St Gertrudes Convent School, Penzance performance of the Cornish Play,  1957

Left to Right : The Doctor, Wendy Boase , The Turkish Knight, Yvonne Eva, Father Christmas, Gillian Assiter, King of Egypt, Sandra Vingoe, St George, Monica Sheehan, (Kneeling.) The Dragon, Ruth Samson, The Jester (Giant), Jennifer Johnston.. Produced by Mrs Waller.

Click to view photos of a performance of the play given to the Camborne Old Cornwall Society by pupils of Rosemellin School Camborne on Tuesday 6th December 2011

  From Old Cornwall Journal No. 8 October 1928

The Cornish Play By Tom Miners

IF Dr. Borlase were alive to-day we can fancy his disgust at the amount of attention which has been given by scholars to the Mummers' Plays. To him in the middle of the eighteenth century, the plays were " puerile representations," more contemptible even than the " miserable dialogues " on scripture subjects which were also enacted by the "lower orders." What would be his amazement if he were to see one of the modern performances of this play in which the leading actors are Cornish bards and savants ? And how confounded he would be when told, that in the mock com­bats and burlesque heroics of the despised folk drama, are embedded fragments of extinct ritual, whose antiquity far exceeds that of his beloved Druids.

One of the oldest forms of this play survived at Stithians up to the time of the late war. The characters are: Jack ; a second player (name not given) ; the Doctor ; Lord Nelson, and Jacky Sweep. One of the players who gave me the words told me that they used to creep up to the door of a house on tip-toe, and then, suddenly flinging open the door, would burst into the kitchen with this dialogue :

JACK. I open the door and enter in, and hope the game will soon begin. Poke up the fire and give a good light, And in this house there'll be a fight.

SECOND PLAYER. Who sir?

JACK.  Me sir.

SECOND PLAYER. Take a sword and try sir.

[A sword fight follows, and Second Player strikes Jack. to the Ground].

SECOND PLAYER. Now I've knocked him to the ground. There isn't a doctor to be found.

Enter DOCTOR.

DOCTOR. Yes ! in comes I; old doctor Brown. The best old doctor in the town.

SECOND PLAYER. How be you the best old doctor in the town ?

DOCTOR. By my travels.

 SECOND PLAYER. Where have you travelled ?

DOCTOR.I've travelled through England,Ireland, Scotland and Spain; And. now I'm come to England again.

SECOND PLAYER. What can you cure ?

DOCTOR. All sorts.

Second PLAYER. What's all sorts ?

Doctor. I can cure the ickily, pickily, And sick of the palsy.

SECOND PLAYER.  Well, cure Jack there. 

DOCTOR. Take my tip-top:' Down your flip-flop, And rise and fight again.

Enter dancers ; one represents Lord Nelson. They dance around, singing :

Lord Nelson,⁴ Lord Nelson, Lord Nelson you see, 

With a bunch of Blue Ribbons tied up to his knee. 

Your silver and copper we do not refuse,

Put your hand in your pocket and give what you choose.

Enter JACKY SWEEP (with broom) Here comes I, Jacky Sweep; All the money I catch, I keep.

He sweeps the floor, then passes round the hat. Some verses  of the Wassail Song are sung, and the players leave.

It will be noticed that in the foregoing version the places of St. George and the Turkish Knight are taken by an unnamed player and "Jack." The St. George episode is a comparatively modern addition, probably introduced some little time after Agincourt. The combat between St. George, the representative of Christendom, and the Turkish Knight, the champion of Islam, owes its inception to popular medieval romances. In Sir Ferabras, a very great favourite, the plot centres on the encounter between Oliver the Paladin and Ferabras the Paynim champion. Possibly Oliver may have appeared in some of the medieval versions of the play, to be replaced in later times by Oliver Cromwell. In the account of the Mummers' play given by Davies Gilbert, in his Christmas Carols, the Turkish Knight. after he has been killed several times and revived by the doctor, finally turns Christian ; and in the story of Tristrem told by Thomas the Rhymer, we have a similar happening. Sir Palamedes the Saracen knight being overthrown by Tristrem is compelled to turn Christian, Tristrem becoming his sponsor. Spenser, who probably owes much to memories of the play, makes St. George in the " Faerie Queen" fight the `cruell Sarazen." The Sarazen is struck down by the champion, but is saved by Duessa, who places him in the charge of Doctor Esculapius.

But "Jack " is much older than St. George or the Turkish Knight He is the embodiment of summer, re­lated in folklore to the German Pfingstl, and possibly also to Robin of the Wood (Robin Hood). On the romance side he is related to-the Green Knight. The unnamed player represents winter. This dramatic contest between winter and summer may have been the original cause of those literary debates between summer and winter which would seem to have been popular in many countries in medieval times. Shakespeare uses a similar idea in " Love's Labour' Lost," where the part of Winter is maintained by the owl and that of spring by the cuckoo. It is worth noting that in East Cornwall a party of Wassailers were in the habit of singing a song in praise of the owl ^:

Of all the birds that ever I see,
the Owl is the fairest in her degree,
For all the day long she sits in a tree,
and when the night comes, away flies she,
Te whit, te who, to whom drinks thou?
Sir knave to thou,
This song is well sung, I make you a vow,
and he is a knave that drinketh now.
Nose, nose, no-o-o-nose,
and who gave thee that jolly red nose?
Cinamon, Ginger, Nutmeg, and cloves,
and that gave thee thy jolly red nose.

In the Cornish Miracle Play, Bewnans Meryasek, the doctor. a comic character, is attended by his " bachelor jenkyn," who appears in some of the Cornish versions of the Mummers' Play, as `' Little Man Jack." This broad comic, business of the doctor and his assistant became traditional in folk drama. The doctor's fee in Meryasek, and in some versions of the St. George play, is the same—ten pounds. The Dragon, Hobby horse, and Belsebuc (Belzebub) are also common to both. Hector and Beaumont are mentioned in Meryasek, and Hector as we know was once a favourite character in some Cornish versions of the Mummer's Play. In the Cornish play too, the combat between the Duke of Cornwall and Teudar is a fairly close parallel to that between St. George and the Turkish Knight. The Duke of Cornwall is the Christian champion, and Teudar, although a Cornish king, worships Mahound. In each case the threatenings that precede the fight are even more ferocious than those of " mine ancient Pistol.". In the Fraddam play, the Turkish Knight threatens that he will cut St. George into slices, and " take a small pot and make a pair of garters." In the same play the devil (Belzebub) carries off the Turkish Knight on his back, saying:

"I have a fire which has been long lighted,

To put the Turk in who has long been knighted."

This carrying off by the devil, or devils, is a stock incident in Miracle and Morality Plays, and it is also used by Marlowe and Greene: by Marlowe with great tragic power, as in " Doctor Faustus", and by Greene with comic interest, in "Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay", where Miles, the Friar's man, goes off cheerfully "roaring' upon the devil's back. In the Fraddam play Brizebub sings to a lively tune as he carries out the Turkish Knight :

"This poor old man is dead and gone. 

We shall never see him more;

He used to wear an old gray coat, 

All buttoned down before."

In the Cadgwith version the rest of the players kneel down while Father Christmas pronounces a mock funeral sermon over the body of the Knight. He concludes with :

 "Two to the legs, and two to the arms,

We'll. dog [drag] him out like a ship in the starrn."

A St. Martins' and Manaccan version was given me by Mr. R. H. Chinn. Mr. Chinn said that in 1887 the players crossed from Helford to the Falmouth side of the river and gave the play at Helford Passage, Mawnan Smith, and Bareppa. It was then known as " the Christmas Goose Dance," but an older inhabitant in Manaccan, Aunt Mary Tonking, said that in her girlhood the Guise Dance and the play were separate. She had often taken part in the former; a round dance in which three girls and three boys took part. The boys were dressed like girls and the girls like boys. This dance was taken very seriously, and was assiduously practised in a barn for several weeks before Christmas, their trainer being a fiddler who accompanied their dancing. It sometimes happened at Christmas time, when the dancers were going their round, that they found the Mummers already engaged in giving their play. They would then give their dance at the conclusion of the play. This was customary when they visited the Parsonage. Old Parson Seymour had a large kitchen, and he could accomodate them all. After the separate performances, dancing became general, and it was owing to this that the play became confused with the dance. In a similar manner the Wassail Song and Dance were also merged in the play. In the old days people in the Lizard district were passionately fond of dancing: James Nicholls, a mason of St. Keverne, was especially renowned for his " thruble" step-dancing. Sometimes he would dance with his arms stretched sideways, having a glass, brimful of water, balanced on his head, and two other glasses balanced on the palms of his hands. He would dance with wonderful spirit and skill, and without spilling a single drop of the water.

It is evident from its opening lines that the Manaccan play, in contradistinction to the Stithians' play, is one that was designed for the halls of the rich.⁶ A player enters flourishing a sword and rattling it on the beams :

" Room ! room ! pray gallants, a room! 

For sport, resort, and rhyme,"

When Christmas comes play Valentine."

The reference to Valentine may seem . at first sight obscure, but there is a Dorset version in which General Valentine and Colonel Spring fight and are slain. It would seem that like Jack-in-the-Green they are embodiments of seasons. In the fifteenth-century story of " Valentine and Orson," Valentine marries the sister of the Green Knight. In one of the Duke's speeches in " Measure for Measure " it might be inferred that Shakespeare associated Valentine with Roland.

"There is a good deal of evidence in Shakespeare's plays which shows the influence of the Mummers' Play. In "Love's Labour's Lost" and "The Midsummer Night's Dream" Shakespeare introduces interior plays which suggest a parody of the folk drama. To give a few instances—Bottom's starting up to life again is after the manner of the Turkish Knight; Costard's speech—"And travelling along the coast I here have come by chance," recalls the travel speeches of the Turkish Knight and Doctor. Capulet's cry in “Romeo and Juliet ":

"A hall ! a hall ! give room !"

is reminiscent of many opening lines like those of the Manaccan play. in "The Midsummer Night's Dream," Puck enters the house with his broom just in the manner of Jacky Sweep, saying :‑

"I am sent with broom before,

To sweep the dust behind the door."

Dromio of Syracuse, in the " Comedy of Errors," has a speech which echoes the brag of the Turkish Knight. In the Cadgwith version the Knight says:‑

" My head is of the fine [brass] ball, my body is of the steel, My legs is of the iron bars, come fight with me if thou will [no man can make me feel]."

Dromio's lines are :‑ " If my head had not been made of faith and my heart of steel,

She had transformed me to a curtail-dog and made me turn i' the wheel." .

Doctor Pinch in the same play professes to cast out devils; 

the Doctor in the Penponds play boasts :

If there's nine devils in him, I'll soon blow them out."

Fat Jack, who takes the part of Little Man Jack in some versions, may perhaps be regarded as the rural prototype of Sir John Falstaff, while the jingle which was a customary prelude to the sword-fight is probably responsible for the oft criticized

"Lay on Macduff,

And damn'd be him that first cries `hold, enough."'

One form of the sword-fight jingle survives at Tonypandy, Glamorgan 

"Now sword to sword, and toe to toe,

And one, two, three, and off you go."

This is clearly related to the St. Ives singing game " Harvey-Darvey." "Harvey-Darvey dressed in black" seems related also to " Ector Pector dressed in green : " (See O.C., VI., 37).

The St. George and Dragon episode of the play was one in which Shakespeare must surely have taken part. Bottom's description of the lion as a "fearful wild fowl" sounds as if it were originally said of the dragon by one of the Stratford players. The dragon motif of "Romeo and Juliet" has not, I think, been pointed out. The dragon of course is subjective, a dragon of the mind, but none the less terrible, and he owes something as it will be seen to his presentment in the Mummers' Play. The, theme in this paper can only be presented in outline. Romeo's speech just before his marriage, in which he flings down the gage to "love-devouring death," contains the first hint. After the death of Tybalt, Juliet in her frenzy has a moment of vision in which she sees Romeo himself as a dragon :—

O serpent heart, hid in a flowering face 

Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?"

In the next instance the dragon is heard rather than seen. The dragon's question, as he enters to take up the challenge, of St. George

"Who's he that seeks the dragons blood, 

And calls so angry and so loud?"

finds an ominous echo in the scene where Romeo, resolved on suicide, seeks the dram of poison from the starved apothecary. He comes to the shop of the crag-browed charlatan, in which on a previous

occasion he had been attracted by the sight of the skins of ill-shaped fishes, the tortoise and the stuffed alligator, and finding it closed he impatiently calls for the proprietor. The apothecary enters with the words, " Who calls so loud ? "—words which recall the old-world cry of the dragon, and match well with the "savage wild " intents of the desperate lover.

That cry should have been doubly significant in the ears of an Elizabethan audience. In the picture symbolism of the age the dragon or serpent represented poison, and in half a score of popular romances and plays, and in the most popular poem of the day, he stood for the destruction of youth and beauty. So in the Mummers' play the dragon, emblematic of ^'old age, winter and death, boasts of slaughtered youth. With " scurvy jaws" he kills and devours men "both young and fresh." In the churchyard scene we reach the denouement; that which was darkly hinted is now made clear. Romeo, a tragic St. George, in bursting open the door of the vault, talks and acts as if he were indeed encountering the veritable dragon of the old play:

"Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,

Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth.

Thus I. enforce thy rotten jaws to open

[Bursts open the door of the monument],

And in despite, I'll cram thee with more food."

In the Fraddam play, the last character is Tom Tartar :

Here comes I little Tom Tartar; 

I'm the boy for mixing mortar. 

With my trowel and my hod

I've built a house for you and God.

As the last character in the older forms of the play almost always takes up the collection, the

conclusion may possibly be warranted that at one time the play was used to raise money for church

purposes. We can imagine some poor parson joining forces with the parish clerk in this way. This

would account for the "Morality" and "Miracle" touches in some forms of the play. The church too

might be held responsible for the introduction of the St. George and Turkish Knight episode—a

combination of religion and romance, with the Crusades as a background. Tom Tartar (was he

originally Timur the Tartar?) with his "trowel  and hod " seems connected with a medieval guild of

masons. In a  fragmentary account'of the play'at Germoe the last'player has the lines :

" Here comes I, little Hictor-spicktor,

All dressed up in the devils dicktor

Head big, and body small,

I am come to kill Father Christmas and all."

`Bully Hector' was a favourite hero in medieval times, but it is a fairly common occurence in folk-lore for the gods and heroes of one age to become the clowns and fools of the next. The devil's " dicktor " or " dicky " is, I take it, the calf-skin robe anciently worn by one of the fools in the Mummers' Play—a fool, part goblin and part buffoon. Sandy's Christmas Carols tells us that—" In an old play, Wily Beguiled, a character called Robin Goodfellow says, 

“I'll go put on my devilish robes, 

I mean my Christmas calf-skin suit, 

and then walk to the woods. 0, 

I'll terrify him, I warrant ye.'" .

Sandy’s also mentions a Scotch fool, Captain Calf-tail. "Big head and little wit," too, is a fairly common gag in medieval plays, e.g., in the Morality, Mankind, Mischief says, 

"Yowur wytt ys lytyll, 

yowur hede vs mekyll :" 

but though Hector has hung a calf-skin on his limbs, it is consoling to notice that in the threat to kill all the other players, he still retains his hectoring spirit. Hector also survives in a line given me by Mr. Jim Thomas, "Ector­-pector dressed in green." This may refer to a period of popular favour in which Hector usurped the place of Jack­-in-the-Green, or the Green Knight.

Some of the Cornish wassail songs are obviously affected by the play. An old lady who lived at  Penponds many years ago used to sing a medley of play and wassail of which two verses ran :—

"Here comes I, old Belzebub ;

On my shoulder I carry my club. 

Jolly Moorzeal, Moorzeal, Moorzeal, 

With a jolly Moorzeal.

Here comes I, Ill man Jack;

On my shoulder I carry my pack, 

Jolly Moorzeal, Moorzeal, Moorzeal. 

With a jolly Moorzeal."

The speeches of Father Christmas were also turned into wassail songs. A sample verse runs:

"We aren't come here to laugh and jeer; 

We've come to taste your Christmas beer, 

Wersey! Wersey! Joy come home

With little Johnny Wersey."

In most of the plays there are fishing allusions to Christmas fare, Father Christmas is not at all particular, beer, wine, cider or gin, are all alike acceptable :

"I come on foot, I am no rider;

If you haven't got beer, well—I can drink cider."

In some of the Cornish versions, as at Penrose and Ruan Minor, little man Jack is the son of Father Christmas, and carries a club with which he fights the Turkish Knight. Belzebub and his club are mentioned in -Ralph Roister-Doister. Ralph " bet the King of Crickets on Christmas Day- .

Why he wrong a club

Once in a fray, out of the hand of Belzebub."

Women are unusual in the Cornish versions, Little Man Jack sometimes enters with his wife upon his back, and there is an account of Old Mother Nipper-Nopper in the Cadgwith and Manaccan plays. At Cadgwith the doctor says that he has cured :—

Old Mother Nipper- Nopper's big toe,

And every toe (joint) had ninety-nine corns, 

And every corn as big as an October cabbage, 

And every cabbage as big as a nine-acred field."

In the Connor Downs Play, Old Mother Darrity appears. Father Christmas says "Walk in Old Mother Darrity." Her lines are :

"Here come I, Old Mother Darrity

Big head and good charity.

My head is big, my body small;

I'm the biggest old nuisance among them all. 

Why do the flays torment me so?

I never did them wrong.

I catch them with my finger, 

And crack them with my thumb 

[Business of catching and killing fleas].

At Connor Downs" Father Christmas adds, after the usual opening lines, "I was born in a rocky country, where there was no wood to make a cradle; so I was rocked, first in a buldish, and then in a ladle":

So I am old-fashioned, and so shall remain, 

Ever since the world's foundations was lain."

The rocking in the bowl and ladle is supposed to account for Father Christmas's hunched back, an attribute of the medieval fool. At Manaccan Father Christmas refuses to pay the doctor's bill—ten pounds, and the doctor beats him with his riding-switch until St. George intervenes and threatens the doctor with his sword. At Cadgwith and Fraddam, Father Christmas is introduced by a page. At Cadgwith' the page seems related to Little Man Jack :

"Here comes I, Little Man Page,

Only fourteen years of age.

If you don't believe what I do say,

Leave Father Christmas come in and clear the way."

He is the first to fight the Turkish Knight, and is encouraged by King George, who says, " Fight on, my son, don't be perplexed." When he is struck down Father Christmas speaks lines which would be more appropriate in the mouth of King George :

"As I lay on my silent bed,

I dreamt my only son was dead.

Thou cruel monster, what hast thou done? 

Thou'st ruined and killed my only son !"

At Fraddam the Page takes no part in the fighting:

" Here comes I, the Page,

I am to say to the good people of the house 

That Father Christmas is come

With his pop and touse ;

For this is the time of the year

For Father Christmas to appear."

At Cadgwith the Giant Turpin includes in his speech some lines that originally belonged to the dragon :—

"Here come I, a giant bold;

Bold Turpin is my name,

I'll make all nations round about

To tremble at my flame," 

 and then:

I'm I'm seeking now for a new dish,

To kill men both young and fresh.

If I catch them in my long claws and skewer jaws, 

Their marrow bones I'll squeeze 

And blood I'll suck out by degrees, 

If there is any man will me defy 

Or look me in the face,

I'll be bound that he shall die."

To those who after reading the above may still be disposed to agree with Dr. Borlase we would commend the reply of Theseus to Hippolyta. Hippolyta says of Bottom's play, " This is the silliest stuff that e'er I heard." Theseus answers, " The best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them." The Mummers' play may be considered stuff, but it is stuff in the Shakespearian sense—the stuff of which dreams are made. Played by the youth of successive generations, and in every part of the country, on village greens, in hamlets, villages and towns, in cottages and halls, it is the broad base on which all English dramatic writing has been founded. Its influence may be traced in varying degrees in our greatest poets and writers; Spenser and Marlowe, Shakespeare, Milton and Bunyan, Scott and Hardy, have each in their own way, developed its symbolism, a symbolism with which they had all been familiar from their earliest childhood.

The Cornish variants, with many others which have been collected in different parts of England are no mean part of our national consciousness. They are in some measure the outcome of the spirit of burlesque in a youthful and high-spirited nation, and in their mere broken-down versions are full of grotesque nonsense, even, but in their earliest forms they were master lights of ancient seeing. As they stand now they may, perhaps, be better likened to festive lamps set in the old by­ways that once led to natural shrines and rude rock-altars.

Of the mysterious peoples that once encircled these altars we know little, but we are convinced that however far " inland " we may place there, they too, had sight of the " immortal sea," and had knowledge of those imperishable things which still give us dream

"The dream that fires man's heart to make, 

To build, to do, to sing or say ;

A beauty Death can never take,

An Adam from the crumbled clay."

 From A.K. Hamilton Jenkins Cornwall and its People, 1945.

Although many years have elapsed since the ‘St George’ play ceased to be a regular feature of this midwinter carnival, it was not wholly forgotten. In 1866 the Rev. W. S. Lach­Szmyrma witnessed its performance by the miners of Pensilva, near Liskeard. In 1890 the villagers of Manaccan and St Martin-in-Meneage toured the play through their neighbour­hood with great success. Another excellent rendering of the play was given by the boys of the Roskear School, at Camborne, during the Christmas of 1914. The intention, however, of making it an annual event was frustrated by the staff alterations caused by the war.

The writer himself when living as a child in Redruth regularly took part in ‘private‘ performances of the ‘St George’ play. The version used came from Stithians, and may be found in Old Cornwall, Vol.1, No.1 pages 29—30. This, I think, must have differed from the ‘Jack-o’­the-Green’ play which Mr Miners informs me was acted at Stithians as recently as the early years of the war, and which was only discontinued there by reason of the younger men being called away to active service.

On  Tuesday the 6th December 2011 the pupils of Rosemellin School, Camborne brought back the tradition by performing the Christmas play for Members of Camborne Old Cornwall Society.   Click on a photo for a larger view.

 

Father Christmas introduction	Enter the Turkish Knight	Enter St George and they fight
Call for a Doctor	Negotiating the Doctors fee	They fight again
The Turkish knight is killed	The Devil claims the body.	Pupils perform the Brush dance 1
Brush dance 2.	The performance ends with the singing of the Wassail.
Mr. Jon Davey, Teacher, who brought the whole thing together.

  From Old Cornwall, Vol.1, No.1, pages 29-31

A Redruth/Stithians Christmas Play

Communicated by Miss L. Eddy to Mr. A. K. Hamilton  Jenkin, a witness of its performance.

Enter Jack.

Jack. I open the door, I enter in;

I hope the game will soon begin.

I'll stir up the fire and make a light,

And in this house will be a fight.

 

Enter King George.

King George. Here comes I, King George;

King George is my name.

With the sword and thistle by my side

I'm sure to win the game.

 

Jack. You, sir?

 

K.G.     I, sir!

 

Jack. Take the sword, and try, sir!

[They fight; Jack falls.

 

K.G. Now I've knocked him to the ground,

There's not a doctor to be found.

How much for a doctor?

 

[A Dutch auction for a doctor takes place here. A player, perhaps the Doctor himself, leaving out the obvious ‘Fifty pound,' that would complete King George's last line, calls successively. 'Forty?—Thirty? Twenty?' to each of which King George answers, 'No!' and then, ‘Ten?’ to which he replies, 'Bring him in’.

 

Enter Doctor.

Doctor. Here comes I, old Doctor Brown;

The best old doctor in the town.

 

K.G. Why became you the best old doctor?.

Dr. By my travels.

 

K.G. Where did you travel?

 

Dr. England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and back to old England again.

 

K.G. Cure Jack!

 

Dr. Here, Jack, take my medicine and rise.

[He doctors Jack, who rises; all stand back.

 

Enter Jacky Sweep.

 

Jacky Sweep. Here comes I, old Jacky Sweep;

All the money I catch, I keep. [sings—

Lord Nelson, Lord Nelson, Lord Nelson I see;

with a bunch of blue ribbons tied up to his knee.

[Here the party sings a wassail song.

 

All. Whe'er it's silver or copper, I do not refuse;

Put you hand in your pocket and give what you please. 

For our warsale, warsale,

And jolly come to our jolly warsale.

 

If the missus is sleeping, I hope she will wake,

And go to the cupboard and cut up some cake,

For our . . .

 

There's the missus and master sitting down by the fire,

And we poor warsale boys are travelling a mile,

With our . . .

If the missus and master don't take amiss,

And send out their daughter to give us a kiss,

With our . . .

The roads are so dirty ; our shoes are so thin

Oh, do give us something for singing so well

With our . . .

Finis.

 

Note.-

R. M. Nance. St. Ives writing in the first Old Cornwall Journal in 1925.

"This version of the Christmas Play, performed at Redruth within the last fifteen years, is remarkable as being far closer to versions from the North of England than to other West-Country versions. Thus "Jack's" opening speech is found in Derbyshire, "Doctor Brown" is a Northern name for this important character, "Jacky Sweep" uses lines given to "Devil Doubt" in Yorkshire, and Lord Nelson is a character in Northern "Pace Egg" plays, performed at Easter. The play, though very much cut down, keeps all the essentials:—A fight; a man slain and revived by the doctor, and comic relief to the tragedy in the "Jacky Sweep”, with blackened face and broom. There are several curious substitutions, as—"sword and thistle," for "sword and buckler," "Scotland and Wales," for "France and Spain," and in the Wassail Song "give what you please," instead of "choose”, and "Oh do give us something for singing so well" where one expects "We've got a little pocket to put a penny in”.

A pleasing account of the rendering of this old drama in a West Cornwall farm, a hundred years ago, is given by ‘Uncle Jan Trenoodle’ (i.e. William Sandys) in his Specimens of Cornish Provincial Dialect. 

It was a New Year’s Eve, the writer tells us, and a goodly party of friends and neighbours was gathered to spend the day at ‘Cousin Nic Carnoweth’s’. After a dinner consisting of ‘broth, a couple of nice pluffy young mabyers(pullets), a starry-gazy (pilchard) pie, a thumping figgy-pudding, and plenty of strong drink to keep out the cold’, the company seated themselves round the Christmas stock blazing cheerfully on the open hearth. Towards ‘teening time’, or the fall of dusk, ‘there came a grinning gaukum who told us as how the guise dancers were to the door, with the ancient play of St George. Gladly did we give them leave to enter, so in they came. There was old Feyther Chrestmas with a make-wise face possed (stuck) up on top of his own, and his long white wig, trapesing about and getting in his tantrums; and there was the Doctor, as they called ‘un, with a three-cornered piked hat and his face all rudded and whited, with spurticles (spectacles) on top of his nause. And there was one in a maiden’s bed-gownd and coat with ribbons, and a nackan (handkerchief) in his hand and a gook (sun bonnet) on his head. Other youngsters were in white, with ribbons tied all over their shirt sleeves, and with nackans and words, and such caps as I never see’d before. They was half a fathom high, made of pastyboard (cardboard), weth powers (heaps) of beads and looking-glass, and shreds of old cloth strung upon slivers (strips) of pith—and they strutted about so brave as lubber cocks (turkey cocks)’ And then they gave the word to begin, and old ‘Feyther Chrestmas’ stepped out and said:

‘Here comes I, ould Feyther Chrestmas, 

Welcome or welcome not, 

I do hope ould Feyther Chrestmas 

Will never be forgot.’

Father Christmas, having introduced the play, steps back into the half-circle of the performers, leaving the stage open for the Turkish knight. The latter struts forth in an arrogant fashion, proclaiming his superiority to any Christian knight, until, of a sudden, St George himself appears. He also is confident of his prowess, and in consequence a fight takes place in which the Turkish knight is knocked down for dead. Here the play seems like to have ended but for the timely intervention of the Doctor who, after a good deal of humorous ‘gag’, cures him of his ‘deep and deadly wound’. Once more the Turkish knight arises to do battle, but he is speedily laid low by St George, and this time slain for good. Then in comes the Dragon, a fearsome-looking beast ‘ with long teeth and scurvy jaw’. His part was not played without danger, since he was required to breathe forth sulphurous flames, an effect which was achieved by putting a lighted squib in his ‘snout’. An incautious elevation of the latter by throwing the explosive compound inward might, and not infrequently did, cause severe injury to the player. After a fitting display of his fearsome qualities, the Dragon also is slain by St George who, as a somewhat unexpected reward for his valour, is given the hand of ‘Sabra, the King of Egypt’s daughter’, in marriage.

A GUISE-DANCE PLAY, ST. KEVERNE.

Old Cornwall, Vol.1, No.1 pages 29—30. Communicated by Capt. F. J. Roskruge, R.N., and written after Mr. Wm. Mitchell's memory of performances over seventy years ago (1855).

Enter Father Christmas.

Father Christmas.
Here comes I, old Father Christmas
Welcome or welcome not;
I hope old Father Christmas
Will never be forgot.
I've not come to laugh nor jeer,
But I've come to taste your beer;
And if by chance your beer is done,
I'll have some Christmas cake or bun.

He raps his stick on the ground, saying—
Come on, my children, come on!

Enter Turkish Knight.

Turkish Knight.
Here comes I, the Turkish Knight,
Come from Turkish lands to fight;
First I fought in Ireland, then I fought in Spain, Now I've come to
England's land, to fight King George again.

Enter King George.

King George.
Here comes I, King George,
A man with courage bold;
If your blood is hot,
I soon will make it cold.

[King George and Turkish Knight fight with swords, one falls.

F.C. Is there a doctor to be found,
To cure this deep and deathly wound ?

Enter Doctor.

Doctor.
Yes, there is a doctor to be found, To cure this deep and deathly wound.

[He steps' forward, saying—
I've got a little box in the west side of my breeches, That goes by
the name of Elecampane ;
Drop a little on this poor man's lips,
And that will bring him to life again.

F.C. What can you cure?

Dr. The hesick, pesick, pox and gout,
If there are ninety-nine devils in,
I can drive them out.

Enter Little Man

Jack, grotesquely dressed and carrying on his back the effigy of a woman,

Little ,Man Jack. Here comes I, Little Man Jack,
Carrying my wife upon my back. . .

[He throws his "wife" to the ground, and all sing-and dance until
offered food, drink, or »Taney.

Finis

Note.—This is a very cut-down version of a West-country form of the Christmas Play. St. George again becomes "King George," but the Turkish Knight keeps his true name. There is some confusion in "Doctor's" part. He should have been asked, "What can you cure?" and have given his response (usually " If there are nineteen devils in, I can drive twenty out ") before showing the little bottle, " in the waistband of my breeches," and curing the slain man, which important detail is not here given. " Little Man Jack," too, has lost the family of dolls that should have accompanied his wife, and his lines have
been forgotten. Both of these plays are quite characteristic of the versions that are found here and there all over the country, and like every other version, however fragmentary, they are useful in piecing together the original lines of the various complete versions. We should be very glad of other Cornish unprinted versions from those whose memories are stirred by the reading of these.
R. M. Nance.

In 2009 the American Cornish cousins gathered together in Grass Valley, California:

 the short film below shows some of the younger cousins entertaining the gathering with their rendition of  the Cornish Mummers play St George and the Turkish Knight. the script is from William Sandys . You can also  read "The Old Cornish Drama" by Thurston Peters of Redruth in this E-book from our library