Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/169

 Rh mumming-plays, the characters announce themselves in the same way. The sword-dance has retained the integrity of its descent more clearly than any of the other elements of folk-drama; and the association of swords and fighting in the Easter play suggests a connection with the sword-dance, which becomes clearer upon examination. The Fool in the Easter play, who first enters and claims room for the play, summons St. George to enter; and this equates with the Chorus of the sword-dance, who summons the actors in turn. From this point the Fool is silent, and the characters announce themselves, as:

and the familiar:

of the mumming-play.

It seems to me we can see the ground-plan of the Easter play and the mumming-play in the sword-dance with its chorus. In fact, we have the chorus in the Easter play, as the Fool, a part taken by Father Christmas in the mumming-plays.

I have now exhausted the constituents of the Easter play, with the exception of the character of the Doctor, which factor I leave over to the Plough-Monday play, with which it is common.

That there was some form of dramatic representation at Christmas, on to which the St. George or Easter play was engrafted, is what the law of continuity with modification would lead us to expect; and what evidence we have points to this conclusion. Grimm tells us that "at Christmas a sacrificial play is still performed in parts of Gothland, acted by young fellows in disguise, who blacken and rouge their faces. One, wrapped in fur, sits in a chair as the victim, holding in his mouth a bunch of straw-stalks cut fine, which reach as far as his ears, and have the appearance of sow-bristles: by this is meant the boar sacrificed at Yule, which in England is decked with laurel