Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/388

332 Hanover sovereigns. In this particular version, both occur—St. George, and Prince George. A title is given to this piece, apparently taken from an old black-letter edition of the play: “Christmas; his Pageant Play, or Mysterie, of St. George, as played by the Itinerant Actors and Mummers in the Courts of the Nobility and Gentry, the Colleges, in the halls of the ancient Corporations and Guild Merchants, and in Public Hostelries and Taverns.”

Another version, which may not be known to the readers of, is the mummer-play performed at St. Mary Bourne, Hants, printed by Mr. Stevens in his Parochial History of St. Mary Bourne, 1888. The characters are: Old Father Christmas, Mince Pie, A Turkish Knight, St. George, An Italian Doctor, Little John. The last, “Little John”, was a character in the Robin Hood play. He is introduced, as Judas was in the version above referred to, to collect the money.

The piece entitled “The Morrice Dancers at Revesby”, which was edited by me and printed in vol. vii of the Folk-lore Journal, is the most strangely composite piece of folk-drama I have yet encountered. The essential part of it, the most ancient, the part to which the dialogue may have been fitted from recollections of a mummer’s play, is the various dances, which are dances in concert, a fact which raises a presumption of integrity as to their descent. It is an amalgam of the rites of the Plough Monday festival and a Christmas mumming-play, a thing of later date. But the element of the plough, with the element of the sword-dance and the chorus of swords, are Teutonic remnants of the worship of the goddess Frieg. One of the characters of the piece is called “the Fool”, and the others tell him he must die. The Fool kneelsdown, and they all place their swords about his neck. Then there is some parleying, chiefly by the Fool, who makes a ridiculous will. This is followed by action, for which the direction is: “Then they draw their swords, and the Fool falls on the floor, and the Dancers walk once round the Fool, and