Mummers Play - Mummers' and Guisers' Plays

Mummers' and Guisers' Plays

Mummers' and guisers' plays were formerly performed throughout most of English-speaking Ireland, Europe and Great Britain, as well as in other English-speaking parts of the world including Newfoundland, Kentucky and Saint Kitts and Nevis. In England, there are a few surviving traditional teams, but there have been many revivals of mumming, often associated nowadays with morris and sword dance groups.

Mummers and "guisers" (performers in disguise) can be traced back at least to the Middle Ages, though when the term "mummer" appears in medieval manuscripts it is rarely clear what sort of performance was involved. A key element was visiting people in disguise at Christmas. At one time, in the royal courts, special allegorical plays were written for the mummers each year — for instance at the court of Edward III, as shown in a 14th century manuscript, now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. However, apart from being in rhyme, these plays were nothing like the current traditional plays, whose documented history only goes back as far as the mid-18th century.

Although usually broadly comic performances, the plays seem to be based on underlying themes of duality and resurrection and generally involve a battle between two or more characters, perhaps representing good against evil. Usually they feature a doctor who has a magic potion which is able to resuscitate a slain character. Early scholars of folk drama, influenced by James Frazer's The Golden Bough, tended to view these plays as debased versions of a pre-Christian fertility ritual, but this view is discounted by modern researchers.

In mummers’ plays, the central incident is the killing and restoring to life of one of the characters. The characters may be introduced in a series of short speeches (usually in rhyming couplets) in which each personage has his own introductory announcement, or they may introduce themselves in the course of the play's action. The principal characters, presented in a wide variety of manner and style, are a Hero, his chief opponent, the Fool, and a quack Doctor; the defining feature of mumming plays is the Doctor, and the main purpose of the fight is to provide him with a patient to cure. The hero sometimes kills and sometimes is killed by his opponent; in either case, the Doctor comes to restore the dead man to life.

The name of the hero in the English tradition is most commonly Saint George, King George, or Prince George. His principal opponents are the Turkish Knight (in southern England), or a valiant soldier named Slasher (elsewhere). Other characters include: Old Father Christmas (who introduces some plays), Beelzebub, Little Devil Doubt (who demands money from the audience), Robin Hood (an alternative hero in the Cotswolds), Galoshin (a hero in Scotland), etc. Despite the frequent presence of Saint George, the Dragon rarely appears in these plays, though it is often mentioned; a dragon seems to have appeared in the Revesby Ploughboys' Play in 1779, along with a "wild worm" (possibly mechanical), but it had no words to say. In the few instances where the dragon appears and speaks, its words can be traced back to a Cornish script published by William Sandys in 1833.

It is thought the tradition of the mummers came to Ireland through the arrival of the Normans although some scholars have argued that the ancient Irish had similar ceremonial activities to mumming that can be traced back as far as two millennia B.C.. Irish custom and tradition have permeated mumming ceremony in Ireland and there mumming often centres around famous characters from Irish history - Colmcille, Brian Boru, Art MacMorrough, Owen Roe O'Neill, Sarsfield and Wolfe Tone.

Occasionally, the performers will wear face-obscuring hats or other kinds of headgear, which create the impression of being masked. Some mummers' faces are blackened or painted red by way of disguise. Many mummers and guisers, however, have no facial disguise at all.

Mumming, at any rate in the South of England, had its heyday at the end of the 19th century and the earliest years of the 20th century. Most traditional mummers groups (known as "sides") stopped with the onset of the first World War. To most groups, mumming was a way of raising extra money for Christmas and the play was taken round the big houses. Most Southern English versions end with the entrance of "Little Johnny Jack his wife and family on his back". Johnny, traditionally played by the youngest mummer in the group, first asks for food and then more urgently for money. Johnny Jack's wife and family were either dolls in a model house or sometimes a picture.

Those involved with mumming groups were often unwilling to admit to it as they did not like to confess to begging. However it seems that it could be quite lucrative, it is said that three nights of mumming often raised as much as a whole month's wages for the agricultural labourers who mostly made up the groups.

Some groups continued after the first World War and even beyond the second, but most did not. The groups were normally based in a village and each village had a slightly different version of the play. In the second half of the twentieth century many groups were revived, mostly by folk music and dance enthusiasts. The revived plays are frequently taken around inns and public houses around Christmas time and the begging done for some charity rather than for the mummers themselves.