FOLK-DRAMA.
IN the following pages I shall not emulate the example of writers on English dramatic history, who ascribe the origin of our drama to the mediæval miracle-plays in a truly traditionary manner. If they could be questioned as to why they did this, I feel persuaded they could give no better answer than that which ever delights the ears of the folk-lore collector: “Because our fathers did it.” I feel that Folk-Lore is not the place to trample on tradition; but this particular tradition is of literary origin, and I hope the mention of that fact alone will enlist the reader’s sympathies on the side of the iconoclast.
The author of a recent work on the English stage—a work in many respects of great importance and usefulness—even protests against the taking into account of early acting in rural districts and provincial towns in connection with “the general history of the stage”. All such matters he leaves aside as having no place in a book intended “as an aid to the literary student”.
The English drama, it is evident, is regarded as a literary institution, for which an arbitrary literary origin is to be accepted. Conformably with this conception, the same author remarks: “The principal reason for the existence of any players at all must be looked for in Court fashion and Royal patronage.” It is very clear that the people, the folk, are nowhere in this account. The usual conception of the origin of our drama may be stated in a few words as follows: It arose from the miracle-plays and mysteries, which gave way to moralities and interludes; these were succeeded by the Elizabethan drama, which was a child of the Renaissance, whose playwrights wrought under the inspiration of the classical drama of Greece and Rome.
It is to be noted, in the first place, that the Elizabethan theatre was before all things a popular institution. Now if we consider on the one hand the character of the plays presented, and on the other the average culture of the people, that popularity is surprising. It seems to me the explanation is to be found in the natural aptitude of the English people for the drama, an aptitude which shows itself throughout our history. There were hundreds of dramas extant in the Elizabethan time which are now lost to us; if that is so, it is highly probable there were many more belonging to an earlier period similarly lost. The few morality-plays and interludes that have come down to us do not represent the pre-Elizabethan drama. There was no reason for the preservation of obsolete plays; in the more conscious days of Elizabeth’s time, the old plays were rejected and scorned from the art standpoint, and the MSS decayed or were destroyed. The few that have survived probably did so by selection, and so are not representative. The same people who in their youth listened absorbed at the performance of interludes and moralities, in middle-age saw them caricatured in the humours of Bottom and his fellows. But the satire of the interlude in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is levelled at the player rather than the old plays; it is the gibe of the professional at the amateur. All over England before Shakespeare’s time there were companies of players, and they were all amateurs; servants attached to the great houses of the land, who, with allowances for caricature, rehearsed plays in the manner of Bottom and Quince and Snug, and on festive occasions were admitted into the great houses and gave their performances in presence of the company assembled. These players, too, were permitted, by license of their masters, to visit neighbouring towns, and perform there for the sake of the rewards bestowed on them. Entries of rewards to such players swarm in Corporation Accounts, and it is the doings of these companies of actors which are ruled out of court by the author I have alluded to.
The dramatic activity in our country before the Shakespeare epos is extraordinary, if we consider its quantity merely. But because it was crude, and was immediately followed by surpassing art, it cannot be divorced from that art. The dramatic aptitude of the English folk, and the energy that must have been thrown into obsolete, lost, and forgotten dramas, had their reward when culture and genius condescended to them. They had made a conduit pipe through which could flow music and wisdom from the highest to the lowest. But the making of that pipe belongs to the folk. And we are to consider that however open to ridicule the folk-players might be, as in Midsummer Night’s Dream, or to correction as in Hamlet, the acting of the best of them, who naturally gravitated to the metropolis, must have been good to have attracted and retained the attention of culture. The word “drama” primarily signifies “action”; and however the playwrights may have ransacked classical sources for their plays, the dramatic action they could not borrow. That at least was original, and if not original, traditional.
All symbolic or concerted action and gesture are exceedingly traditionary. It is a point to which I shall allude in another connection presently; but I introduce it now because it applies to every stage of development. In this matter we are still children, and resent variation. We all remember that when Mr. Irving was unfolding his series of Shakespearean conceptions some years ago at the Lyceum, how his new renderings were rejected by many. We always want to see plays acted as we have seen them acted before. It is only recently that the venerable stage-tradition in Hamlet, by which the First Gravedigger was made to take off innumerable waistcoats before setting to work, has given way to criticism—a tradition among players from the Elizabethan period. Those who regard Elizabethan plays as literature only, surely forget that they were written for actors already in existence, with their traditions and plays of a cruder form. But the remembrance of that fact is necessary to the criticism of the plays as literary masterpieces. We should not have had the plays but for the conditions. It was the popular drama and quick dramatic sense which begot the higher drama of culture and classical colour.
There are facts antecedent to the Shakespeare drama, facts of folk-lore essentially, to which the attention of students of the drama may be appropriately invited in these pages. When we are told that the origin of the English drama was the miracle and mystery-plays, which were organised by the priests and monks of religious houses, we, who seek for causes, ask: Why did the Church organise these dramatic representations? In most cases we receive no answer. But “a French writer”, quoted by Warton, and others from him, hints that the object was to “supersede the dancing, music, mimicry, and profane mummeries” to which the folk were addicted. Still questioning, we inquire into the nature of these dancing and profane mummeries. But the historians cannot tell us: they paid no heed to tradition; their object is literary criticism. Again we ask: Why it was thought advisable or necessary to provide these dramatic representations of Scripture and Church legends; but we receive no answer. In fact, we cannot get beyond the miracles and mysteries; this was the beginning, a starting-point which has become traditional in dramatic history.
The explanation is the same as in the case of those writers who can see no connection between the sudden perfection of the Elizabethan drama and the crudities that preceded it. The miracle-plays and the mysteries exist. The MSS. have been preserved, have been printed, edited, furnished with copious exegesis and commentary. They have been studied as literature. Now their value as literature is surely taken on trust. The pieces were written down to the rude pagan mind, and their value lies in that circumstance. They were devised to captivate the eye, to arrest attention, to impress on unwilling or indifferent minds, innocent of all cultivation, the personalities and the stories of the Christian cult. If we may not deny them a place as literature, we may regard them as they are, exotics, foreign to the people in their origin. Their position in relation to literature corresponds, perhaps, to that of chap-books; rude versions of literary subjects prepared for unlettered people. The Bible is literature, and Homer, and the Sagas: but these plays, devised by ecclesiastics for didactic purposes, have a very different origin and development. In relation to the mediæval history of England they are extremely important; and when they are so studied, the obvious direction of inquiry will be into the condition of things amid which they were introduced, into those pagan performances of a dramatic character which they were devised to supplant.
For the sake of clearness it is perhaps not superfluous to set down the fact that the Saxon invasion of England preceded the introduction of Christianity. From this source, and from the later Danish immigrations, are derived the original elements, Teutonic and Scandinavian, of English folk-lore. Of these elements, those of which it may be predicated most clearly that they belong to the Northern mythology, are song and dance, and combined or concerted imitative action of any kind. Why these elements never intermarried, and so never produced a Northern literary drama, is due probably to political causes; because in the poetry of the Eddas, in the religious rites of the warlike worship of Odin, in the power of expression as shown by the scalds, and the musical capacity as shown by the Saxon gleemen, we have the constituents of the drama as clearly as in the South and in India. In the sword-dance performed by young warriors in honour of the chief Teutonic god, as described by Tacitus, we have a parallel to the Dorian choral dances representing military movements, in honour of Apollo, the god of war and music. To the Rhapsodists, in whose union with the Dorian choruses, the Bacchic dances, and the Dionysian rites we find the origin of Greek drama, we may oppose the Northern scalds. And may we not conclude that had it not been for the introduction of Christianity we should have had in the North a drama corresponding to that of Greece, a direct outcome of the mythology of the Eddas and the rites of the worship of Odin? The constituents existed: the combination was wanting. Now it is the survivals of those elements in the folk-lore and traditionary customs of our country that I venture to call English folk-drama. These various links of tradition, when completed and placed in order, will carry us up to that embryonic state of natural dramatic development which preceded the introduction of a foreign element in the shape of miracle-plays and mysteries.
In the accompanying diagram I have attempted to place in parallel lines the development of the drama among the European divisions of the Indo-Germanic race. It will be seen then that while the Greek and Roman drama have developed regularly and independently from pagan religious observances, in the case of the Teutonic and Scandinavian branches the development has been deflected by the introduction of Christianity.
In India the development has been normal throughout. Monier Williams, in his Indian Wisdom, thus describes the origin of the Hindu drama:—
"In all likelihood the germ of the dramatic representations of the Hindus, as of the Greeks, is to be sought for in public exhibitions of dancing, which consisted at first of simple movements of the body, executed in harmony with singing and music. Indeed, the root naṭ and the nouns nāṭya and nāṭaka, which are now applied to dramatic acting, are probably mere corruptions of nṛit, to ‘dance’, nṛitya, ‘dancing’, and nartaka, ‘a dancer’. Of this dancing various styles were gradually invented, such as the Lāsya and Tāṇḍava, to express different actions or various sentiments and emotions.
“Very soon dancing was extended to include pantomimic gesticulations accompanied with more elaborate musical performances, and these gesticulations were aided by occasional exclamations between the intervals of singing. Finally, natural language took the place of music and singing, while gesticulation became merely subservient to emphasis in dramatic dialogue.”
Such was the origin of the Indian drama, and dramatic literature, comparable in every sense with that of Greece and Rome: and a development of the drama in northern Europe, in the absence of Greece, and Rome, and of Christianity, would probably have yielded a very close parallel to that of India. But it is to the actual effect of Christianity upon the drama of Europe to which I desire to direct attention.
In the following diagram I have endeavoured to give in graphic form my conception of the lines of development of the classical and European drama, with the special object of showing the influence of Christianity on the latter. It will be observed that there is nothing to correspond to classical drama in Teutonic countries, in which to some extent the actual classical drama was utilised. | Pagan Religious Observances. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| INDO-GERMANIC. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Greek and Roman. | Teutonic and Scandinavian. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Classical Drama | Nothing to correspond with Classical Drama. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Decayed Classical Drama. | Christianity. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mimes. | Folk Drama. | Folk Drama. | Folk Drama. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ` | ` | ` | ` | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ` | ` | Miracle Plays. | ` | ` | |||||||||||||||||||
| ` | ` | ` | ` | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ` | ` | Renaissance. | Renaissance. | ` | ` | ||||||||||||||||||
| ` | Diminishing | ` | ` | Diminishing | ` | ||||||||||||||||||
| ` | Folk Drama of | ` | ` | Folk Drama of | ` | ||||||||||||||||||
| ` | Romance Countries. | ` | ` | Teutonic Countries. | ` | ||||||||||||||||||
| ` | ` | Elizabethan Drama: with folk elements | ` | ` | |||||||||||||||||||
| ` | ` | Literary Drama of Romance Countries. | and folk-colour but largely | ` | ` | ||||||||||||||||||
| ` | ` | reflective of Classical Drama. | ` | ` | |||||||||||||||||||
| ` | ` | ` | ` | ||||||||||||||||||||
My reading of the genealogy of the English epic drama is the meeting of two forces, Pagan and Christian, resulting in the concession of the miracle-play and mystery; that alongside the miracle-plays, the traditional embryonic drama continued to exist, competition with which led eventually to mixing or debasing the miracle-play representations and ultimately to their abolition; that at the Renaissance the popular actors became provided with written secular plays founded partly on traditional subjects; that in the composition of pageants or masques the popular pagan traditions became combined with reproductions of Greek and Roman classical themes; that a similar combination occurred in the Elizabethan drama, notably in Shakespeare, where the fairy mythology of the folk is interweaved with the plots and stories of the plays. And thus, by repeated efforts, the development was brought back as far as possible to the line, and the racial character of our drama was redeemed.
It seems to me that this is to give our drama a more illustrious lineage, and a more natural origin, than by ascribing it to the miracle-plays of the Middle Ages. What may have been contributed by the miracle-play—but we cannot be sure—is the form of dialogue, the conduct of a story by speaking characters. But this the ecclesiastics borrowed from Greece and Rome. Our Saxon forefathers may even have had a rude form of it themselves. It is possible that traditions of the dramatic action used by the scalds in their recitals of the Eddas—parts of which are in dialogue form—may have lingered among them; nor should it be forgotten that the folk-tales of a race with such remarkable dramatic propensities would receive a dramatic rendering in recitation. In the Elizabethan drama I find not a trace of the miracle-play. On the other hand, I do find it in some of the elements which were thrust into the miracle-plays, when the dramatic genius of the people, rude as it may have been, could no longer be restrained, and unconsciously strove to make the religious plays hold the mirror up to nature. And when I come to Shakespeare I feel that the clash of arms, the battles, the warlike processions, belong by right of blood and ancestry to the sword-dance of Odin.
The facility with which folk-drama became combined with the literary drama is explainable by the fact of their common origin. The combination was of crude and undeveloped dramatic elements, existing in the body of the national tradition, with the reflected drama of classical Greece and Rome, both having a common origin, the Northern undeveloped, the Southern developed. In this sense English drama has carried on the spirit of the ancient classical drama from the point of decadence. If it were necessary to demonstrate that the early Elizabethan dramatic writers reflected the ancient classic literature, it could be done by enumerating the plays, when it would appear that an overwhelming proportion of them were taken from this source. But the way in which the native elements entered into this reflected drama is equally clear—the combination of the folk-drama with the literary. In Shakespeare himself it is peculiarly evident; and the latter-day German appreciation of Shakespeare is explainable on this ground. He is full of the Teutonic spirit, as well as of the Southern culture; and his power rests upon his extraordinary educational influence. He not only poetised the national history; he interpreted to his nation the higher mental furniture of another branch of the same race. He personifies in himself the union of folk-drama with the literary drama.
As in the case of folk-tales, so with folk-drama, the traditional becomes absorbed by the literary, and the traditional goes on just the same, in obedience to the laws of its existence, splitting up, taking fresh colour, changing and yet retaining identity; and by-and-bye comes the commentator, who, noting the resemblances to the literary form would, if he could, dismiss these poor honest waifs and strays as mere limbs of literary origin. Because all that was artistically possible in folk-drama became absorbed in the literary drama, we will not feel less, but more, interest in these traditionary contributions to a noble art. By way of taking a nearer view of folk-drama, let us examine one of the chief channels by which the traditions flowed.
The Gilds were a thoroughly Saxon institution. Dr. E. W. Wilda, in his Das Gildenwesen in Mittelalter, ascribes their origin to the sacrificial feasts of the Teutonic peoples. Lappenberg adopts the same view, which is supported also by Thorpe in his Diplomatarium Anglicum. Grimm has the following on the origin of the word “Gild”: “Gildan, keltan among its many meanings, has also to do with worship and sacrifice; it was from the old sacrificial banquets that our guilds took their name.” Dr. Lujo Brentano, in his Essay on the History and Development of Gilds, claims that the first gilds were formed on the basis of the family, and that they were sacrificial unions, from which later on the religious gilds were developed for association in prayer and good works. Mr. Toulmin Smith denies the origin in pagan sacrificial feasts; but on the antiquity of English gilds he is emphatic. He says: “English Gilds, as a system of widespread practical institutions, are older than any kings of England. They are told of in the books that contain the oldest relics of English laws. The old laws of King Alfred, of King Ina, of King Athelstan, of King Henry I, reproduce still older laws in which the universal existence of Gilds is treated as a matter of well-known fact, and in which it is taken to be a matter of course that everyone belonged to some Gild.” An origin that looks back from the time of Alfred is practically speaking Teutonic or Scandinavian; and here we have a channel from which the traditions of sacrificial rites flowed with less interruption than where the folk were more immediately under priestly influence. It is true that the religious character of the gilds changed from pagan to Christian, and as Christian became ultimately associated with the miracle-plays; but the point is the independence belonging to an aggregation of individuals, organised according to tradition, as an agency for maintaining tradition. In his interesting little book on Stratford-on-Avon, Mr. Lee has the following passage, which describes these institutions when they had become clearly English as distinct from Teutonic:—
“The early English guilds must not be confounded with the modern survival in the City of London. The guilds owed their origin to popular religious observances, and developed into institutions of local self-help. They were societies at once religious and friendly, ‘collected for the love of God and our soul’s need’. Members of both sexes—and the women were almost as numerous as the men—were admitted on payment of a small annual subscription This primarily secured for them the performances of certain religious rites, which were more valued than life itself. While the members lived, but more especially after their death, lighted tapers were duly distributed in their behalf, before the altars of the Virgin and of their patron saints in the parish church. A poor man in the Middle Ages found it very difficult, without the intervention of the guilds, to keep this road to salvation always open. Relief of the poor and of necessitous members also formed part of the guild’s objects, and gifts were frequently awarded to members anxious to make pilgrimage to Canterbury, and at times the spinster members received dowries from the association. The regulation which compelled the members to attend the funeral of any of their fellows united them among themselves in close bonds of intimacy.
“But the social spirit was mainly fostered by a great annual meeting. On that occasion all members were expected to attend in special uniform. With banners flying, they marched in procession to church, and subsequently sat down together to a liberal feast. The guilds were strictly lay associations. Priests, in many towns, were excluded from them, and where they were admitted held no more prominent place than the laymen. The guilds employed mass priests to celebrate their religious services, but they were the paid servants of the fraternity. Every member was expected to leave at his death as much property as he could spare to the guilds, and thus in course of time they became wealthy corporations. They all were governed by their own elected officers—wardens, aldermen, beadles, and clerks, and a common council formed of their representatives kept watch over their property and rights.”
That shows a perfectly independent organisation, and if such an organisation undertook the performance of miracle-plays, it was at no priestly dictation. The gradation was perfectly natural, by which traditionary rites were replaced by miracle-plays on the occasions of the gild festivals. And the body of tradition thus sheltered under the wing of the gilds far into the mediæval period, was considerable; nor did it become wholly displaced or absorbed, but has continued a slowly diminishing quantity ever since. This was the channel by which a large part of English folk-drama kept an independent existence.
Thus it is we must look to municipal and local custom and observance for traditions of dramatic import. We find that at Coventry, one of the chief homes of the miracle-play, on the occasions of royal visits to the city, was exhibited, among other pageants, the pageant of “St. George”, which was secular and legendary in character. The word pageant seems to have undergone a good deal of modification in its application and meaning—from being employed to describe the performance itself, it came to be applied to the movable stage on which miracle-plays were presented, and its use appears to have some connection with the dissociation of the miracle-plays from the churches where they were originally performed. This transition probably did not escape Warton, and he points out that the pageants, which on civil occasions derived great part of their decorations and characters from historical fact, were a nearer approximation to the regular drama than the mysteries. Mysteries and miracle-plays, and pageants consisting of the dramatic presentation of legendary subjects, seem to have alternated as occasion served or suggested. Let us take a particular town—Leicester. Here the religious gilds flourished; miracle-plays were performed, and pageants were presented. In this town one of the religious gilds was dedicated to St. George, the patron saint of England, whose festival is on the 23rd April, and hence at Leicester the popular celebrations in honour of St. George were kept up with remarkable vigour. Now I am not going to identify St. George, or analyse the legend; I am not even at this moment going to inquire whether the Saint has been fastened upon a legend that came here with our Teutonic or Scandinavian fathers. But I find the celebrations in his honour at Leicester to be entirely secular, popular, organised by a gild, and uninfluenced by ecclesiasticism. The same celebrations took place every year at Stratford-on-Avon, and in this connection it is curious to note the date of the festival of St. George, the 23rd April, Shakespeare’s birthday. That day used to be a general holiday in Stratford in the Middle Ages, as it ought to be now for a prouder cause. There are some notices of these celebrations at Leicester, at Stratford, at London, and elsewhere, which I will briefly refer to, in order that we may note the elements of the legend and their dramatic presentation.
In 1416, at Windsor, a performance took place before the Emperor Sigismund and Henry V, divided into three parts, first, “the armyng of Seint George, and an Angel doyng on his spores” [spurs]; secondly, “Saint George ridyng and fightyng with the dragon, with his spear in his hand”; and thirdly, “a castell, and Saint George and the Kynge’s daughter ledyng the lambe in at the castel gates.” No speeches are mentioned; probably it was all pantomime, as we should say now, the original meaning of the word drama having become changed. But assuredly a very pretty spectacle, in the year after Agincourt, where, doubtless, many a spirited charge was made in the name of the English saint, as Shakespeare makes the King invoke him in Henry V, before Harfleur:
“Upon this charge
Cry God for Harry, England, and Saint George!”
This was a royal affair; we will glance at some local celebrations. It is to be noted, by the way, that the spectacles of St. George were invariably arranged in connection with a well or water-conduit. In a description of the reception of Prince Edward at Coventry in 1474, printed in Sharpe’s Coventry Mysteries, among various pageants, and speeches, and minstrelsy, the following occurs: “Upon the Condite in the Crosse Chepyng was seint George armed and Kynges doughr knelyng afore hym wt a lambe and the fader and the moder beying in a toure a boven beholdyng seint George savyng their doughr from the dragon. And the Condite rennying wine in iiij places and mynstralsey of Organ pleyinge and seint George havying this speche under wrytten . . . . .”
In proof of the legend having been the subject of a folk-play, it is to be noted that at the performance of the play of “St. George” at Basingbourne in 1511, John Hobard, a brotherhood priest, received 2s. 8d. for “bearing the book”, or, in other words, for filling the office of prompter (J. P. Collier, Hist. Dram. Poet.). Throsby, the historian of Leicester, describes the “Riding of the George” as “the grandest solemnity of the town”. It was a point of honour with the Gild of St. George in Leicester to maintain the custom. An Act of the Corporation Common Hall, passed in 1467, made it incumbent on all the inhabitants to attend the mayor “for the Riding of the George.” Penalties were inflicted by the Corporation upon itself, or its officers, for failure to uphold the ceremony. In 1523 it was ordered by the Common Hall that whoever should be master of St. George’s Gild, “should cause the George to be ridden, according to the old ancient custom, that is to say, between St. George’s day and Whitsunday.” In case of neglect a penalty of five pounds was to be inflicted; and if the mayor and chamberlains failed to enforce it, they were to be fined respectively 26s. 8d. and 6s. 8d. From an entry in the Chamberlain’s Account in 1536, of an item “for dressing of the dragon”, we may infer that the Leicester ceremony was of the usual kind, although it is always quaintly styled “the Riding of the George”. There was a Gild of St. George at Norwich, and the pageant of “St. George and the Dragon” always accompanied the mayor and corporation in their processions.
Passing now from the dramatised versions of the legend of St. George and the Dragon, let us briefly review another folk-drama, the Robin Hood play. This play, which is printed in Gutch’s Robin Hood, is the direct outcome of the May Games. When we survey the early English celebration of the great spring festival we become already conscious of resemblances to the folk-lore of other races; the May-pole, as the May-tree, may be claimed as the Celtic variant of the world-tree, an Eastern legend, which again has been identified with the ash Ygdrasill; and the original of the most interesting personage of the May game or play may be denied to the North and ascribed to the Southern goddess Flora, who by this supposition was brought hither by the early missionaries. But that the spring festival was celebrated independently by the Northern peoples there can be no doubt.
In connection with the popular custom of celebrating the strife between winter and summer—common to both Teuton and Celt—Grimm says:
“I hope I have proved the antiquity and significance of the conceptions of Summer and Winter, but there is one point I wish to dwell upon more minutely. The dressing-up of the two champions in foliage and flowers, in straw and moss, the dialogue that probably passed between them, the accompanying chorus of spectators, all exhibit the first rude shifts of dramatic art, and a history of the German stage ought to begin with such performances. The wrappage of leaves represents the stage-dress and masks of a later time. Once before (p. 594), in the solemn procession for rain, we saw such leafy garb. Popular custom exhibits a number of variations, having preserved one fragment here and another there, of the original whole.” (Grimm's Teutonic Mythology., ii, 784.)
In the worship and ritual of Odin and in the celebrations of the seasons lie the beginnings of our Northern drama; and there is no call to regard the devious stream of tradition from this source in the spirit that denies, or with wilful scepticism. The adaptive power of tradition is a source of difficulty to the student, but it is that which gives its peculiar value to tradition. Robin Hood became King of the May, a genuine English product; and the Queen of the May became indifferently, Maid Marian, lady, or queen. The king and queen, or lord and lady, presided over the May games. They led the processions. Spoken words were introduced; Friar Tuck and other characters were added, and so the Robin Hood play was evolved. A genuine folk-play, which, by the way, has been the theme of the libretto of a recent comic opera.
As to the national character of this folk-play, I have no wish to exaggerate, but I fancy there is hardly a district in England where it was unknown. Nearly all the parochial records and accounts contain notices of it. It is frequently described as the King Play or the King Game, or the Game of King and Queen. One of the earliest notices I know of is contained in the 38th Canon of the Council of Worcester, held in 1240, where, in reference to the fact that Robin Hood, outlaw as he was, found sanctuary within the church, clergymen, after being forbidden to join in disreputable games or dancings, or to play at dice, are enjoined that they shall not allow games of King and Queen to be acted. In Machyn’s Diary, under date 24th June 1559, we read: “There was a May-game, with a giant, and drums, and guns, and the ix worthies, with speeches; and then Saint George and the Dragon, the morris-dance, and after Robin Hood, and Little John, and Maid Marion, and friar Tuck, and they had speeches, round about London. The xxvth day of June the same May-game went unto the palace at Greenwich, playing afore the Queen and Council.” The reference to the Nine Worthies “with speeches”, is to the Pageant of “The ix Worthys and King Arthur”, which is recorded as having been performed at Coventry on the occasion of the visit to that town of Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII, in 1498; and the reference to Robin Hood and his fellows “with speeches” is to the “Robin Hood” play.
It is noticeable here that the combination of various distinct plays or pageants are spoken of as a “May Game”. And the same entertainment was often given at Easter and Whitsuntide. Other plays which occasionally figured in the programme were the pageant of the “Three Kings of Cologne”, and the pageant of the “Lord of Misrule”, although this latter was more frequently represented at Christmas.
Perhaps it was from this custom of acting several pageants, or plays, on the same occasion that they lost individuality at a later date. Another cause of confusion never to be lost sight of, was the break of continuity under the Puritan domination. The various traditional plays which, roughly speaking, have been recorded during the past 150 years are certainly mixed in character. These are almost always associated with Christmas. I will not now enter upon a detailed analysis of these plays, generally known as Mummers’ Plays, some of which have been printed in the Record and Journal of the Folk-lore Society. In the Cornish version we have St. George and the Dragon and the King of Egypt’s Daughter; in all of them we have St. George, in most of them the Dragon figures. We may safely conclude that the body of these traditional plays is derived from the pageant of “St. George and the Dragon”; and the Turkish Knight, who invariably figures in the plays and fights with St. George, may have been introduced after the Crusades, as is generally supposed. The Doctor, who heals the combatants when they are supposed to be slain in the fights that always take place, was no doubt originally a magician, and the long staff which he usually carries supports that conclusion. For a long time I could not see the application of the rhyme in Scott’s Marmion—
“Who lists may in their Mumming see
Traces of ancient mystery.”
But a version printed by Halliwell in The Archœologist, which I have now made acquaintance with, contains the character of Judas, no doubt taken from the mysteries. He enters saying:
“Here comes in Judas—Judas is my name.
Come drop some silver in the bag—it was for that I came.”
There is a reference, at the beginning of this play, to this Feast of Fools. In many versions, St. George became Prince George, or King George, in compliment to our 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 Folk-Lore, 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 Pickle Herring [one of the characters] stamps with his foot, and the Fool rises on his knees again.” A little more parleying, and “Then the Dancers, putting their swords round the Fool’s neck again,” the Fool proceeds to make further absurd bequests. The same kind of thing is repeated, with scraps of song and dialogue between the placing of swords about the Fool and the threats that he is to die. This action, taken in connection with the title of the piece, “The Plow Boys or Morris Dancers,” establishes it as a Teutonic tradition—a Lincolnshire variant of the combination of the sword-dance with the “Fool Plough” festival which was peculiar to the northern counties—as the following passage from Grimm will show:—
“Frigg, the daughter of Fiörgynn, as consort of the highest god, takes rank above all other goddesses: she knows the fates of men, is consulted by Odinn, administers oaths, handmaids fulfil her hest, she presides over marriages, and her aid is implored by the childless; hence hionagras is also called Friggjargras. We may remember those maidens yet unmarried being yoked to the plough of the goddess whose commands they had too long defied. In some parts of Northern England, in Yorkshire, especially Hallamshire, popular customs show remnants of the worship of Frieg. 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.”[1]
In this case, perhaps, the importance of the action of the piece is so clear that it need not be insisted upon. But in all folk-drama it is the same. What is of first consequence is the action and the characters represented; the dialogue is of secondary importance altogether. Those of my hearers who have seen these traditionary plays performed, cannot fail to have remarked the unalterable adherence to custom and tradition by the actors; not a step is allowed to be changed, not a gesture. A folk-play as performed by one generation is an exact reproduction of the play as performed in the previous generation. Very often the performers themselves are obviously oblivious of the meaning of their gestures and words; old words are used, which are quite obsolete in the dialect of the district; actions are rendered with a studious adherence to tradition, but sometimes a little removed from the exact part of the dialogue to which they belong, and when that happens the solemnity of the actors appears a little grotesque. But what is important for us to note, is the fact that that permanence of traditional acting gives us something far older in these folk-dramas than the dialogue, which in most cases appears to belong to the seventeenth century. So, too, with regard to the popular dances. They are all called, almost without exception, "Morris Dances". But, as in the piece I have been alluding to—“The Morrice Dancers at Revesby”—the dance is the sword-dance, or variants of it, or popular traditional dances, to which something of the Morisco became added, just as the folk-plays took in allusions to the Crusades, and in modern times turned St. George into Prince George.
I hope in a future paper to present the results of an analysis of English traditional plays, or folk-plays, side by side with an analysis of the pre-Shakespearean drama, on the lines laid down in the present paper. This will yield a two-fold contribution to folk-lore and the drama respectively; and I am not without hope that collectors of folk-lore, on the one hand, may be induced to look to this department of the subject with increased interest, while, on the other, literary students may be convinced of the importance of traditionary beginnings. Let it be understood that the aim is to reconstruct from tradition the embryo on which the miracle-play was grafted; let the prior importance of dramatic action, of which so much has passed away without record, not be lost sight of, and folk-lore may bring its light to bear on yet another of the branches of knowledge.
- ↑ Communicated by J. M. Kemble, from the mouth of “an old Yorkshireman”. I account for the sword by the ancient use of that weapon at weddings.