M.W.Barley Collection (1953, G.Christian)
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Transcription
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Chailey Hatch,
North Chailey,
Lewes, Sussex.
Aprit 25th., 1953.
Dear Mr. Barley,
Enclosed is the text of the Mummers Play at Underwood,
Notts, as recorded in December 1950. I don't know what happened
this last year, but I believe at least two groups of Guisers
toured the village in 1951. When I lived there in the 1940's,
we always had two groups of boys performing the play on Christ-
mas Eve, and rival Guisers from Jacksdale in the Erewash Valley
also visited us. No streamers were worn and the clothes - though
often the result of much enterprise and originality - comprised
anything that came in handy. I recall St. George, for instance, in
a great coat labelled HOME GUARD.
Oliver Cromwell - see text - is an alien borrowed from some
published version, I think, for he never appeared in the
many performances I have seen in Notts or Derbyshire. (His
part is derived from a published text lodged in the Irish
Folk Lore Institute, I think.) The rest of the play is truly
traditional, though Beelzebub usually ends his lines:
"So with a chink, chink, chinkt,
And a drop more drink,
"I'll drink the old bottle dry.
So if you think I'm a fool and got no sense,
put you hands in your pockets and give me some pence."
Slasher sometimes says to the Doctor: "My back is wounded,
My heart is confounded,
I've been knocked out of seven senses into nine score,
The like of which has never been seen in old England
before."
The Derbyshire Advertiser reports that the Uttoxeter Mummers
performed a very different version thiS last Christmas, but I
havn't yet got the full text.
Yours truly
Garth Christian |
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