The Peace Egg and Other tales Part 5

Those who wish to do so can admit him at the very end, after the sword dance, very black, and with a besom, a money-box, and the following doggrel:

In come I, the Demon of Doubt, If you don't give me money I'll sweep you all out; Money I want and money I crave, Money I want and money I'll have.

He is not a taking character--unless to the antiquary! I have subst.i.tuted the last line for the less decorous original, "If you don't give me money, I'll sweep you all to the grave."

It is perhaps only the antiquary who will detect the connection between the Milk Pail and the Wa.s.sail Cup in the Fool's Song. But it seems at one time to have been made of milk. In a play of the 16th century it is described as--

"Wa.s.sayle, wa.s.sayle, out of the mylke payle; Wa.s.sayle, wa.s.sayle, as white as my nayle,"

and Selden calls it "a slabby stuff," which sounds as if it had got mixed up with frumenty.

Since the above went to press, I have received some extracts from the unwritten version of "Peace Egg" in the West Riding of Yorkshire to which I have alluded. They recall to me that the piece properly opens with a "mumming round," different to the one I have given, _that_ one belonging to the end. The first Mumming Song rehea.r.s.es each character and his exploits. The hero of the verse which describes him singing (autobiographically!) his own doughty deeds in the third person. Thus St. George begins; I give it in the vernacular.

"The first to coom in is the Champion bould, The Champion bould is he, He never fought battle i' all his loife toim, But he made his bould enemy flee, flee, flee, He made his bould enemy flee."

The beauty of this song is the precision with which each character enters and joins the slowly increasing circle. But that is its only merit. It is wretched doggrel, and would make the play far too tedious. I was, however, interested by this verse:--

The next to come in is the Cat and Calftail, The Cat and Calftail is he; He'll beg and he'll borrow, and he'll steal all he can, But he'll never pay back one penny, penny, He'll never pay back one penny.

Whether "Cat and Calftail" is a corruption of Captain Calftail or (more likely) Captain Calftail was evolved from a Fool in Calf's hide and Cat's skins, it is hard to say. They are evidently one and the same shabby personage!

The song which I have placed at the head of the Peace Egg Play has other verses which also recite "the argument" of the piece, but not one is worth recording. A third song does not, I feel sure, belong to the cla.s.sic versions, but to another "rude and vulgar" one, which I have not seen for some years, and which was played in a dialect dark, even to those who flattered themselves that they were to the manner born. In it St. George and the Old Fool wrangle, the O.F. accusing the Patron Saint of England of stealing clothes hung out to dry on the hedges. St. George, who has previously boasted--

I've travelled this world all round, And hope to do it again, I was once put out of my way By a hundred and forty men--

--indignantly denies the theft, and adds that, on the contrary, he has always sent home money to his old mother. To which the Old Fool contemptuously responds--

All the relations thou had were few, Thou had an Old Granny I knew, She went a red-cabbage selling, As a many old people do.

In either this, or another, rough version, the hero (presumably St.

George) takes counsel with Man Jack on his love affairs. Man Jack is played by a small boy in a very tall beaver hat, and with his face blacked.

"My Man Jack, what can the matter be?

That I should luv this lady, and she will not luv me."

ST. GEORGE and MAN JACK.

No, nor nayther will she walk {with me {with thee.

No, nor nayther will she talk {with me {with thee.

But the true "Peace Egg," if _bludgy_, is essentially a heroic play, and I think the readers of _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ will be content that I have omitted accretions which are not the less vulgar because they are old.

In refining and welding the piece together, I have introduced thirty lines of my own, in various places. The rest is genuine.

J. H. E.

THE PEACE EGG.

A CHRISTMAS MUMMING PLAY.

_Written expressly for all Mummers, to commemorate the Holy Wars, and the happy Festival of Christmas._

DRAMATIS PERSONae.

ST. GEORGE OF ENGLAND (_he must wear a rose_).

ST. ANDREW OF SCOTLAND(_he must wear a thistle_).

ST. PATRICK OF IRELAND(_he must wear the shamrock_).

ST. DAVID OF WALES(_he must wear a leek_).

SALADIN, A PAGAN GIANT OF PALESTINE(_a very tall grown-up actor would be effective_).

THE KING OF EGYPT(_in a turban and crown_).

THE PRINCE OF PARADINE, HIS SON(_face blacked, and it is_ "tradition" _to play this part in weeds, as if he were Hamlet_).

THE TURKISH KNIGHT(_Eastern costume_).

HECTOR.

THE VALIANT SLASHER (_old yeomanry coat, &c., is effective_).

THE DRAGON(_a paste-board head, with horrid jaws, if possible.

A tail, and paws with claws_).

THE FOOL(_Motley: with a bauble long enough to put over his shoulder and be held by the one behind in the mumming circle_).

OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS(_white beard, &c., and a staff_).

THE DOCTOR(_wig, spectacles, hat and cane_).

THE LITTLE PAGE(_pretty little boy in velvet, &c_.).

LITTLE MAN JACK(_big mask head, if convenient, short cloak and club_).

PRINCESS SABRA(_pretty little girl, gorgeously dressed, a crown_).

DAME DOLLY(_a large mask head, if possible, and a very amazing cap. Dame Dolly should bob curtseys and dance about_).

No scenery is required. The actors, as a rule, all come in together.

To "enter" means to stand forth, and "exit" that the actor retires into the background. But the following method will be found most effective. Let Fool enter alone, and the rest come in one by one when the Fool begins to sing. They must march in to the music, and join the circle with regularity. Each actor as he "brags," and gives his challenge, does so marching up and down, his drawn sword over his shoulder. All the characters take part in the "Mumming Round." The next to Fair Sabra might hold up her train, and if Dame Dolly had a Gamp umbrella to put over _her_ shoulder, it would not detract from her comic charms. The Trumpet Calls for the four Patron Knights should be appropriate to each. If a Trumpet is quite impossible, some one should play a national air as each champion enters.