- 

 minded of the details of this argument, but I point out 

 that they explain adequately not only the leafy and 

 animal dresses of the English mummers, but the death 

 and revivification of the principal actors ; and they find 

 their most archaically developed form in the Norse 

 mythic fight between Thok and Balder, in other words 

 between winter and spring. 



What then, it may be asked, is to become of St. George 

 and his Eastern companions, if all, except these, have so 

 great an antiquity ? The answer is that they are the 

 later engraftings, and the answer is fortunately one 



