Mummers' Plays (also known as mumming) are seasonal folk plays performed by troupes of actors known as mummers or guisers (or by local names such as rhymers, pace-eggers, soulers, tipteerers, galoshins and so on), originally in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (see wrenboys), but later in other parts of the world. They are sometimes performed in the street but more usually as house-to-house visits and in public houses.
Although the term "mummers" has been used since medieval times, no play scripts or performance details survive from that era, and the term may have been used loosely to describe performers of several different kinds. Mumming may have precedents in German and French carnival customs, with rare but close parallels also in late medieval England (see below).
The earliest evidence of mummers' plays as they are known today (usually involving a magical cure by a quack doctor) is from the mid to late 18th century. Mumming plays should not be confused with the earlier mystery plays.
Mummers' and guisers' plays
Although there are earlier hints (such as a fragmentary speech by St George from Exeter, Devon, which may date from 1737, although published in 1770), the earliest complete text appears to be an undated chapbook of Alexander and the King of Egypt, published by J White in Newcastle upon Tyne between 1746–1769.
The fullest early version of a mummers' play text is probably the 1779 "Morrice Dancers'" play from Revesby, Lincolnshire. The full text ("A petygree of the Plouboys or modes dancers songs") is available online [1] and [2]. Although performed at Christmas, this text is a forerunner of the local East Midlands variants usually performed on or around Plough Monday (see below) and often known as Plough Plays.
A text from Islip, Oxfordshire, dates back to 1780 [3].
A play text which had, until recently, been attributed to Mylor in Cornwall (much quoted in early studies of folk plays, such as The Mummers Play by RJE Tiddy – published posthumously in 1923 – and The English Folk-Play (1933) by EK Chambers) has now been shown, by genealogical and other research, to have originated in Truro, Cornwall, around 1780 ([4] and [5]).
A play from an unknown locality in Cheshire, close to the border with Wales, dates from before 1788 [6].
Chapbook versions of The Christmas Rhime or The Mummer's Own Book were published in Belfast, c.1803-1818 [7]. A mummers' play from Ballybrennan, County Wexford, Ireland, dating from around 1817-18, was published in 1863 [8].
Thomas Hardy's novel The Return of the Native (1878) has a fictional depiction of a mummers' play on Edgon Heath. It was based on experience from his childhood.
Early examples
Although the main season for mumming throughout Britain was around Christmas, some parts of England had plays performed around All Souls' Day (known as Souling or soul-caking) or Easter (Pace-egging or Peace-egging). In north-eastern England the plays are traditionally associated with Sword dances or Rapper dances.
In some parts of Britain and Ireland, the plays are traditionally performed on or near Plough Monday and are therefore known as Plough Plays. The performers were known by various names, according to area, such as Plough-jags, Plough-jacks, Plough-bullocks, Plough-stots or Plough witches. The Plough Plays of the East Midlands of England (principally Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire) usually have a different plot from the Christmastime "St George" type of play and feature several different stock characters (including a Recruiting Sergeant, Tom Fool, Dame Jane and the "Lady bright and gay"). Tradition has it that plough boys would take their plays from house to house and perform in exchange for money or gifts, in a similar way to the American custom of Trick-or-treat; some teams pulled a plough and threatened to plough up people's front gardens or path if they did not pay up. Examples of the play have been found in Denmark since the late 1940s.
Other related customsThere are other traditional English folk plays which do not involve a quack doctor. Around Sheffield and in nearby parts of northern Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire a dramatised version of the well-known Derby Ram folksong, known as the Derby Tup ("tup" is another word for ram), has been performed, since at least 1895, by teams of boys. The brief play is usually introduced by two characters, an old man and an old woman ("Me and our owd lass"). The Tup was usually represented by a boy, bent over forwards, covered with a sack, and carrying a broomstick with a rough, wooden sheep's head attached. The Tup was killed by a Butcher, and sometimes another boy held a basin to catch the "blood".
The Derby TupAn 'Owd 'Oss play (Old Horse), another dramatised folksong, was also known from roughly the same area, in the late 19th [9] and early 20th centuries [10], around Christmas. The custom persisted until at least 1970, when it was performed in private houses and pubs in Dore on New Year's Day [11]. A group of men accompanied a hobby horse (either a wooden head, with jaws operated by strings, or a real horse's skull, painted black and red, mounted on a wooden pole so that its snapping jaws could be operated by a man stooping under a cloth to represent the horse's body) and sang a version of The Old Horse or Poor Old Horse, which describes a decrepit horse that is close to death.
The Old Horse
In 1831 Sir Walter Scott published a rhyme which had been used as a prelude to the sword dance in Papa Stour, Shetland in around 1788 . It features seven characters, Saint George, Saint James, Saint Dennis, Saint David, Saint Patrick, Saint Anthony and Saint Andrew, the Seven Champions of Christendom. All the characters are introduced in turn by the Master, St George. There is no real interplay between the characters and no combat or cure, so it is more of a "calling-on song" than a play. Some of the characters dance solos as they are introduced, then all dance a longsword dance together, which climaxes with their swords being meshed together to form a "shield". They each dance with the shield upon their head, then it is laid on the floor and they withdraw their swords to finish the dance. St George makes a short speech to end the performance.
See also: Rapper sword and Long Sword dance.
The Papa Stour Sword Dance
The word mummer is sometimes explained to derive from Middle English mum ("silent") or Greek mommo ("mask"), but is more likely to be associated with Early New High German mummer ("disguised person", attested in Johann Fischart) and vermummen ("to wrap up, to disguise, to mask ones faces").
While the game mum(en)schanz was played not only by masked persons, and not only during carnival, the German word mummenschanz nevertheless took on the meaning "costume, masquerade" and, by the 18th century, had lost its association with gambling and dice.
The custom attested for early modern Germany and France seems to have parallels also in late medieval England. According to History and the Morris Dance (2005) by John Cutting (page 81), there was a curious event in 1377, where 130 men on horseback went "mumming" to the Prince of Wales (later Richard II). They threw some dice, which appear to have been loaded dice, and so lost several gold rings. The rings were effectively presents for the prince. In 1418 a law was passed forbidding "mumming, plays, interludes or any other disguisings with any feigned beards, painted visors, deformed or coloured visages in any wise, upon pain of imprisonment". In the first case the event was on February 2, nine days before Ash Wednesday, and may well have been a carnival practice. In the second case, the law was applied to "the Feast of Christmas" (Cutting page 83), not related to the ordinary period of carnival preceding the Christian fasting of Lent, yet maybe related to Christmas fasting, which went ordinarily from November 11 to January 6.
It should be pointed out that there is no clear evidence linking these late medieval and early modern customs with English mummers' plays in the late 18th century, nor evidence for proving that the English words mummer and mumming are more likely to be derived from continental roots than vice versa.
Etymology and early precedents
Other kinds of Mummers
Although they can be dated back to John Langstaff's 1957 New York City Concert, "The Revels" did not become popular across the USA until the 1970's. They are a loose association of people trying to keep folk traditions alive. They perform Christmas Carols, sword dances and Mummers' Plays. Links: History, and Revels
Revels
The province of Newfoundland and Labrador, in Canada, has a two-hundred-year long tradition of mummering or janneying between Christmas and January 6 (Twelfth Day). In complete disguise the mummers go from house to house to entertain and socialize. Often men dress as outsized women, but no one is supposed to be recognizable. People often give alcoholic beverages to the mummers.
Newfoundland Mummers
