Mummers' play#Local seasonal variants

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 one's face"),{{Cite web|url=http://germazope.uni-trier.de/Projects/WBB/woerterbuecher/dwb/wbgui?lemid=GM08084|title=Wörterbuchnetz|website=germazope.uni-trier.de|accessdate=22 December 2022}} which itself is derived from or came to be associated with mummen (first attested already in Middle High German by a prohibition in Mühlhausen, Thuringia, 1351){{Cite web|url=http://germazope.uni-trier.de/Projects/WBB/woerterbuecher/lexer/wbgui?lemid=LM03138|title=Wörterbuchnetz|website=germazope.uni-trier.de|accessdate=22 December 2022}} and mum(en)schanz, (Hans Sachs, Nuremberg, 16th century), these latter words originally referring to a game or throw (schanz) of dice.{{Cite web|url=http://germazope.uni-trier.de/Projects/WBB/woerterbuecher/dwb/wbgui?lemid=GM08090|title=Wörterbuchnetz|website=germazope.uni-trier.de|accessdate=22 December 2022}} Ingrid Brainard argues that the English word "mummer" is ultimately derived from the Greek name Momus, a god of mockery and scoff.{{Cite web|url=http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/CLUB/mummer/mummer.html|title=Mummer's Mask|website=users.stlcc.edu|access-date=2018-11-27}}

File:Mummers02.jpg

Mummers' and guisers' plays were formerly performed throughout much of English-speaking Great Britain and Ireland, spreading to other English-speaking parts of the world including Newfoundland and Saint Kitts and Nevis. There are a few surviving traditional teams of mummers in England and Ireland, but there have been many revivals of mumming, often associated nowadays with morris and sword dance groups.{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/yourplaceandmine/fermanagh/A975576.shtml |title=The Fermanagh Men of Straw |last=Ledwith |first=Jim |publisher=BBC Northern Ireland |date=30 May 2008 |website=BBC Northern Ireland Homepage, Your place & mine |access-date=5 August 2014}} These performances are comparable in some respects with others throughout Europe.

Broadly comic performances, the most common type features a doctor who has a magic potion able to resuscitate the vanquished character. Early scholars of folk drama, influenced by James Frazer's The Golden Bough, tended to view these plays as descendants of pre-Christian fertility ritual, but modern researchers have subjected this interpretation to criticism.{{cite book |author=Glassie, Henry |title=All Silver and No Brass, An Irish Christmas Mumming |year=1976 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |pages=224 |isbn=978-0-8122-1139-9 |url=http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/706.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140808050538/http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/706.html |archive-date=2014-08-08 }}

File:St Albans Mummers production of St George and the Dragon, Boxing Day 2015-6.jpg

The characters may be introduced in a series of short speeches (usually in rhyming couplets) or they may introduce themselves in the course of the play's action. The principal characters, presented in a wide variety of manners, are a hero, most commonly Saint George, King George, or Prince George (but Robin Hood in the Cotswolds and Galoshin in Scotland), and his chief opponent (known as the Turkish Knight in southern England, but named Slasher elsewhere), and a quack Doctor who comes to restore the dead man to life. Other characters include: Old Father Christmas, who introduces some plays, the Fool and Beelzebub or Little Devil Doubt (who demands money from the audience).

In Ynysmeudwy near Swansea groups of four boys dressed as Crwmpyn (hunchback) John, Indian Dark, Robin Hood and Doctor Brown took the play from house to house on Bonfire Night and were rewarded with money.[http://www.folkwales.org.uk/arctd2.html Bryan Harris, article and collected text]

Despite the frequent presence of Saint George, the Dragon rarely appears although 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. 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.

File:Westonmummers.JPG on Boxing Day, 2007.]]

In 1418 a law was passed in London forbidding in the city "mumming, plays, interludes or any other disguisings with any feigned beards, painted visors, deformed or coloured visages in any wise, upon pain of imprisonment".

Mumming was a way of raising money 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.

File:midwintermummers.JPG, 2009]]

Mummers and "guisers" (performers in disguise) can be traced back at least to 1296, when the festivities for the marriage of Edward I's daughter at Christmas included "mummers of the court" along with "fiddlers and minstrels".{{cite book | title=Ipswich through the Ages | publisher=East Anglian Magazine Ltd | author=Redstone, Lilian J | year=1969| location=Ipswich | pages=110 | isbn= 0900227028}} These "revels" and "guisings" may have been an early form of masque and the early use of the term "mumming" appears to refer specifically to a performance of dicing with the host for costly jewels, after which the mummers would join the guests for dancing, an event recorded in 1377 when 130 men on horseback went "mumming" to the Prince of Wales, later Richard II.Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethan Stage. Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951, pp. 150-1, quoted in History of the Masque Genre[http://www.mith.umd.edu/comus/cegenre.htm]John Cutting, History and the Morris Dance (2005), page 81

According to German and Austrian sources dating from the 16th century, during carnival persons wearing masks used to make house-to-house visits offering a mum(en)schanz, a game of dice. This custom was practised by commoners as well as nobility. On Shrove Tuesday of 1557 Albert V, Duke of Bavaria went to visit the archbishop of Salzburg and played a game of dice with him. A similar incident, involving an Englishman, is attested for the French court by the German count and chronicler Froben Christoph von Zimmern: during carnival 1540, while the French king Francis I was residing at Angers, an Englishman (ain Engellender) wearing a mask and accompanied by other masked persons paid a visit to the king and offered him a momschanz (a game of dice).[http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Zimmerische_Chronik Zimmerische Chronik], vol. 3, [http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Zimmerische_Chronik:Band_3:Seite_264 p.264]-[http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Zimmerische_Chronik:Band_3:Seite_265 265]

While 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. Other than this association there is no clear evidence linking these late medieval and early modern customs with English mumming.

File:Sandys 1852 - Modern Christmas Plays, ChapterVIII.jpg

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 of the "Doctor" play appears to be an undated chapbook of Alexander and the King of Egypt, published by John White (d. 1769) in Newcastle upon Tyne between 1746 and 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.{{Cite web|url=https://folkplay.info/resources/texts-and-contexts/plouboys-or-modes-dancers-revesby-1779|title=The "Plouboys oR modes dancers" at Revesby 1779 | Folk Play Research website|website=folkplay.info|accessdate=22 December 2022}}{{Cite web|url=https://folkplay.info/resources/texts-and-contexts/morrice-dancers-revesby-1779|title=Morrice Dancers at Revesby - 1779 | Folk Play Research website|website=folkplay.info|accessdate=22 December 2022}} Although performed at Christmas, this text is a forerunner of the East Midlands Plough Monday (see below) plays. A text from Islip, Oxfordshire, dates back to 1780.{{Cite web|url=https://folkplay.info/resources/texts-and-contexts/islip-mummers-play-1780|title=The Islip Mummers' Play of 1780 | Folk Play Research website|website=folkplay.info|accessdate=22 December 2022}}

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 R. J. E. Tiddy – published posthumously in 1923 – and The English Folk-Play (1933) by E. K. Chambers) has now been shown, by genealogical and other research, to have originated in Truro, Cornwall, around 1780.{{Cite web|url=http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2386/is_1_114/ai_102910348|title=Folklore: The Truro cordwainers' play: a "new" eighteenth-century Christmas play - Research article: focus on traditional drama|date=30 August 2004|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040830082747/http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2386/is_1_114/ai_102910348 |accessdate=22 December 2022|archive-date=30 August 2004 }}{{Cite web |url=http://www.folkplay.info/Texts/78sw84em.htm |title=Truro (Formerly Mylor): "A Play for Christmas", 1780s (Full text and notes) |access-date=3 January 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303182402/http://www.folkplay.info/Texts/78sw84em.htm |archive-date=3 March 2016 |url-status=dead }} A play from an unknown locality in Cheshire, close to the border with Wales, dates from before 1788.{{Cite web|url=https://folkplay.info/resources/texts-and-contexts/cheshire-play-1788|title=Cheshire Play - Before 1788 | Folk Play Research website|website=folkplay.info|accessdate=22 December 2022}}

Chapbook versions of The Christmas Rhime or The Mummer's Own Book were published in Belfast, c.1803-1818.{{Cite web|url=https://folkplay.info/resources/texts-and-contexts/belfast-christmas-rhyme-smyth-lyons-1803-1818|title=Belfast Christmas Rhyme - Smyth & Lyons (1803-1818) | Folk Play Research website|website=folkplay.info|accessdate=22 December 2022}} A mummers' play from Ballybrennan, County Wexford, Ireland, dating from around 1817–18, was published in 1863.{{Cite web|url=https://folkplay.info/resources/texts-and-contexts/ballybrennan-wexford-play-about-1823|title=Ballybrennan, Wexford play - about 1823 | Folk Play Research website|website=folkplay.info|accessdate=22 December 2022}} It is from the 19th century that the bulk of recorded texts derive.

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, but not before they had come to the attention of folklorists. In the second half of the 20th 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.

File:Antrobus Soul Cakers.jpg Soul Cakers, in the mid-1970s, gathered round Dick, their Wild Horse]]

File:St Albans Mummers production of St George and the Dragon, Boxing Day 2015-12.jpg as a character in the mumming play St George and the Dragon by the St Albans Mummers, 2015]]

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. These are therefore known as Plough plays and the performers 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) feature several different stock characters (including a Recruiting Sergeant, Tom Fool, Dame Jane and the "Lady bright and gay"). Tradition has it that ploughboys would take their plays from house to house and perform in exchange for money or gifts, some teams pulling 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.

{{See also|Pace Egg play}}

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 (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". There is a Sheffield version where the Tup is killed and then brought back to life by the Doctor. This is the main play performed by the Northstow Mummers based in Cambridge.{{Citation needed|date=November 2020}}

An {{'}}Owd 'Oss play (Old Horse), another dramatised folksong in Yorkshire, was also known from roughly the same area, in the late 19th{{Cite web|url=https://folkplay.info/resources/texts-and-contexts/old-horse-sheffield-district-yorkshire-1888|title=The Old Horse, Sheffield District, Yorkshire, 1888 | Folk Play Research website|website=folkplay.info|accessdate=22 December 2022}} and early 20th centuries,{{Cite web|url=https://folkplay.info/resources/texts-and-contexts/old-horse-christmas-play-notts-1902|title=The Old Horse: Christmas Play from Notts. [1902] | Folk Play Research website|website=folkplay.info|accessdate=22 December 2022}} 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.{{Cite web |url=http://www.folk-network.com/miscellany/christmas/luck-visiting.html |title=SRFN Miscellany: Luck-visiting in the Old South Riding |access-date=26 April 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060327070814/http://www.folk-network.com/miscellany/christmas/luck-visiting.html |archive-date=27 March 2006 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all }} 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.{{Citation needed|date=November 2020}}

In Lincolnshire, similar traditions were known as 'plough plays', many of these were collected by the folklorist Ethel Rudkin.{{Cite journal|last=Cass|first=Eddie|date=2002-01-01|title=J. M. Carpenter, Ethel Rudkin and The Plough Plays of Lincolnshire|url=https://doi.org/10.1179/flk.2002.41.1.96|journal=Folk Life|volume=41|issue=1|pages=96–112|doi=10.1179/flk.2002.41.1.96|s2cid=161628970|issn=0430-8778|url-access=subscription}}

File:Mummers_Performance_12.jpg

All known Irish play scripts are in English though Irish custom and tradition have permeated mumming ceremony with famous characters from Irish history: Colmcille, Brian Boru, Art MacMorrough, Owen Roe O'Neill, Sarsfield and Wolfe Tone. The mummers are similar but distinct from the other traditions such as wrenboys. The main characters are usually the Captain, Beelzebub, Saint Patrick, Prince George, Oliver Cromwell, The Doctor and Miss Funny.

The tradition of the mummers' play is still present in areas of Ireland including County Fermanagh, County Tyrone,{{Cite web|title=Mummers|url=https://www.rte.ie//archives/exhibitions/922-christmas-tv-past/664401-mummers/|access-date=2020-12-17|website=RTÉ Archives|language=en}} County Wexford, and the Fingal area of County Dublin. The practice was discouraged by the Catholic Church in the early 20th century, but appears to have continued despite this condemnation. In 1935, the Carne Mummers were arrested for their street performance under the Dance Halls Act.{{Cite news|last=Muirithe|first=Diarmaid O.|date=2000-01-08|title=The Words We Use|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/the-words-we-use-1.232057|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-12-17|newspaper=The Irish Times|language=en}} In Fingal, the modern form of mummering was re-established by the Fingal Mummers in the 1980s,{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2015-10-28|title=Tradition of the men with straw masks|url=https://www.independent.ie/regionals/fingalindependent/entertainment/tradition-of-the-men-with-straw-masks-34141444.html|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-12-17|website=Fingal Independent|language=en}} and is now documented as part of Ireland's National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage. A festival is held each October in Fingal by a local school, Scoil Seamus Ennis, which has hosted mummering troupes from across Ireland and England.{{Cite web|title=Mummers of Fingal|url=https://nationalinventoryich.chg.gov.ie/mummers-of-fingal/|access-date=2020-12-17|website=Ireland’s National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage|language=en-US}} The group, The Armagh Rhymers, have been performing mummers' plays and other performances inspired by the traditional form since the 1970s.{{cite news |last1=Bailie |first1=Stuart |date=24 December 2022 |title=Rhymers and reason |work=Belfast Telegraph |url=https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/music/rhymers-and-reason/42241420.html |access-date=19 May 2023}}

The Kirk Session records of Elgin name women who danced at New Year 1623 to the sound of a trumpet. Six men, described as guisers or "gwysseris" performed a sword dance wearing masks and visors covering their faces in the churchyard and in the courtyard of a house. They were fined 40 shillings each. In 1604 Tyberius Winchester was fined for "guising" through the town of Elgin with a pillowcase as a disguise and William Pattoun was accused of singing "hagmonayis". In January 1600, Alexander Smith's daughter was accused of guising in Elgin dressed as a man.William Cramond, [https://archive.org/details/recordsofelgin02elgi/page/176/mode/2up The records of Elgin, 2 (Aberdeen, 1903), pp. 77, 119, 176-7] This kind of dance and disguised "guising" through the town can be traced in various records.Sarah Carpenter, 'Masking and politics: the Alison Craik incident, Edinburgh 1561', Renaissance Studies, 21:5 (November, 2007), pp. 625–636. When Anne of Denmark came to Scotland in May 1590, twelve Edinburgh men performed a sword dance in costume with white shoes and floral hats, and other performed a Highland dance in costume.Maureen Meikle, 'Anna of Denmark's Coronation and Entry', Julian Goodare & Alasdair A. MacDonald, Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Brill, 2008), p. 290.Marguerite Wood, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015068454498&view=1up&seq=363 Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh: 1589-1603 (Edinburgh, 1927), pp. 330-331] James VI himself wore a costume with a Venetian mask and danced at a wedding at Tullibardine in June 1591.Michael Pearce, 'Maskerye Claythis for James VI and Anna of Denmark', Medieval English Theatre, 43 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2022), p. 116.

In 1831, Sir Walter Scott published a rhyme which had been used as a prelude to the Papa Stour Sword Dance, Shetland in around 1788.{{Cite web|url=https://folkplay.info/resources/texts-and-contexts/scotts-papa-stour-sword-dance-1788|title=Scott's Papa Stour Sword Dance - 1788 | Folk Play Research website|website=folkplay.info|accessdate=22 December 2022}} 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.

In the 1950s, A.L. Taylor collected surviving fragments of seasonal Scottish folk plays he described as "Galoshens" or "Galatians".Taylor, A.L., "Galatians", Goloshens and the Inkerman Pace-Eggers", in Reid, Alexander (ed.), Saltire Review, Vol. 5, No. 16, Autumn 1958, The Saltire Society, pp. 42 - 46 Later, Emily Lyle recorded the oral history of fourteen people from the lowlands of Scotland recounting their memories of "Galoshin" dramas. Galoshin is the hero in a drama in the tradition of Robin Hood plays.{{cite book | last=Lyle | first=Emily | title=Galoshins remembered : a penny was a lot in these days | publisher=NMS Enterprises | location=Edinburgh | year=2011 | isbn=978-1-905267-56-9 }} Building on this research, Brian Hayward investigated the geographical distribution of the play in Scotland, and published Galoshins: the Scottish Folk Play, which includes several maps showing the locations where each version was performed. These are or were largely across the Central Belt of Scotland, with a strange and unexplained "outlier" at Ballater in Aberdeenshire.{{cite book | last=Hayward | first=Brian | title=Galoshins: the Scottish Folk Play | publisher=Edinburgh University Press | location=Edinburgh | year=1992 | isbn=978-07-48603381 }} The Meadows Mummers are an all-female troupe who perform at local festivals inspired by both these writers, and by folk play workshops at the Scottish Storytelling Centre. In 2019 they performed at the Scots Music School in Barga, Italy.{{Cite web|url=https://memoriamedia.net/pdfarticles/EN_MEMORIAMEDIA_REVIEW_Galoshins.pdf|title=Fiona Allen, 'Rescuing Galoshins, a Scottish folk play' (Review 2. Art. 3. 2017)|website= memoriamedia.net |accessdate=22 December 2022}}{{Cite web|url=https://ichscotland.org/wiki/meadows-mummers-tradition-difference|title=The Meadows Mummers; tradition with a difference. | ICH Scotland Wiki|website=ichscotland.org|accessdate=22 December 2022}}

File:The White Boys, fighting - Ramsey, 2019.jpg in Ramsey, 2019]]

First recorded in 1832, the Manx White Boys play features a song and a sword dance at its conclusion.{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=Stephen|url=https://www.culturevannin.im/media//media%20-%20Customs%20and%20traditions/White%20Boys/Enter%20St%20George%20-%20White%20Boys%20scripts%20%5BChiollagh%20Books%5D%20IV.pdf|title="Enter St Denis and St George" The White Boys Play Texts|publisher=Culture Vannin|year=2018|location=Isle of Man}} Although the key traditional characters include St. George, St. Patrick and others, modern versions frequently adapt the play to contemporary political concerns.{{Cite web|title=The White Boys|url=https://www.culturevannin.im/manxfolklore/the-white-boys-505782/|access-date=13 October 2020|website=Culture Vannin}} Characters featured since the 1990s include Sir MHK, Sir Banker, Expert and Estate Agent. A a book on the White Boys compiled and edited by Stephen Miller was published in 2010; "Who wants to see the White Boys act?" The Mumming Play in the Isle of Man: A Compendium of Sources.{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=Stephen|title="Who wants to see the White Boys Act?" The Mumming Play in the Isle of Man: A Compendium of Sources|publisher=Chiollagh Books|year=2010|location=Isle of Man}} It continues to be performed on the Saturday before Christmas each year.

In Philadelphia every New Year's Day there is a Mummers' Day Parade that showcases pageantry and creativity. This grand parade has history in the old world, and performances in Philadelphia began in the year 1900.{{cite web|work=AccuWeather|title=Mild weather to highlight 118th Mummers Parade in Philadelphia|author=Renee Duff|date=31 December 2018|url=https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/mild-weather-to-highlight-118th-mummers-parade-in-philadelphia/70007017}} The parade traces back to mid-17th-century roots, blending elements from Swedish, Finnish, Irish, English, German, and other European heritages, as well as African heritage. The parade is related to the Mummers' Play tradition from Britain and Ireland. Revivals of this tradition are still celebrated annually in South Gloucestershire, England on Boxing Day along with other locations in England and in parts of Ireland on St. Stephen's Day and also in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador around Christmas.

Mumming was used as a means of entertaining at feasts and functions, particular mention is made of one feast where 150 torch bearers lead the same number of mummers in, who would do acrobatics in a variety of costumes, including animal costumes.

At certain feast days (e.g. saint's days), a lot of the populace would put on masks, and in practices that vary with geography, celebrate the day. One practice in example was for a group to visit a local manor, and 'sing out' the lord. If the lord couldn't match verse for verse the singing group (alternating verses), then that lord would have to provide amenities.{{citation needed|date=September 2016}}

The formation of roving mumming groups became a popular practice so common it became associated with criminal or lewd behaviour, as the use of masks allowed anonymity; in the time of Henry VIII, it was banned for a period.{{citation needed|date=September 2016}}

On documents such as receipts and bills from the late medieval, come details of mumming parties organised by English monarchs, Henry VIII being known for taking his court mumming incognito. Later, Henry would ban social mumming, and bring the 'masque' form of entertainment to England.

"Mummering" is a Newfoundland custom that dates back to the time of the earliest settlers who came from England and Ireland. It shares common antecedents with the Mummers' Play tradition, but in its current form is primarily a house-visiting tradition. Sometime during the Twelve Days of Christmas, usually on the night of the "Old Twelfth" (17 January; equivalent to 6 January in the old Julian calendar), people would disguise themselves with old articles of clothing and visit the homes of their friends and neighbours. They would at times cover their faces with a hood, scarf, mask or pillowcase to keep their identity hidden. In keeping with the theme of an inversion of rules, and of disguise, crossdressing was a common strategy, and men would sometimes dress as women and women as men. Travelling from house to house, some mummers would carry their own musical instruments to play, sing and dance in the houses they visited. The host and hostess of these 'mummers parties' would serve a small lunch which could consist of Christmas cake with a glass of syrup or blueberry or dogberry wine. Some mummers would drink a Christmas "grog" before they leave each house, a drink of an alcoholic beverage such as rum or whiskey. One important part of the custom was a guessing game to determine the identity of the visitors. As each mummer was identified, they would uncover their faces, but if their true identity is not guessed they did not have to unmask. The Mummers Festival takes place throughout December and includes workshops on how to make hobby horses and wren sticks.{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/IntangibleCulturalHeritageUpdateDecember2009|title=Intangible Cultural Heritage Update December 2009|accessdate=22 December 2022|via=Internet Archive}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.mummersfestival.ca/traditions|title=Traditions|website=www.mummersfestival.ca|accessdate=22 December 2022}}

{{main article|Mummers Parade}}

Mummers' plays were performed in Philadelphia in the 18th century as part of a wide variety of working-class street celebrations around Christmas. By the early 19th century, it coalesced with two other New Year customs, shooting firearms, and the Pennsylvania German custom of "belsnickling" (adults in masks questioning children about whether they had been good during the previous year). Through the 19th century, large groups of disguised (often in blackface) working class young men roamed the streets on New Year's Day, organizing "riotous" processions, firing weapons into the air, and demanding free drinks in taverns, and generally challenging middle and upper-class notions of order and decorum. Unable to suppress the custom, by the 1880s the city government began to pursue a policy of co-option, requiring participants to join organized groups with designated leaders who had to apply for permits and were responsible for their groups actions. By 1900, these groups formed part of an organized, city-sanctioned parade with cash prizes for the best performances.{{cite journal|last1=Davis|first1=Susan G.|title=Making Night Hideous: Christmas Revelry and Public Order in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia|journal=American Quarterly|date=Summer 1982|volume=34|issue=2|pages=185–199|jstor=2712609|doi=10.2307/2712609}} About 15,000 mummers now perform in the parade each year. They are organized into four distinct types of troupes: Comics, Fancies, String Bands, and Fancy Brigades. All dress in elaborate costumes. There is a [http://www.mummersmuseum.com/ Mummers Museum] dedicated to the history of Philadelphia Mummers.

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 the author's childhood experiences.

Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace (1869) has a depiction of mummers, including Nikolai Rostov, Natasha Rostova, and Sonya Rostova, making house-to-house visits. They are depicted as a boisterous crowd dancing and laughing in outrageous costumes where men are dressed as women and women are dressed as men.{{cite book |last=Tolstoy |first=Leo |title=War and Peace |year=1869 |publisher=Random House |place=New York |isbn=9781400079988 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/warpeace00tols_1/page/522 522–528] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/warpeace00tols_1/page/522 }}

Ngaio Marsh's detective story Off with His Head (1957) is set around a particular version of the Guiser play / Sword Dance, the fictional "Dance of the Five Sons", performed on the "Sword Wednesday" of the Winter Solstice. The characters used in that dance are describes in great detail, in particular "The Fool", "The Hobbyhorse" and "The teaser" (called "Betty").{{cite book |last=Marsh|first=Ngaio|title=Off with His Head |year=1957|publisher=Collins Crime Club|place=London}}

George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire often features and references mummers, with characters regularly referring to a comical, bungled, unbelievable, or manufactured event as a "mummer's farce".{{Citation|last=Blacharska|first=Katarzyna|title=Ambiguity in the Depiction of Melisandre in A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin|date=2014|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.31338/uw.9788323514350.pp.211-230|work=George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" and the Medieval Literary Tradition|pages=60|publisher=Warsaw University Press|doi=10.31338/uw.9788323514350.pp.211-230|isbn=978-83-235-1435-0|access-date=2020-11-14|url-access=subscription}}{{Cite book|last1=Martin|first1=George R. R.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hapdAAAAQBAJ&q=mummers+ice+and+fire&pg=PA52|title=The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones|last2=García|first2=Elio M. Jr.|last3=Antonsson|first3=Linda|date=2014-10-28|publisher=Random House Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-345-53555-9|pages=52|language=en}}

There are several traditional songs associated with mumming plays; the "calling-on" songs of sword dance teams are related:

• "The Singing of the Travels" by the Symondsbury Mummers, appears on SayDisc CD-SDL425 English Customs and Traditions (1997) along with an extract from the Antrobus, Cheshire, Soulcakers' Play
• It also appears on the World Library of Folk and Primitive Music. Vol 1. England, Rounder 1741, CD (1998/reis), cut#16b
• "The Singing of the Travels" was also recorded by the Silly Sisters (Maddy Prior and June Tabor).Silly Sisters, Takoma TAK 7077, LP (1977), cut# 6 (Singing the Travels)
• "A Calling-on Song" by Steeleye Span from their first album Hark! The Village Wait is based on a sword-dance or pace-egg play calling-on song, in which the characters are introduced one by one
• "The Mummers' Dance," a hit song from the album The Book of Secrets by Loreena McKennitt, refers to a springtime traditional mummers' play as performed in Ireland.
• "England in Ribbons", a song by Hugh Lupton and Chris Wood is based on the characters of a traditional English mummers' play. It gave its name to a two-hour programme of traditional and traditionally-rooted English music, broadcast by BBC Radio 3 as the culmination of a whole day of English music, on St George's Day 2006[https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/feature/pip/hp4fq Feature — England in Ribbons], BBC Radio 3
• "The Mummer's Song", performed by the Canadian folk group Great Big Sea, but originally written by the Newfoundland folk band Simani, is an arrangement of the traditional song "The Mummer's Carol", which details the mummering tradition in Newfoundland and Labrador. A hip-hop version by M.W.A. (Mummers With Attitude) was released in 2014.
• Mummer is the title of a 1983 album by the English rock band XTC.

{{div col|colwidth=30em}}

• Balliol rhyme
• Blackface and Morris dancing
• Căluşari Dancers of Romania
• Careto
• Clown
• Commedia dell'arte
• Courir de Mardi Gras
• Jester
• Koledovanie
• Kukeri Mummers of Bulgaria
• Marshfield Mummers
• Mystery play
• Pantomime
• Revels
• St George's Day in England
• Wassailing
• Wrenboys

{{div col end}}

{{Reflist}}

{{Commons category|Mummers plays}}

Mummers' plays proper

• [https://youtube.com/watch?v=XxQ5BcY8feI Mummers, Masks and Mischief] — a 25-minute documentary featuring the [https://web.archive.org/web/20070712163128/http://www.fermanagh.info/aughakillymaude Aughakillymaude Mummers] of county Fermanagh in Ireland, produced and directed by James Kelly
• [http://www.folkplay.info/ Folk Play Research Website] — Scripts, photos, articles, databases, etc.
• [http://petemillington.uk/articles/mysteryhistory.php Mystery History : The Origins of British Mummers' Plays] — article by Peter Millington from American Morris Newsletter
• [http://www.mastermummers.org/groupslist.php Master Mummers' Directory of Folk Play Groups] — details of over 250 groups
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060327070814/http://www.folk-network.com/miscellany/christmas/luck-visiting.html South Riding Folk Arts Network: Christmas Luck-visiting customs]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20040830082747/http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2386/is_1_114/ai_102910348 The Truro cordwainers' play: a "new" eighteenth-century Christmas play] — article by Peter Millington in Folklore, April 2003
• [http://www.soulcakers.com Comberbach Mummers Website; includes photos plus script for our version of St George and the Dragon]
• [http://www.weston-mummers.org.uk/ The Weston Mummers website]
• [http://www.bradshawmummers.com/ The Bradshaw Mummers website]
• [http://sligoheritage.com/archmummers.htm Mummers, Wrenboy and Strawboy traditions in Ireland]
• [http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/ACalend/Mummers.html Mumming — a Yuletide Tradition by Bridget Haggerty in Ireland]
• [http://www.batteryradio.com/Pages/mummers.html Battery Radio Documentary about Christmas Mummering in Newfoundland]
• [http://www.folkplay.info/Texts/96sk65hr.htm Plough Play]
• [http://www.folkplay.info/Texts/88sy--uj.htm South West Dorset Mummers' Play 1880]
• [http://www.tewkesbury.town/tewkesbury-mummers-medieval-play/ Tewkesbury's Millennia of Mummers' Heritage kept alive - United Kingdom]

Other related customs

• [http://www.msgr.ca/msgr-2/mummering0.htm Mummering or Janneying in Newfoundland]
• [http://pontosworld.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=411&Itemid=90 Momogeri — A Pontian Greek custom]

{{Christmas}}

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