Page:Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern.djvu/115



St. George and the other tragic performers are dressed somewhat in the style of morris dancers, with white trowsers and waistcoats, shewing their shirt-sleeves, and are much decorated with ribbons and handkerchiefs, each carrying a drawn sword in his hand, if they can be procured, otherwise a cudgel. They wear high caps of pasteboard, covered with fancy paper, adorned with beads, small pieces of looking-glass, bugles, &c. several long strips of pith generally hanging down from the top, with shreds of different-coloured cloth strung on them, the whole having a fanciful and smart effect. The Turk sometimes has a turban; Father Christmas is personified as a grotesque old man, wearing a large mask and wig, with a huge club in his hand; the Doctor, who is a sort of merryandrew to the piece, is dressed in some ridiculous way, with a three-cornered hat and painted face. The female, when there is one, is in the costume of her great-grandmother. The hobby-horse, when introduced, has a sort of representation of a horse’s hide; but the dragon and the giant, when there is one, frequently appear with the same style of dress as the knights.

The play of “Alexander, the King of Egypt,” as acted by the Mummers in the North of England, was printed at Newcastle in the year 1788, and bears a great similarity to those just described. Mr. Reddock, in Hone’s “Every-day Book,” vol. ii. p. 18, gives an account of a similar play in Scotland. Besides this regular drama of St. George, Guisards, or geese-dancers, as they are called, go about, the males and females frequently exchanging attire, and visit the different houses. Heath, in his account of the Scilly Islands, in 1750, mentions a similar custom.

There are two or three peculiar games or pastimes used at this time by the lower orders in the west