viii. 317, summarizes accounts from fourteen villages, and gives

illustrations. There are always six dancers. A broad garter of bells is worn below the knee. There are two sets of figures: in one handkerchiefs are carried, in the other short staves are swung and clashed. Sometimes the dancers sing to the air, which is that of an old country-dance. There is always a fool, who carries a stick with a bladder and cow’s tail, and is called in two places ‘Rodney,’ elsewhere the ‘squire.’ The music is that of a pipe and tabor (‘whittle’ and ‘dub’) played by one man; a fiddle is now often used. At Bampton there was a solo dance between crossed tobacco-pipes. At Spelsbury and at Chipping Warden the dance used to be on the church-tower. At the Bampton Whit-feast and the Ducklington Whit-hunt, the dancers were accompanied by a sword-bearer, who impaled a cake. A sword-bearer also appears in a list of Finstock dancers, given me by Mr. T. J. Carter, of Oxford. He also told me that the dance on Spelsbury church-tower, seventy years ago, was by women.

[696] Norfolk, Monmouthshire, Berkshire (Douce, 606); Worcestershire, Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire, Somersetshire, Wiltshire, Warwickshire, and around London (Burton, 114).

[697] _L. H. T. Accounts_, ii. 414; iii. 359, 381.

[698] Pfannenschmidt, 582; Michels, 84; Creizenach, i. 411. Burton, 102, reproduces, from _Art Journal_ (1885), 121, cuts of ten morris-dancers carved in wood at Munich by Erasmus Schnitzer in 1480.

[699] Douce, 585, and Burton, 97, reproduce Israel von Mecheln’s engraving (†1470) of a morris with a fool and a lady.

[700] Coquillart, _Œuvres_ (†1470), 127.

[701] _Mémoires de Pétrarque_, ii. app. 3, 9; Petrarch danced ‘en pourpoint une belle et vigoureuse moresque’ to please the Roman ladies on the night of his coronation.

[702] _Somers Tracts_, ii. 81, 87. The Earl of Nottingham, when on an embassy from James I, saw morrice-dancers in a Corpus Christi procession.

[703] Douce, 480; Favine, _Theater of Honor_, 345: at a feast given by Gaston de Foix at Vendôme, in 1458, ‘foure young laddes and a damosell, attired like savages, daunced (by good direction) an excellent _Morisco_, before the assembly.’

[704] Tabourot, _Orchésographie_, 94: in his youth a lad used to come after supper, with his face blackened, his forehead bound with white or yellow taffeta, and bells on his legs, and dance the morris up and down the hall.

[705] Douce, 577; Burton, 95.

[706] A dance certainly of Moorish origin is the fandango, in which castanets were used; cf. the comedy of _Variety_ (1649) ‘like a Bacchanalian, dancing the Spanish Morisco, with knackers at his fingers’ (Strutt, 223). This, however, seems to show that the fandango was considered a variety of morisco. Douce, 602; Burton, 124, figure an African woman from Fez dancing with bells on her ankles. This is taken from Hans Weigel’s book of national costumes published at Nuremberg in 1577.

[707] Tabourot’s morris-dancing boy had his face blackened, and Junius (F. Du Jon), _Etymologicum Anglicanum_ (1743), says of England ‘faciem plerumque inficiunt fuligine, et peregrinum vestium cultum assumunt, qui ludicris talibus indulgent, ut Mauri esse videantur, aut e longius remota patria credantur advolasse, atque insolens recreationis genus ad vexisse.’ In _Spousalls of Princess Mary_ (1508) ‘morisks’ is rendered ‘ludi Maurei quas morescas dicunt.’ In the modern morris the black element is represented, except at Brosely, chiefly by ‘owd sooty face,’ the fool: in Leicestershire it gives rise to a distinct figure, Beelzebub.

[708] Du Méril, _La Com._ 89, quotes a sixteenth-century French sword-dance of ‘Mores, Sauvages, et Satyres.’ In parts of Yorkshire the sword-dancers had black faces or masks (Henderson, 70).

[709] Cotgrave, ‘_Dancer les Buffons_, To daunce a morris.’ The term ‘the madman’s morris’ appears as the name of the dance in _The Figure of Nine_ (temp. Charles II); cf. Furnivall, _Laneham’s Letter_, clxii. The _buffon_ is presumably the ‘fool’; cf. Cotgrave, ‘_Buffon_: m. A buffoon, jeaster, sycophant, merrie fool, sportfull companion: one that lives by making others merrie.’

[710] Henderson, 70. In Yorkshire the sword-dancers carried the image of a white horse; in Cheshire a horse’s head and skin.

[711] Cf. ch. x; also Wise, _Enquiries concerning the Inhabitants, ... of Europe_, 51 ‘the common people in many parts of England still practise what they call a Morisco dance, in a wild manner, and as it were in armour, at proper intervals striking upon one another’s staves,’ &c. Johnson’s _Dictionary_ (1755) calls the morris ‘a dance in which bells are gingled, or staves or swords clashed.’

[712] Müllenhoff, 124; cf. Mayer, 236.

[713] Douce, 602; Burton, 123. The bells were usually fastened upon broad garters, as they are still worn in Oxfordshire. But they also appear as anklets or are hung on various parts of the dress. In a cut from Randle Holme’s _Academie of Armorie_, iii. 109 (Douce, 603; Burton, 127), a morris-dancer holds a pair of bells in his hands. Sometimes the bells were harmonized. In _Pasquil and Marforius_ (1589) Penry is described as ‘the fore gallant of the Morrice with the treble bells’; cf. Rowley, _Witch of Edmonton_, i. 2.

[714] Müllenhoff, 123; Mayer, 235.

[715] Tabourot, _Orchésographie_, 97.

[716] Cf. Appendix J. A figure with a bow and arrow occurs in the Abbots Bromley horn-dance (p. 166).

[717] W. Kempe’s _Nine Days Wonder_ (ed. Dyce, Camden Soc.) describes his dancing of the morris in bell-shangles from London to Norwich in 1599.

[718] Müllenhoff, 114.

[719] The ‘Squire’s Son’ of the Durham dances is probably the clown’s son of the Wharfdale version; for the term ‘squire’ is not an uncommon one for the rustic fool. Cf. also the Revesby play described in the next chapter. Why the fool should have a son, I do not know.

[720] The ‘Nine Worthies’ of _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, v. 2, are a pageant not a dance, and the two sets of speeches quoted from Bodl. Tanner MS. 407, by Ritson, _Remarks on Shakespeare_, 38, one of which is called by Ashton, 127, the earliest mummers’ play that he can find, also probably belong to pageants. The following, also quoted by Ritson _loc. cit._ from _Harl. MS._ 1197, f. 101* (sixteenth century), looks more like a dance or play:

‘I ame a knighte And menes to fight And armet well ame I Lo here I stand With swerd ine hand My manhoud for to try.

Thou marciall wite That menes to fight And sete vppon me so Lo heare J stand With swrd in hand To dubbelle eurey blow.’

[721] Mayer, 230, 425, finds in the dance a symbolical drama of the death of winter; but he does not seem to see the actual relic of a sacrificial rite.

[722] Müllenhoff, 114; Du Méril, _La Com._ 82; Plato, _Leges_, 815; Dion Cassius, lx. 23; Suetonius, _Julius_, 39, _Nero_, 12; Servius _ad Aen._ v. 602; cf. p. 7. A Thracian sword-dance, ending in a mimic death, and therefore closely parallel to the west European examples mentioned in the next chapter, is described by Xenophon, _Anabasis_, v. 9.

[723] Müllenhoff, 115; Frazer, iii. 122; W. W. Fowler, _The Roman Festivals_, 38, 44. The song of the _Salii_ mentioned Saeturnus, god of sowing. It appears also to have been their function to expel the Mamurius Veturius in spring. Servius _ad Aen._ viii. 285, says that the _Salii_ were founded by Morrius, king of Veii. According to Frazer, Morrius is etymologically equivalent to Mamurius--Mars. He even suggests that Morris may possibly belong to the same group of words.

[724] Cf. Appendix J. In other dances a performer stands on a similar ‘knot’ or _Stern_ of swords. Mayer, 230, suggests that this may represent the triumph of summer, which seems a little far-fetched.

[725] Mayer, 243; O. Wittstock, in _Sievers-Festgabe_, 349.

[726] Grimm, i. 304, gives the following as communicated to him by J. M. Kemble, from the mouth of an old Yorkshireman: ‘In some parts of northern England, in Yorkshire, especially Hallamshire, popular customs show remnants of the worship of Fricg. In the neighbourhood of Dent, at certain seasons of the year, especially autumn, the country folk hold a procession and perform old dances, one called the giant’s dance: the leading giant they name _Woden_, and his wife _Frigga_, the principal action of the play consisting in two swords being swung and clashed together about the neck of a boy without hurting him.’ There is nothing about this in the account of Teutonic mythology in J. M. Kemble’s own _Saxons in England_. I do not believe that the names of Woden and Frigga were preserved in connexion with this custom continuously from heathen times. Probably some antiquary had introduced them; and in error, for there is no reason to suppose that the ‘clown’ and ‘woman’ of the sword-dance were ever thought to represent gods. But the description of the business with the swords is interesting.

[727] Müllenhoff, _Z. f. d. A._ xviii. 11, quoting Covarubias, _Tesoro della lengua castellana_ (1611), s.v. _Danza de Espadas_: ‘una mudanza que llaman la degollada, porque cercan el cuello del que los guia con las espadas.’ With these sword manœuvres should be compared the use of scythes and flails in the mock sacrifices of the harvest-field and threshing-floor (p. 158), the ‘Chop off his head’ of the ‘Oranges and Lemons’ game (p. 151), and the ancient tale of Wodan and the Mowers.

[728] Mayer, 229.

[729] _Gentleman’s Magazine_, lxxxi (1811), 1. 423. The dance was given in the north Riding from St. Stephen’s day to the New Year. Besides the Bessy and the Doctor there were six lads, one of whom acted king ‘in a kind of farce which consists of singing and dancing.’

[730] Bell, 178; cf. p. 193. I do not feel sure whether the actual parish clergyman took part, or whether a mere personage in the play is intended; but see what Olaus Magnus (App. J (i)) says about the propriety of the sword-dances for _clerici_. It will be curious if the Christian priest has succeeded to the part of the heathen priest slain, first literally, and then in mimicry, at the festivals.

[731] Printed by Mr. T. F. Ordish in _F. L. J._ vii. 338, and again by Manly, i. 296. The MS. used appears to be headed ‘October Ye 20, 1779’; but the performers are called ‘The Plow Boys or Morris Dancers’ and the prologue says that they ‘takes delight in Christmas toys.’ I do not doubt that the play belonged to Plough Monday, which only falls just outside the Christmas season.

[732] On the name Pickle Herring, see W. Creizenach, _Die Schauspiele der englischen Komödianten_, xciii. It does not occur in old English comedy, but was introduced into Anglo-German and German farce as a name for the ‘fool’ or ‘clown’ by Robert Reynolds, the ‘comic lead’ of a company of English actors who crossed to Germany in 1618. Probably it was Reynolds’ invention, and suggested by the _sobriquet_ ‘Stockfish’ taken by an earlier Anglo-German actor, John Spencer. The ‘spicy’ names of the other Revesby clowns are probably imitations of Pickle Herring.

[733] The lines (197-8)

‘Our old Fool’s bracelet is not made of gold But it is made of iron and good steel’

suggest the vaunt of the champions in the St. George plays.

[734] Is ‘Anthony’ a reminiscence of the Seven Champions? The Fool says (ll. 247-9), like Beelzebub in the St. George plays,

‘Here comes I that never come yet, ... I have a great head but little wit.’

He also jests (l. 229) on his ‘tool’; cf. p. 196 n.

[735] Brand, i. 278; Dyer, 37; Ditchfield, 47; Drake, 65; Mrs. Chaworth Musters, _A Cavalier Stronghold_, 387. Plough Monday is the Monday after Twelfth night, when the field work begins. A plough is dragged round the village and a _quête_ made. The survivals of the custom are mainly in the north, east and east midlands. In the city, a banquet marks the day. A Norfolk name is ‘Plowlick Monday,’ and a Hunts one ‘Plough-Witching.’ The plough is called the ‘Fool Plough,’ ‘Fond Plough,’ ‘Stot Plough’ or ‘White Plough’; the latter name probably from the white shirts worn (cf. p. 200). At Cropwell, Notts, horses cut out in black or red adorn these. In Lincolnshire, bunches of corn were worn in the hats. Those who draw the plough are called ‘Plough Bullocks,’ ‘Boggons’ or ‘Stots.’ They sometimes dance a morris-or sword-dance, or act a play. At Haxey, they take a leading part in the Twelfth day ‘Hood-game’ (p. 150). In Northants their faces are blackened or reddled. The plough is generally accompanied by the now familiar grotesques, ‘Bessy’ and the Fool or ‘Captain Cauf-Tail.’ In Northants there are two of each; the Fools have humps, and are known as ‘Red Jacks’; there is also a ‘Master.’ In Lincolnshire, reapers, threshers, and carters joined the procession. A contribution to the _quête_ is greeted with the cry of ‘Largess!’ and a churl is liable to have the ground before his door ploughed up. Of old the profits of the _quête_ or ‘plow-gadrin’ went into the parish chest, or as in Norfolk kept a ‘plow-light’ burning in the church. A sixteenth century pamphlet speaks of the ‘sensing the Ploughess’ on Plough Monday. Jevons, 247, calls the rite a ‘worship of the plough’; probably it rather represents an early spring perambulation of the fields in which the divinity rode upon a plough, as elsewhere upon a ship. A ploughing custom of putting a loaf in the furrow has been noted. Plough Monday has also its water rite. The returning ploughman was liable to be soused by the women, like the bearer of the ‘neck’ at harvest. Elsewhere, the women must get the kettle on before the ploughman can reach the hearth, or pay forfeit.

[736] Printed by Mrs. Chaworth Musters in _A Cavalier Stronghold_ (1890), 388, and in a French translation by Mrs. H. G. M. Murray-Aynsley, in _R. d. T. P._ iv. 605.

[737] ‘Hopper Joe’ also calls himself ‘old Sanky-Benny,’ which invites interpretation. Is it ‘Saint Bennet’ or ‘Benedict’?

[738]

‘In comes I, Beelzebub, On my shoulder I carry my club, In my hand a wet leather frying-pan; Don’t you think I’m a funny old man?’

Cf. the St. George play (p. 214).

[739] ‘Dame Jane’ says,

‘My head is made of iron, My body made of steel, My hands and feet of knuckle-bone, I think nobody can make me feel.’

In the Lincolnshire play Beelzebub has this vaunt. Cf. the St. George play (p. 220).

[740] The Doctor can cure ‘the hipsy-pipsy, palsy, and the gout’; cf. the St. George play (p. 213).

[741] Printed in French by Mrs. Murray Aynsley in _R. d. T. P._ iv. 609.

[742] The farce recorded as occasionally introduced at Whitby (cf. p. 192, n. 1) but not described, probably belonged to the ‘popular’ type.

[743] Chambers, _Popular Rhymes of Scotland_, 169, prints a Peebles version. Instead of George, a hero called Galatian fights the Black Knight. Judas, with his bag, replaces Beelzebub. But it is the same play. Versions or fragments of it are found all over the Lowlands. The performers are invariably called ‘guizards.’ In a Falkirk version the hero is Prince George of Ville. Hone, _E. D. B._, says that the hero is sometimes Galacheus or St. Lawrence. But in another Falkirk version, part of which he prints, the name is Galgacus, and of this both Galacheus and Galatian are probably corruptions, for Galgacus or Calgacus was the leader of the Picts in their battle with Agricola at the Mons Graupius (A. D. 84; Tacitus, _Agricola_, 29).

[744] Appendix K. Other versions may be conveniently compared in Manly, i. 289; Ditchfield, 310. The best discussions of the St. George plays in general, besides Mr. Ordish’s, are J. S. Udall, _Christmas Mummers in Dorsetshire_ (_F. L. R._ iii. 1. 87); Jackson and Burne, 482; G. L. Gomme, _Christmas Mummers_ (_Nature_, Dec. 23, 1897). The notes and introductions to the versions tabulated above give many useful data.

[745] In _F. L._ x. 351, Miss Florence Grove describes some Christmas mummers seen at Mullion, Cornwall, in 1890-1. ‘Every one naturally knows who the actors are, since there are not more than a few hundred persons within several miles; but no one is supposed to know who they are or where they come from, nor must any one speak to them, nor they to those in the houses they visit. As far as I can remember the performance is silent and dramatic; I have no recollection of reciting.’ The dumb show is rare and probably a sign of decadence, but the bit of rural etiquette is archaic and recurs in savage drama.

[746] In Berkshire and at Eccleshall, Slasher is ‘come from Turkish land.’ On the other hand, the two often appear in the same version, and even, as at Leigh, fight together.

[747] Burne-Jackson, 483.

[748] Ibid. 483. He appears in the MSS. written by the actors as ‘Singuy’ or ‘Singhiles.’ Professor Skeat points out that, as he ‘sprang from English ground,’ St. Guy (of Warwick) was probably the original form, and St. Giles a corruption.

[749] Here may be traced the influence of the Napoleonic wars. In Berkshire, Slasher is a ‘French officer.’

[750] _F. L._ v. 88.

[751] Ditchfield, 12.

[752] Sandys, 153.

[753] P. Tennant, _Village Notes_, 179.

[754] Beelzebub appears also in the Cropwell Plough Monday play; cf. p. 209. Doubtless he once wore a calf-skin, like other rural ‘Fools,’ but, as far as I know, this feature has dropped out. Sandys, 154, however, quotes ‘Captain Calf-tail’ as the name of the ‘Fool’ in an eighteenth-century Scotch version, and Mr. Gomme (_Nature_, Dec. 23, 1897), says ‘some of the mummers, or maskers as the name implies, formerly disguised themselves as animals--goats, oxen, deer, foxes and horses being represented at different places where details of the mumming play have been recorded.’ Nowadays, Beelzebub generally carries a club and a ladle or frying-pan, with which he makes the _quête_. At Newport and Eccleshall he has a bell fastened on his back; at Newbold he has a black face. The ‘Fool’ figured in the Manchester chap-book resembles Punch.

[755] See notes to Steyning play in _F. L. J._ ii. 1.

[756] Mr. Gomme, in _Nature_ for Dec. 23, 1897, finds in this broom ‘the magic weapon of the witch’ discussed by Pearson, ii. 29. Probably, however, it was introduced into the plays for the purposes of the _quête_; cf. p. 217. It is used also to make a circle for the players, but here it may have merely taken the place of a sword.

[757] Parish, _Dict. of Sussex Dialect_, 136. The mummers are called ‘John Jacks.’

[758] Cf. p. 268, n. 4.

[759] Sandys, 301.

[760] Cf. Capulet, in _Romeo and Juliet_, i. 5. 28 ‘A hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls’; and Puck who precedes the dance of fairies in _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, v. 1. 396

‘I am sent with broom before, To sweep the dust behind the door.’

[761] Ditchfield, 315. ‘The play in this village is performed in most approved fashion, as the Rector has taken the matter in hand, coached the actors in their parts, and taught them some elocution.’ This sort of thing, of course, is soon fatal to folk-drama.

[762] Burne-Jackson, 484; Manly, i. 289.

[763] Burne-Jackson, 402, 410; _F. L._ iv. 162; Dyer, 504. The broom is used in Christmas and New Year _quêtes_ in Scotland and Yorkshire, even when there is no drama. Northall 205, gives a Lancashire Christmas song, sung by ‘Little David Doubt’ with black face, skin coat and broom. At Bradford they ‘sweep out the Old Year’; at Wakefield they sweep up dirty hearths. In these cases the notion of threatening to do the unlucky thing has gone.

[764] Ditchfield, 12. An ‘Old Bet’ is mentioned in 5 _N. Q._ iv. 511, as belonging to a Belper version. The woman is worked in with various ingenuity, but several versions have lost her. The prologue to the Newcastle chap-book promises a ‘Dives’ who never appears. Was this the woman? In the Linton in Craven sword-dance, she has the similar name of ‘Miser.’

[765] I hardly like to trace a reminiscence of the connexion with the _renouveau_ in the ‘General Valentine’ and ‘Colonel Spring’ who fight and are slain in the Dorset (A) version; but there the names are. Mr. Gomme (_Nature_ for Dec. 23, 1897) finds in certain mumming costumes preserved in the Anthropological Museum at Cambridge and made of paper scales, a representation of leaves of trees. Mr. Ordish, I believe, finds in them the scales of the dragon (_F. L._ iv. 163). Some scepticism may be permitted as to these conjectures. In most places the dress represents little but rustic notions of the ornamental. Cf. Thomas Hardy, _The Return of the Native_, bk. ii. ch. 3: ‘The girls could never be brought to respect tradition in designing and decorating the armour: they insisted on attaching loops and bows of silk and velvet in any situation pleasing to their taste. Gorget, gusset, bassinet, cuirass, gauntlet, sleeve, all alike in the view of these feminine eyes were practicable spaces whereon to sew scraps of fluttering colour.’ The usual costume of the sword-dancers, as we have seen (p. 200), was a clean white smock, and probably that of the mummers is based upon this.

[766] T. F. Ordish, in _F. L._ iv. 158.

[767] Printed in _The Old English Drama_ (1830), vol. iii. Burne-Jackson, 490, think that ‘the masque owes something to the play,’ but the resemblances they trace are infinitesimal. A play of _St. George for England_, by William or Wentworth Smith, was amongst the manuscripts destroyed by Warburton’s cook, and a Bartholomew Fair ‘droll’ of _St. George and the Dragon_ is alluded to in the _Theatre of Compliments_, 1688 (Fleay, _C. H._ ii. 251; Hazlitt, _Manual_, 201).

[768] In the Dorset (A) version, the king of Egypt is ‘Anthony’ and the doctor ‘Mr. Martin Dennis.’ Conceivably these are reminiscences of St. Anthony of Padua and St. Denys of France. The Revesby Plough Monday play (cf. p. 208) has also an ‘Anthony.’ The ‘Seven Champions’ do not appear in the English sword-dances described in ch. ix, but the morris-dancers at Edgemond wake used to take that name (Burne-Jackson, 491). Mrs. Nina Sharp writes in _F. L. R._ iii. 1. 113: ‘I was staying at Minety, near Malmesbury, in Wilts (my cousin is the vicar), when the mummers came round (1876). They went through a dancing fight in two lines opposed to each other--performed by the Seven Champions of Christendom. There was no St. George, and they did not appear to have heard of the Dragon. When I inquired for him, they went through the performance of drawing a tooth--the tooth produced, after great agony, being a horse’s. The mummers then carried into the hall a bush gaily decorated with coloured ribbons.... [They] were all in white smock frocks and masks. At Acomb, near York, I saw very similar mummers a few years ago, but they distinguished St. George, and the Dragon was a prominent person. There was the same tooth-drawing, and I think the Dragon was the patient, and was brought back to life by the operation.’ I wonder whether the ‘Seven Champions’ were _named_ or whether Mrs. Sharp _inferred them_. Anyhow, there could not have been _seven_ at Minety, without St. George. The ‘bush’ is an interesting feature. According to C. R. Smith, _Isle of Wight Words_ (_Eng. Dial. Soc._ xxxii. 63) the mummers are known in Kent as the ‘Seven Champions.’

[769] Entered on the _Stationers’ Registers_ in 1596. The first extant edition is dated 1597. Johnson first introduced Sabra, princess of Egypt, into the story; in the mediaeval versions, the heroine is an unnamed princess of Silena in Libya. The mummers’ play follows Johnson, and makes it Egypt. On Johnson was based Heylin’s _History of St. George_ (1631 and 1633), and on one or both of these Kirke’s play.

[770] Jackson and Burne, 489: ‘Miss L. Toulmin Smith ... considers that the diction and composition of the [Shropshire] piece, as we now have it, date mainly from the seventeenth century.’

[771] Dyer, 193; Anstis, _Register of the Garter_ (1724), ii. 38; E. Ashmole, _Hist. of the Garter_ (ed. 1672), 188, 467; (ed. 1715), 130, 410.

[772] F. Blomefield, _Hist. of Norfolk_ (1805), iv. 6, 347; Mackerell, MS. _Hist. of Norfolk_ (1737), quoted in _Norfolk Archaeology_, iii. 315; _Notices Illustrative of Municipal Pageants and Processions_ (with plates, publ. C. Muskett, Norwich, 1850); Toulmin Smith, _English Gilds_ (E. E. T. S.), 17, 443; Kelly, 48. Hudson and Tingey, _Cal. of Records of Norwich_ (1898), calendar many documents of the guild.

[773] Hartland, iii. 58, citing Jacobus à Voragine, _Legenda Aurea_, xciii, gives the story of St. Margaret, and the appearance of the devil to her in the shape of a dragon. She was in his mouth, but made the sign of the cross, and he burst asunder.

[774] Cf. p. 177.

[775] Kelly, 37. The ‘dressyng of the dragon’ appears in the town accounts for 1536. The guild had dropped the riding, even before the Reformation.

[776] Harris, 97, 190, 277; Kelly, 41. The guild was formed by journeymen in 1424. Probably there was a riding. In any case, at the visit of Prince Edward in 1474, there was a pageant or _mystère mimé_ ‘upon the Conddite in the Crosse Chepyng’ of ‘seint George armed and Kynges dought^r knelyng afore hym w^t a lambe and the fader and the moder beyng in a toure a boven beholdyng seint George savyng their dought^r from the dragon.’ There was a similar pageant at the visit of Prince Arthur in 1498.

[777] Kelly, 42.

[778] Morris, 139, 168; Fenwick, _Hist. of Chester_, 372; Dyer, 195. The Fraternity of St. George was founded for the encouragement of shooting in 1537. They had a chapel with a George in the choir of St. Peter’s. St. George’s was the great day for races on the Rooddee. In 1610 was a famous show, wherein St. George was attended by Fame, Mercury, and various allegorical figures.

[779] Cf. _Representations_, s. v. York, Dublin.

[780] Dyer, 194, gives from Coates, _Hist. of Reading_, 221, the account for setting-up a ‘George’ in 1536. Dugdale, _Hist. of Warwickshire_, 928, has a notice of a legacy in 1526 by John Arden to Aston church of his ‘white harneis ... for a George to were it, and to stand on his pewe, a place made for it.’

[781] R. W. Goulding, _Louth Records_, quotes from the churchwardens’ accounts for 1538 payments for taking down the image of St. George and his horse.

[782] _Representations_, s. v. Windsor, Lydd, New Romney, Bassingbourne.

[783] For the legend, see _Acta Sanctorum_, _April_, iii. 101; Jacobus à Voragine, _Legenda Aurea_ (1280), lviii; E. A. W. Budge, _The Martyrdom and Miracles of St. George of Cappadocia: the Coptic Texts_ (Oriental Text Series, 1888). In Rudder, _Hist. of Gloucestershire_, 461, and _Gloucester F. L._ 47, is printed an English version of the legend, apparently used for reading in church on the Sunday preceding St. George’s day, April 23. Cf. also Gibbon (ed. Bury), ii. 472, 568; Hartland, _Perseus_, iii. 38; Baring-Gould, _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_, 266; Zöckler, s. v. St. Georg, in Herzog and Plitt’s _Encyclopedia_; F. Görres, _Ritter St. Georg in Geschichte, Legende und Kunst, in Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie_, xxx (1887), 54; F. Vetter, _Introduction_ to Reimbot von Durne’s _Der heilige Georg_ (1896). Gibbon identified St. George with the Arian bishop George of Cappadocia, and the dragon with Athanasius. This view has been recently revived with much learning by J. Friedrich in _Sitzb. Akad. Wiss. München_ (_phil.-hist. Kl._), 1899, ii. 2. Pope Gelasius (†495) condemned the _Passio_ as apocryphal and heretical, but he admits the historical existence of the saint, whose cult indeed was well established both in East and West in the fifth century. Budge tries to find an historical basis for him in a young man at Nicomedia who tore down an edict during the persecution of Diocletian (†303), and identifies his torturer Dadianus with the co-emperor Galerius.

[784] Du Méril, _La Com._ 98. He quotes Novidius, _Sacri Fasti_ (ed. 1559), bk. vi. f. 48^{vo}:

‘perque annos duci monet [rex] in spectacula casum unde datur multis annua scena locis.’

A fifteenth-century Augsburg miracle-play of St. George is printed by Keller, _Fastnachtsspiele_, No. 125; for other Continental data cf. Creizenach, i. 231, 246; Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 10, 644; D’Ancona, i. 104.

[785] Rabelais, _Gargantua_, iv. 59. The dragon was called Graoully, and snapped its jaws, like the Norwich ‘snap-dragons’ and the English hobby-horse.

[786] Cf. p. 138. The myth has attached itself to other undoubtedly historical persons besides St. George (Bury, _Gibbon_, ii. 569). In his case it is possibly due to a misunderstood bit of rhetoric. In the Coptic version of the legend edited by Budge (p. 223), Dadianus is called ‘the dragon of the abyss.’ There is no literal dragon in this version: the princess is perhaps represented by Alexandra, the wife of Dadianus, whom George converts. Cf. Hartland, _Perseus_, iii. 44.

[787] Cf. ch. xxiv, as to these plays.

[788] I ought perhaps to say that in one of the Coptic versions of the legend St. George is periodically slain and brought back to life by a miracle during the space of seven years. But I do not think that this episode occurs in any of the European versions of the legend.

[789] ‘Sant George and the dragon’ are introduced into a London May-game in 1559 (ch. viii).

[790] See the Manchester _Peace Egg_ chap-book. At Manchester, Langdale, and, I believe, Coniston, the play is performed at Easter: cf. Halliwell, _Popular Rhymes_, 231. The Steyning play is believed to have been given at May-day as well as Christmas. Of course, so far as this goes, the transference might have been from Christmas, not to Christmas, but the German analogies point the other way. The Cheshire performance on All Souls’ Day (Nov. 2), mentioned by Child, v. 291, is, so far as I know, exceptional.

[791] Cf. ch. xvii: In the Isle of Wight the performers are called the ‘Christmas Boys’ (C. R. Smith, _Isle of Wight Words_, in _E. D. S._ xxxii. 63). The terms ‘Seven Champions’ (Kent) and ‘John Jacks’ (Salisbury) have already been explained. The Steyning ‘Tipteers’ or ‘Tipteerers’ may be named from the ‘tips’ collected in the _quête_. The ‘Guisers’ of Staffordshire become on the Shropshire border ‘Morris-dancers,’ ‘Murry-dancers,’ or ‘Merry-dancers’--a further proof of the essential identity of the morris- or sword-dance with the play.

[792] Tille, _Y. and C._ 78, 107; Rhys, _C. H._ 519; cf. ch. v.

[793] Tille, _Y. and C._ 18; _D. W._ 6. Bede, _D. T. R._ 15, gives Blot-monath as the Anglo-Saxon name for November, and explains it as ‘mensis immolationum, quia in ea pecora quae occisuri erant, Diis suis voverent.’

[794] Burton, 15, notes a tradition at Disley, in Cheshire, that the local wake was formerly held after the first fall of snow.

[795] Tille, _Y. and C._ 18.

[796] Mogk, iii. 391; Tille, _Y. and C._ 24, find the winter feast in the festival of Tanfana which the Marsi were celebrating when Germanicus attacked them in A. D. 14 (Tacitus, _Ann._ i. 51). Winter, though imminent, had not yet actually set in, but this might be the case in any year after the festival had come to be determined by a fixed calendar.

[797] Tille, _Y. and C._ 57.

[798] Rhys, _C. H._ 513, says that the _Samhain_ fell on Nov. 1. The preceding night was known as _Nos Galan-geaf_, the ‘night of winter calends,’ and that following as _Dy’ gwyl y Meirw_, ‘the feast of the Dead.’ In _F. L._ ii. 308 he gives the date of the Manx _Samhain_ as Nov. 12, and explains this as being Nov. 1, O. S. But is it not really the original date of the feast which has been shifted elsewhere to the beginning of the month?

[799] Tille, _Y. and C._ 12, citing M. Heyne, _Ulfilas_, 226: ‘In a Gothic _calendarium_ of the sixth century November, or _Naubaímbaír_, is called _fruma Iiuleis_, which presupposes that December was called *_aftuma Iiuleis_.’

[800] Bede, _de temp. rat._ c. 15. Tille, _Y. and C._ 20, points out that the application of the old tide-name to fit November and December by the Goths and December and January by the Anglo-Saxons is fair evidence for the belief that the tide itself corresponded to a period from mid-November to mid-January.

[801] Tille, _Y. and C._ 147. The terms _gehhol_, _geóhel_, _geól_, _giúl_, _iûl_, &c. signify the Christmas festival season from the ninth century onwards, and from the eleventh also Christmas Day itself. The fifteenth-century forms are _Yule_, _Ywle_, _Yole_, _Yowle_. In the A.-S. Chronicle the terms used for Christmas are ‘midewinter,’ ‘Cristes mæssa,’ ‘Cristes tyde,’ ‘Natiuitedh.’ As a single word ‘Cristesmesse’ appears first in 1131 (Tille, _Y. and C._ 159). The German ‘Weihnacht’ (M.H.G. _wich_, ‘holy’) appears †1000 (Tille, _D. W._ 22).

[802] Pfannenschmidt, 238, 512.

[803] The notion is of a circular course of the sun, passing through the four turning- or wheeling-points of the solstices and equinoxes. Cf. ch. vi for the use of the wheel as a solar symbol.

[804] Mogk, iii. 391, quoting Kluge, _Englische Studien_, ix. 311, and Bugge, _Ark. f. nord. Filolog._ iv. 135. Tille, _Y. and C._ 8, 148, desirous to establish an Oriental origin for the Three Score Day tides, doubts the equation *_jehwela_ = _ioculus_, and suggests a connexion between the Teutonic terms and the old Cypriote names ἰλαῖος, ἰουλαῖος, ἰουλίηος, ἰούλιος for the period Dec. 22 to Jan. 23 (K. F. Hermann, _Über griech. Monatskunde_, 64), and, more hesitatingly, with the Greek Ἴουλος or hymn to Ceres. Weinhold, _Deutsche Monatsnamen_, 4; _Deutsche Jahrteilung_, 15, thinks that both the Teutonic and Cypriote names are the Roman _Julius_ transferred from mid-summer to mid-winter. Northall, 208, makes _yule_ = _ol_, _oel_, a feast or ‘ale,’ for which I suppose there is nothing to be said. Skeat, _Etym. Dict._ s. v., makes it ‘a time of revelry,’ and connects with M.E. _youlen_, _yollen_, to ‘yawl’ or ‘yell,’ and with A.-S. _gýlan_, Dutch _joelen_, to make merry, G. _jolen_, _jodeln_, to sing out. He thus gets in a different way much the sense given in the text.

[805] At a Cotswold Whitsun ale a lord and lady ‘of yule’ were chosen (_Gloucester F. L._ 56). Rhys, _C. H._ 412, 421, 515, and in _F. L._ ii. 305, gives _Gwyl_ as a Welsh term for ‘feast’ in general, and in particular mentions, besides the _Gwyl y Meirw_ at the _Samhain_, the _Gwyl Aust_ (Aug. 1, Lammas or Lugnassad Day). This also appears in Latin as the _Gula Augusti_ (Ducange, s. v. temp. Edw. III), and in English as ‘the Gule of August’ (Hearne, _Robert of Gloucester’s Chron._ 679). Tille, _Y. and C._ 56, declares that _Gula_ here is only a mutilation of _Vincula_, Aug. 1 being in the ecclesiastical calendar the feast of St. Peter _ad Vincula_.

[806] Kluge and Lutz, _English Etymology_, s. v. Yule.

[807] Bede, _D. T. R._ c. 15 ‘ipsam noctem nobis sacrosanctam, tunc gentili vocabulo _Modranicht_ [v.l. _Modraneht_], id est, matrum noctem appellabant; ob causam ut suspicamur ceremoniarum, quas in ea pervigiles agebant.’

[808] Mogk, iii. 391. Tille, _Y. and C._ 152, gives some earlier explanations, criticizes that of Mogk, and offers as his own a reference to a custom of baking a cake (_placenta_) to represent the physical motherhood of the Virgin. The practice doubtless existed and was condemned by Pope Hormisdas (514-23), by the Lateran Council of 649, the Council of Hatfield (680), and the Trullan Council (692). But Bede must have known this as a Christian abuse, and he is quite plainly speaking of a pre-Christian custom. J. M. Neale, _Essays in Liturgiology_ (1867), 511, says, ‘In most Celtic languages Christmas eve is called the night of Mary,’ the Virgin, here as elsewhere, taking over the cult of the mother-goddesses.

[809] Tille, _Y. and C._ 65. In his earlier book _D. W._ 7, 29, Dr. Tille held the view that there had always been a second winter feast about three weeks after the first, when the males held over for breeding were slain.

[810] According to Bede, _D. T. R._ c. 15, the Anglo-Saxons had adopted the system of intercalary months which belongs to the pre-Julian and not the Julian Roman calendar. But Bede’s chapter is full of confusions: cf. Tille, _Y. and C._ 145.

[811] All Saints’ day or Hallowmas (November 1) and All Souls’ day (November 2) have largely, though not wholly, absorbed the November feast of the Dead.

[812] Pfannenschmidt, 203; Jahn, 229; Tille, _Y. and C._ 21, 28, 36, 42, 57; _D. W._ 23.

[813] Tille, _D. W._ 29; Müller, 239, 248. According to Tille, _D. W._ 63, Christmas only replaced the days of St. Martin and St. Nicholas as a German children’s festival in the sixteenth century.

[814] Tille, _Y. and C._ 34, 65; Pfannenschmidt, 206; Dyer, 418; N. Drake, _Shakespeare and his Times_ (1838), 93. Martinmas was a favourite Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval legal term. It survived also as a traditional ‘tyme of slauchter’ for cattle. ‘Martlemas beef’ was a common term for salt beef. In Scotland a Mart is a fat cow or bullock, but the derivation of this appears to be from a Celtic word _Mart_ = cow.

[815] Rhys, in _F. L._ ii. 308.

[816] Mommsen, _C. I. L._ i^2. 287; Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encycl._ s. v. _Bruma_; Tomaschek, in _Sitzb. Akad. Wiss. Wien_, lx (1869), 358.

[817] Ovid, _Fasti_, i. 163 ‘bruma novi prima est veterisque novissima solis.’

[818] Cf. p. 112.

[819] Preller, ii. 408; P. Allard, _Julien l’Apostat_, i. 16; J. Réville, _La Religion à Rome sous les Sévères_ (1885); Wissowa, 306. An earlier cult of the same type introduced by Elagabalus did not survive its founder.

[820] The earliest reference is probably that in the calendar of the Greek astronomer, of uncertain date, Antiochus, Ἡλίου γενέθλιον· αὔξει φῶς (Cumont, i. 342, from _Cod. Monac._ gr. 287, f. 132). The _Fasti_ of Furius Dionysius Philocalus (A.D. 354) have ‘VIII. KAL. IAN. N[atalis] INVICTI C[ircenses] M[issus] XXX’ (_C. I. L._ i^2. 278, 338). Cf. Julian, _Orat._ 4 (p. 156 ed. Spanheim) εὐθέως μετὰ τὸν τελευταῖον τοῦ Κρόνου μῆνα ποιοῦμεν ἡλίῳ τὸν περιφανέστατον ἀγῶνα, τὴν ἑορτὴν Ἡλίῳ καταφημίσαντες Ἀνικήτῳ; Corippus, _de laud. Iust. min._ i. 314 ‘Solis honore novi grati spectacula circi’; cf. the Christian references on p. 242. Mommsen’s _Scriptor Syrus_ quoted _C. I. L._ i^2. 338 tells us that lights were used; ‘accenderunt lumina festivitatis causa.’

[821] Preller, ii. 410; Gibbon, ii. 446.

[822] On Mithraicism, cf. F. Cumont, _Textes et Monuments relatifs aux Mystères de Mithra_ (1896-9); also the art. by the same writer in Roscher’s _Lexicon_, ii. 3028, and A. Gasquet, _Le Culte de Mithra_ (_Revue des Deux Mondes_ for April 1, 1899); J. Réville, _La Religion à Rome sous les Sévères_, 77; Wissowa, 307; Preller, ii. 410; A. Gardner, _Julian the Apostate_, 175; P. Allard, _Julien l’Apostat_, i. 18; ii. 232; G. Zippel, _Le Taurobolium_, in _Festschrift f. L. Friedländer_ (1895), 498. Mithra was originally a form of the Aryan Sun-god, who though subordinated in the Mazdean system to Ahoura Mazda continued to be worshipped by the Persian folk. His cult made its appearance in Rome about 70 B.C., and was developed during the third and fourth centuries A.D. under philosophic influences. Mithra was regarded as the fount of all life, and the yearly obscuration of the sun’s forces in winter became a hint and promise of immortality to his worshippers: cf. _Carm. adv. paganos_, 47 ‘qui hibernum docuit sub terra quaerere solem.’ Mithraic votive stones have been found in all parts of the empire, Britain included. They are inscribed ‘Soli Invicto,’ ‘Deo Soli Invicto Mithrae,’ ‘Numini Invicto Soli Mithrae,’ and the like.

[823] Cumont, _Textes et Mon._ i. 325; ii. 66, and in Roscher’s _Lexicon_, ii. 3065; Lichtenberger, _Encycl. des Sciences religieuses_, s. v. Mithra.

[824] Preller, _R. M._ ii. 15; Mommsen, in _C. I. L._ i^2. 337; Marquardt and Mommsen, _Handbuch der römischen Alterthümer_, vi. 562; _Dict. of Cl. A._ s. v. Saturnalia; Tille, _Y. and C._ 85; Frazer, iii. 138; W. W. Fowler, 268; C. Dezobry, _Rome au Siècle d’Auguste_ (ed. 4, 1875), iii. 140.

[825] Horace, _Satires_, ii. 7. 4:

‘age, libertate Decembri, quando ita maiores voluerunt, utere; narra.’

[826] The democratic character of the feast is brought out in the νόμοι put by Lucian (Luc. _Opp._ ed. Jacobitz, iii. 307; _Saturnalia_, p. 393) in the mouth of the divinely instructed νομοθέτης, Chronosolon, and in the ‘Letters of Saturn’ that follow.

[827] According to Tacitus, _Ann._ xiii. 15, Nero was king of the Saturnalia at the time of the murder of Britannicus. On the nature of this sovereignty, cf. Arrian, _Epictetus_, i. 25; Martial, xi. 6:

‘unctis falciferi senis diebus, regnator quibus imperat fritillus.’

Lucian, _Saturnalia_, p. 385, introduces a dialogue between Saturn and his priests. Saturn says ἑπτὰ μὲν ἡμερῶν ἡ πᾶσα βασιλεία, καὶ ἢν ἐκπρόθεσμος τούτων γένωμαι, ἰδιώτης εὐθύς εἰμι, καὶ τοῦ πολλοῦ δήμου εἷσ· ἐν αὐταῖς δέ ταῖς ἑπτὰ σπουδαῖον μὲν οὐδὲν οὐδὲ ἀγοραῖον διοικήσασθαί μοι συγκεχώρηται, πίνειν δὲ καὶ μεθύειν καὶ βοᾶν καὶ παίζειν καὶ κυβεύειν καὶ ἄρχοντας καθίσταναι καὶ τοὺς οἰκέτας εὐωχεῖν καὶ γυμνὸν ἄδειν καὶ κροτεῖν ὑποτρέμοντα, ἐνίοτε δὲ καὶ ἐς ὕδωρ ψυχρὸν ἐπὶ κεφαλὴν ὠθεῖσθαι ἀσβόλῳ κεχρισμένον τὸ πρόσωπον, ταῦτα ἐφεῖταί μοι ποιεῖν; and again: εὐωχώμεθα δὲ ἤδη καὶ κροτῶμεν καὶ ἐπὶ τῆ ἑορτῆ ἐλευθεριάζωμεν, εἲτα πεττεύωμεν ἐς τὸ ἀρχαῖον ἐπὶ καρύων καὶ βασιλέας χειροτονῶμεν καὶ πειθαρχῶμεν αὐτοῖσ· οὕτω γὰρ ἂν τὴν παροιμίαν ἐπαληθεύσαιμι, ἥ φησι, παλίμπαιδας τοὺς γέροντας γίγνεσθαι. The ducking is curiously suggestive of western festival customs, but I do not feel sure whether it was the image of Saturn that was ducked or the _rex_ with whom he appears to half, and only half, identify himself. Frazer,