284 Wisconsin Academy of Science isr, Arts, and Letters. 
seems not improbable that Oreiznach’s opinion that the origin 
of the speech is a popular one, is correct, * 1 despite the fact that 
no ultimate source, literary or popular, has so far been dis¬ 
covered. In the pages that follow, there will be found a good 
deal of evidence that the Doctor and his speech were invented 
by the people in their communal ceremonies. 
“George a Green,” and his kind, in the popular ceremonials, 
with their grotesque costumes and extravagant speeches, seem 
to be the direct forerunners of the Doctor in the St. George 
plays. In any case, the Doctor and his speech were in circula¬ 
tion as early ais the twelfth century at least, and we may grant 
borrowing on the part of the English plays, without enforcing 
the possibility that the French and other plays may have bor¬ 
rowed from folk-plays, as Creiznach’s opinion suggests. 
Let us grant, then, that St. George and his. Dragon, and 
the Doctor’s characteristic speech all come from the regular 
liturgical drama, and from church legend, by the plain and 
simple way of borrowing. There remain still greater diffi¬ 
culties : 
(1) In borrowing the St. George legend, the performers of 
the folk-dramas have altered one of its most essential features. 
In the St. George story, and in all the related stories, 2 the 
hero fights and conquers a dragon, or worm, or monster; in 
no case is he himself killed. 3 In the plays, ,on the other hand, 
Mimus: Ein Literatur-Entwickelungsgeschichtlicher Versuch,” 2 vols., 
1903. 
It is worth while to note that the “Doctor” appears in the all-com¬ 
prehending comic world of Moliere, in “L’Amour Medecin,” Act II, 
Scene 7, under the name of VOperateur. The cure-all is called or- 
vietan; and though worth more than all the gold in the world, is sold 
for “une piece de trente sols.” 
1 W. Creiznach, “Geschichte des neueren Dramas,” vol. 1, p. 120. 
2 Hartland, “The Legend of Perseus,” passim. 
3 This refers only to the later type of St. George legend. In the 
earliest form St. George is killed from three to four times and is resus¬ 
citated. This type is the apocryphal form of the legend, and one 
which the church attempted to suppress. It certainly lived on and in¬ 
fluenced the Latin forms of the legend in the Middle Ages, The death 
