Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/161

Rh Of the three important divisions or types of English folk-drama, viz., the Christmas Mumming-play, the Plough-Monday Play, and the Easter or Pace-Egg Play, the first and the last contain the character of St. George, with allusions to the legend, while in the Plough-Monday play that element is absent. But there is another element, which is common to all three groups, and that is the sword-dance. In the northern counties—Durham, for example—there is a sword-dancer's play or interlude, performed at Christmas, in which the traditional movements and evolutions of the sword-dance take place to the accompaniment of a song by the chief character, who is strictly the chorus of the piece, for he characterises each of the characters as they step in and join the performance. At the end of the dance the carefully concerted movements are abandoned, and fighting ensues: the parish clergyman rushes in to prevent bloodshed, receives a death-blow, and is cured by a doctor. Even from this description it is obvious that, in spite of the absence of St. George, this play presents points of resemblance to both the Mumming and the Pace-Egg types. First, a circle is drawn by one of the characters with his sword, and the performance takes place within that circle: the mumming and Pace-Egg plays are invariably prefaced by one of the characters claiming a space for the performance, sometimes with a broom sweeping round a circle, sometimes by "footing it round", as it was called; second, the characters fight together—in the mumming and Pace-Egg types they fight in couples successively; third, the doctor cures the slain—this feature is practically the same in the sword-dance play, and the mumming and Pace-Egg plays.

This sword-dance Christmas play found its way as far south as Devonshire; while versions of the mumming and Pace-Egg plays obtained in all parts of the country. The sword-dance itself, which underlies them all, continued Its traditional existence chiefly, if not entirely, in the northern counties.