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THE maps show the areas of the three types. The Sword Dance and Wooing plays
are regional, as are the customs reviewed in Cawte et al (1960), but the Hero-Combat
play is more widespread, and several factors are probably
responsible for its distribution. It is understandable that plays are
not found in the thinly populated areas, of Scotland and Central
Wales for example, but this does not explain the blank in East
Anglia, or some other well-populated areas. At the beginning of the
eighteenth century, the population density in East Anglia (100-150
per square mile), although low compared with some other parts of
England, was larger than that of Lincolnshire (50-100 per square
mile), where the Wooing plays are known. The pattern is also modified
by differing intensities of collection, as when a collector increased
our collection of Buckinghamshire plays by 35%, and another
doubled the number from Leicestershire. This still leaves some
unexplained gaps; Miss C.S.Burne found only two plays in
Shropshire, close together, and very near the Staffordshire border
though she was plainly looking for them there and elsewhere
(Burne, 1883), and similarly Mrs Leather only found one in Herefordshire,
and that very near Gloucestershire (Leather, 1912). We have made
an extensive but unsuccessful search to discover any papers left
by Miss Burne and Mrs Leather in order to establish whether they
contained more references to the Play. In view of the lack of
information on this subject and the wealth of detail on other
associated customs in the district, it seems unlikely that either
author would have omitted any further examples. One of us visited
these two counties a few years ago, and enquired after the Play
in a number of places, but it seemed to be almost unknown, and in
central Northumberland the same seems to be true, for the Guisers
commonly went about at Christmas, but no trace of the Play was
recalled (Cawte Coll.).
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Click on either map to view full-sized.
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The map does show that the Play has been a very widespread
ceremonial custom. Although the Wooing and Sword Dance types are shown to
have the most clearly defined areas, it will also be seen that the Hero-Combat
plays have infiltrated the preserves of the other two. The plays are
rare in the highlands of Wales, the Pennines, Cumbria and Scotland,
and commonest in an area south of a line drawn from the
mouth of the Dee to the mouth of the Humber.
We have not found any patterns of distribution which correspond
with those shown on the map, although we have considered dialect,
geology, and the distribution of inherited disease processes. The
one exception to this is that Gray (1959) distinguishes between
two forms of agriculture, the Anglo-Saxon two or three Field
System and the Celtic Runrig System. He gives evidence that the
former was more resistant to enclosure than the latter, and gives a
map on which he shows two lines which are the boundaries of the
Anglo-Saxon two or three Field area. Characteristics of this area
were large villages and large stable agricultural communities, and
it encloses almost all the dense areas on our map. One dense area
outside Gray's lines comprises Lancashire, the Pennine valleys of
the West Riding, and Cheshire. Plays in the northern part of this
area differ from those elsewhere in being performed at Easter and
in following the chapbooks. In Cheshire, the time of appearance is
All Souls', and the ceremony is associated with Souling proper and
the Wild Horse, and only rarely has an independent existence of
its own. The only areas between Gray's lines where few plays are
recorded are Shropshire and Herefordshire (previously mentioned),
Worcestershire, and the western part of East Anglia. All of these
are on the edge of the three-field area and Herefordshire had an
exceptional form of this system.
We feel that the similarity between Gray's area and our principal
dense area is more than fortuitous. It seems that the population
within Gray's area was better able to maintain the teams of players,
and their resistance to change is reflected both in their maintenance
of the Play and their opposition to enclosure.
Rural depopulation in the early part of the nineteenth century
must also be considered. This was caused by the unemployment of
the farm labourer, because the small farmer could not keep pace
with the need for capital improvement. In the early nineteenth
century along the Suffolk/Essex border the decaying textile
industries further increased unemployment among weavers and
woolworkers, who began, circa 1850, to seek employment in
London and ten years later, from the same area, began a movement
to the industrial north-west. East Anglia never really recovered
from this exodus, and it is a reasonable guess that the tradition
died as people moved. What is found in the north-west and other
places today may bear the unknown imprint of East Anglia, but it
is now improbable that exact details will be known.
In Northern Scotland and Central Wales the lack of population
and the fact that English is not the first language must be
considered. It should be mentioned that both Central Wales and East
Anglia are almost bare of all the customs we consider in our MS
Index, and not only of the Play.
In Ireland the Play has been common in most of the counties of
Ulster and along the east coast in the counties of Louth, Dublin
and Wexford. The single record in Cork is far removed in time as
well as space from the others. The example from Mayo, though
not completely recorded, was beyond question an Hero-Combat play. It may
be a relic of the English settlement in the time of Cromwell at
Tuam 15 miles away, as this was the only large English settlement
in mid-Connacht. The east coast gap between the counties of
Louth and Dublin corresponds to the gaeltacht of Omeath which
is now extinct, and the gap between Dublin and Wexford corresponds
with the county of Wicklow, which was never part of the
English pale, and was Gaelic-speaking in places until shortly
before the present century. The English pale of Dublin is indicated
by plays and so is a narrow strip of medieval English pale in the
counties of Kildare, Carlow, and Kilkenny. Within the limits of
our information, wherever Gaelic has been spoken by a considerable
proportion of the population, the play is unrecorded. This
distribution strongly suggests that the Play is of English origin.
One man recited play fragments, probably from County Sligo, in
English, though the rest of his considerable repertoire of traditional
verses was in Gaelic (N.A.Hudleston Coll.).
Nevertheless, the Irish plays have distinctive features, particularly
the names of some of the characters, and it seems likely that
these plays have been extant in Ireland for a considerable length
of time. The Play has survived in spite of a high rate of emigration,
and the density of population in Ireland as a whole is comparable
with the least thickly populated parts of England one hundred years
ago.
The most useful generalisations are that much more work is
needed on the distribution of these customs and that the original,
single Play has divided into three and become bowdlerised for a
more polite society than that to which the original performers took
Fertility.
1 Some of the facts on which the arguments in this section are based come
from H. C. Darby: An Historical Geography of England before 1800, C.U.P.,
Cambridge, 1951 (First edition, 1936).
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