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Topic: Mummers Play

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	The Unbroken Circle - Mummers Play
		Mummers' or Mumming Plays are performed in the street and often the performers would call at houses in the vicinity causing much excitement and enjoyment, they would be given food and drink similar to carol singers and then perform their play.
		Mummer's plays are often comic in tone with a formal structure but allowing for many comic asides and there is an element of community celebration and humor in the performances.
		The masked play in 'The Wicker Man' is clearly derived from The Mummers Play but with a more pagan direction and using archetypes such as the Salmon of Knowledge drawn from mysticism.
	www.theunbrokencircle.co.uk /folklore_Mummers_play.htm (2273 words)

	Eydon Mummers Homepage
		Eydon Mummers was formed (revived?) at the end on 1991 by a group of villagers and friends, when a copy of the traditional Eydon Mummers Play became available.
		Mummers' plays are a last vestige of the old fertility rites performed in mid-winter to bring life back to the world.
		The plays were passed down orally and some have became garbled over the years, as each player would only know his (never her) own part, not those of the other players.
	www.eydon.org.uk /mummers (737 words)

	Mummers Play (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-18)
		The third type of mummers play is the sword dance play from the north of England in which the characters perform a sword dance where the grand finale involves the cutting off of the head of the Fool, followed by his revival by a quack doctor.
		The common theme in all these plays is the death and resurrection of a character, believed by historians to symbolize the death of the year and its resurrection in the spring.
		In the hero/combat play the hero is the handsome and brave Saint George and the adversary is the dastardly Giant Blunderbore.
	my.net-link.net /69/90/warmstro/morris/Mummers.htm (650 words)

	Mummers Plays (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-18)
		The Mummers Play is a folk play popular througout the whole of England in various forms and has a strong history and presence in Sussex today.
		The various elements of the play may stem from several sources, though these are hard to pin down as the plays were usually handed down by word of mouth in a rural community where the population was fairly stable.
		The theory was that the play, with it's death of a hero and subsequent resurrection by a doctor, was an echo of the ritual of death and rebirth of nature during winter so often given by Frazer, where a fertility god is symbolically killed in his old age to be reborn young in the spring.
	www2.prestel.co.uk /aspen/sussex/mumming.html (2514 words)

	East Hagbourne - History - The Hagbourne Mummers Play (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-18)
		Mummers plays are a common part of folklore throughout England and, with few exceptions, are normally performed at Christmas.
		Just when and where the Hagbourne Mummers Play was first performed is unknown but, from material obtained from the "Morris Ring" archives, the characters and words of the play are similar to other plays still regularly performed in the area around Abingdon and Wantage.
		These plays were handed down by word of mouth through the generations, and the Hagbourne Mummers Play is recorded as being learned by Caleb Hitchman of New Road from his older brother Joseph around 56-58 years ago.
	www.easthagbourne.net /history/mummers.shtml (455 words)

	Mummers Play - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Mummers and guisers can be traced back at least to the middle ages, though when the term "mummer" appears in ancient manuscripts it is rarely clear what sort of performance was involved.
		In mummers’ plays, the central incident is the killing and restoring to life of one of the characters.
		Mummer rules dictate that the wearer be able to move their costume unaided the length of the parade.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Mummers_Play (1865 words)

	2000 Christmas Programme (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-18)
		Mummers' plays were quite common throughout Great Britain and Ireland before 1914, and a few are still being regularly being performed today, although many survive in print as a result of the efforts of a number of folklorists in the early part of this century.
		One origin for the Mummers' play is thought to be the Mediaeval mystery play, but it is clear that, in the majority of plays now surviving, the "moral" and religious tone of the mystery play has somewhat dissipated.
		Mummers' plays are a part of Britain's cultural heritage, and are closely linked with Morris Dancing and, in parts of the country, Long Sword dancing.
	www.king-johns-morris.org.uk /Archives/2000ProgChristmas.shtml (547 words)

	North Devon Mummers (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-18)
		Mummers plays are the descendants of ancient rituals that were performed at particular seasons throughout the year.
		The North Devon Mummers play is a midwinter play the text of which was changed to it's present form in mediaeval times.
		The result is a short and entertaining masked play where St George defeats and kills his enemies who are brought back to life again by a magician disguised as a doctor.
	www.ilfracom.org.uk /westdown/tourism/north_devon_mummers.htm (213 words)

	Christine Herold (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-18)
		Since the Mummers' Play is a purely masculine activity, what we must be witnessing is a manifestation of masculinized archetypal figures and actions, the contents of the male psyche.
		We find, for example, in some mummers' plays, instead of the direct appearance of a Woman figure, simply a comic reference to the Female as one of those insatiably hungry dependent creatures whom Johnny Jack is doomed to carry on his heroic back.
		It should be observed that in the Mummers' Play, although the victor is sometimes a national hero and his antagonist a foreigner, it is by no means an invariable rule for more sympathy to be shown for the victor than for the vanquished.
	www.sdu.dk /Hum/SITM/papers/christine_herold.html (4787 words)

	The Otterbourne Christmas Mummers
		Mummers plays were once a common sight in villages across Southern England at Christmastime.
		Sadly many of these plays ceased around the time of the Great War when whole swathes of young men, who'd grown up in the same village and taken part in its customs, were lost in battle.
		My interest in the play was fuelled by stories told to me by my mother of her childhood Christmasses when the family home played host to a large gathering of Aunts, Uncles and cousins.
	www.forest-tracks.co.uk /paulmarshs/pages/mummers.html (846 words)

	Mummers Troupe: Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage
		The Mummers Troupe founded the Resource Centre for the Arts, and helped purchase, renovate and develop the LSPU Hall as a downtown St. John's performance centre.
		Several Mummers Troupe productions went on to do provincial and national tours, and indeed the troupe was always committed to taking their collective theatre out of the major cities such as St. John's and into the smaller communities around Newfoundland and Labrador.
		The Mummers Troupe provided theatrical experience and employment for people who shared a common vision of what the work should be about and what theatre could do - what cultural expression could develop on both community and provincial levels.
	www.heritage.nf.ca /arts/mummersprof.html (646 words)

	Mummers' Plays - Icons of England (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-18)
		Drawing on popular literary sources, the mummers' plays were adopted by rural communities, becoming part of a flourishing oral tradition.
		These are: the hero combat play, in which a duel is fought out until one of the participants is mortally wounded; a wooing play, involving rival suitors unsuccessfully trying to win the heart of a lady; and a sword-dance, which is based around the killing and resuscitation of a hero.
		Mummers' Plays have been performed in England for hundreds of years.
	www.icons.org.uk /nom/nominations/mummer-s-plays (379 words)

	Ashdown Mummers What is a Mummers play
		The Mummers' Play is a folk tale developed from a pre-Christian fertility rite or pagan ritual and was popular throughout England in various forms and with different names.
		It has been speculated that the theme of the play is the continuing cycle of death and resurrection.
		This particular version of the Mummers' Play was painstakingly recovered from village archives in the 1970s and has been performed every Christmastide since 1973.
	www.mummers.org.uk /whatismum.html (280 words)

	Introduction to British and Irish Folk Plays
		The key character is the comical quack doctor, who is brought in to revive the loser of the sword fight between a hero and an adversary.
		The plays are often called Mummers' Plays after one of the common names by which the actors are known.
		Nonetheless, Mummers Play is still a frequently used term, and it causes no end of confusion.
	www.folkplay.info /introduction.htm (482 words)

	Mystery History : The Origins of British Mummers' Plays
		There is a vague reference to a Christmas mummers' play in a poem "The Mobiad" written by Andrew Brice in 1738 and published in 1770.
		No similar plays are recorded again until the 1820s when a single notebook gives the texts of the only other known Multiple Wooing plays and the first true Recruiting Sergeant play.
		The fact that the rise of pantomime was shortly before the first records of Mummers' plays suggests that pantomime influenced the folk plays, and not vice versa.
	freespace.virgin.net /peter.millington1/Mystery_History.htm (3470 words)

	The Mummers
		The play involves a fight scene in which first King Alfred is 'killed' by Beau Slasher.
		The play finishes with a dance between the ex-combatants and a monologue by Old Father Beelzebub who comments on the issues of the day.
		Indeed, it is based on an old tradition from the nearby village of Steventon that was resurrected by Max Williams, an Old Boy of The Side.
	www.icknieldwaymorrismen.org.uk /the_mummers.html (606 words)

	The English Mummers' Play
		Phil talks of his father's accounts of Mummers visiting the house, presumably in the early years of the 20th century, and goes on to recount his own experience as a member of Darlington Mummers, presumably in the 1970s.
		In Section 2 (Types of play and their distribution), it is mentioned that the plays existed 'almost all over the British Isles and a few places abroad as well'.
		Six traditional sides continue to perform these plays, in an era when the players almost certainly don't make any money out of it, they can probably afford to have a drink when they wish, and there's precious little status to be gained from the activity - often the reverse.
	www.mustrad.org.uk /reviews/mummers.htm (1278 words)

	Wiltshire County Council - Wiltshire Community History Get Wiltshire History Question Information
		I would like to stage a mummers’ play, as a change from the school nativity play, but I can’t find much in the way of background, nor indeed the texts of any of the plays.
		Mummers’ plays would make a interesting variation to the usual Christmas entertainments.
		To these must be added Limpley Stoke, whose play Felicity Gilmour edited and published in 1990, and the Inglesham Christmas play, acted by mummers, and those at Amesbury and Woodford mentioned in ‘Moonrakings’, edited by Edith Olivier and Margaret Edwards.
	www.wiltshire.gov.uk /community/getfaq.php?id=237 (600 words)

	From stage to folk: a note on the passages from Addison's Rosamond in the "Truro" mummers' play - Topics, Notes And ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-18)
		Most of the untraditional material in the Truro play is used to construct what may once have been a rather less garbled sequel to the usual combat and cure plot, built up around stanzas taken from the ballad "King Henry Fifth's Conquest of France" (no. 164 in Child's standard collection).
		The last time he spoke in the play (speech 22) he was playing the role of the English messenger from King Henry, demanding (in lines deriving from the ballad's stanza 4) tribute from the King of France.
		And before this there is a thematic discontinuity, as the speech in the Truro play under discussion (speech 24) continues with further lines from Rosamond in a quite different mood from a later scene, spoken by Rosamond herself as she longs for the return of her royal lover:
	www.findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_m2386/is_2_114/ai_106981970 (682 words)

	Mummers.com. The Philadelphia Mummers Parade Web Site.
		Mummers to descend on New Inn for festival - This is in Ireland...
		Mummers tradition dates back to 400 BC and the Roman Festival of Saturnalias where Latin laborers marched in masks throughout the day of satire and gift exchange.
		Mummers news release from the City of Philadelphia.
	www.mummers.org (565 words)

	Mummers Plays performed by Green Man Mummers
		Some Plays have been published in books by Alan Brody and Alex Helm; others have been written in the mummers style by members of Green Man Morris.
		The third section is called "The Play" and the final is the Second dance.
		In Brodys' investigation of the Hero-combat form of the mens ceremonial (Mummers Play) he saw a number of unassimilated figures hovering on the out-skirts of the central action.
	www.geocities.com /greenmanm/scripts.htm (187 words)

	Philadelphia Online... The Mummers Parade (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-18)
		The origins of the event probably go back to medieval England, where troupes of costumed performers roamed from house to house presenting the mummers' play, a folk drama, at Christmas time.
		The earliest known Mummers club, the Chain Gang, was formed in the 1840s, and soon other clubs were organized to represent various sections of the city.
		In 1808 legislation was passed, by social leaders who became upset with the tradition, against the sorts of celebrations of the Mummer's Parade.
	www.philadex.com /philadelphia/tourism/mummers_parade.asp (355 words)

	Cold Ash Mummers about
		There were mummers all around this area in the early part of the 20th century but, as in many places, they gradually died out.
		The Cold Ash band grew out of a village play staged in 1993 in which a mummers play was performed.
		The play runs for about 20 minutes depending on how creative we are and how much audience participation (interruptions!) there is. Our costumes are more traditional than modern with strips of cloth hanging from hats and jackets.
	www.heathwaite.u-net.com /mummers.html (645 words)

	Mummers History
		One of the earlest known accounts of a mummers' parade was written by Dr. Henry Muhlenberg, who esablished the Lutheran Church in America.
		The burlesquing of their fashionable mummers' plays and the increasing number of the fl-faced revelers, offended the "Social Leaders" of the day.
		With such a rich background it is no wonder that the traditional Philadelphia Mummers' New Year's Day pagent has continued for over a century and becomes more and more colorful and spectacular each succeeding year.
	mummerartist.homestead.com /history.html (831 words)

	Room, Room, Ladies and Gentlemen: An Introduction to the English Mummers' Play Folklore - Find Articles (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-18)
		Nine play texts are given in full, as representative of various regional subtypes.
		Whereas an earlier generation of scholars concentrated almost exclusively on the action of the plays, Cass and Roud argue that the best clues to their origins will be found in close study of the verbal texts.
		The enduring appeal of the mummers' play is obvious from the popularity of today's many revivals; this is the ideal book to lead anyone who has enjoyed a performance into a deeper understanding of what it is they have seen
	www.findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_m2386/is_1_116/ai_n13786309 (389 words)

	Discussion Questions for Thomas Hardy's "The Return of the Native"
		Hardy's reason for using both the Guy Fawkes bonfire and the mummers' play, insists Squillace, is that "they comprise an anti-reality, a mistaken science in which the truly educated or evolved can no longer maintain their belief" (184).
		Summarize the traditions of the mummers' play that Hardy mentions in The Return of the Native.
		Continues Squillace, "the mummers' play in The Return of the Native does not manifest the unconscious conflicts of the natives of Egdon Heath; rather, it reflects the evolutionary stage of heath society, the superstitious Christianity of the Middle Ages" (185).
	www.victorianweb.org /authors/hardy/pva274.html (1169 words)

	The Origins of the Mummers Parade (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-18)
		These mummers went house to house, dressed up or with flened faces, shouting and shooting while chanting.
		The name "mummers" comes from the impersonations of the English mummers' play of St.
		Despite these pieces of legislation the Mummers Parade is as festive and as noisy as ever.
	ccat.sas.upenn.edu /~mhaggert/project/mummer/origin.html (365 words)

	SAMummers02
		Afterwards, Father Christmas tells the audience that the play is over and invites them to "remember this hat, which is highly commended", and sets a hat/box/bucket circulating.
		All the Mummers then sing a traditional carol, wishing the audience a good New Year, and take their bows, to rupturous applause.
		There is a script for our play, but, in traditional fashion, this is just the starting point; each year, the Mummers add topical jokes(?), and get the audience involved in the words and the action, by any means available.
	homepage.ntlworld.com /captainwebb/mummers/SAMum2.htm (384 words)

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