or ' St George 's Annual Play
As performed until recent years on Good Friday at Midgley, near Halifax, and revived in 1932 as a direct result of a studio broadcast in Leeds
Characters :
Performed and relayed from the main street of the village of Midgley, where the village folk are assembled for the festivities
(North Regional Programme)
CUT OF THE SACRIFICE and ritual of primitive times evolved mock sacrifice, born of the. instinct of play in the human race. At hohday time folk festivals were performed, and in medieval days the sword dance sprang up all over Britain. The dancers were young men who often blacked their faces, and invariably ' killed each other a ' doctor' coming along and bringing the ' dead ' to life.
From the sword dance evolved the Mummers' play, in which mock sacrifice again was the principal motif.
The hero was generally St. George, or Sir George, or Prince George, and his opponents were various. Sometimes the devil had to be slain and he was little Devil Doubt, Little Jack , or (as in this play) Old Tosspot , with his rag dolls.
The great point of interest is that these Mummers' plays have survived —the text and the characters vary with the district. The dragon hard y ever appears, but St. George usually refers to his exploit.
The ' Pace-eggers ' or ' Pasque-eggers ' nlav as its name suggests, is appropriate to Easter. The villagers, moving from place to place, perform and collect the offerings; the players being known as mummers, or guisers, owing to their disguise, and in Cornwall, geese-dancers. The Pace Egg has been performed at Midgley, Yorkshire, for over a hundred years.