1 Folk Lore Review, III (1880), 90.

2 Folk Lore, LXIII/IV (1952–53), 32.

3 Collier, J. P., Annals of the Stage (1879), I, 16, n.3.Google Scholar

4 The Antiquary, VII (1883), 25.

5 Hauser, Arnold, The Philosophy of Art History (London, 1959).Google Scholar

6 Yorkshire Evening Post, January 17, 1923.

7 Richard Johnson, The Seven Champions of Christendom (1596). One of Dicey's eighteenth-century chapbooks is found in Ashton, J., Chapbooks of the Eighteenth Century (Chatto and Windus 1882), pp. 164–70.Google Scholar We know, too, of chapbooks from Germany, Newcastle, and Edinburgh; the Newcastle edition was an abridgement of the first part of Johnson's romance (Chapbooks in Harvard [Harvard University Library, 1905], p. 33). There was also a Dublin Chapbook based on Johnson, with suitably anti-English adornments (Szoverffy, J., “Volkserzahlung und Volksbuch,” Fabula, I, iii [1957], 7Google Scholar). Broadsheets of texts were sold at least until the end of the nineteenth century (Folk Lore, XXVII [1916], 301). A Yorkshire printer tried in vain to revive interest in them in the 1920's.

8 Kirke, John, The Seven Champions of Christendom (1638).Google Scholar

9 T. F. Ordish postulates the origin of the Christmas mummers' play in a Scandinavian boar-festival (Folk Lore, II [1891], 314–35; Folk Lore, IV [1893], 149–75). See also Henderson, W., Folk Lore of the Northern Counties (1879), pp. 70–1.Google Scholar F. B. Jevons thinks that the play, like Greek tragedy, sprang from ceremonies of ancestor worship (“Masks and the Origins of the Greek Drama,” Folk Lore, XXVII [1916], 171–92). Miss Christina Hole considers that the plays “almost certainly derive from ancient vegetation rites” (English Folk Heroes [1948], pp. 118–19). Gomme, Mrs. (“Some Incidents in Mummers' Plays,” Folk Lore, XLI [1930], 195–98Google Scholar) takes up a similar position to Miss Hole and to Tiddy (The Mummers' Play [1923], pp. 70 et seq.).

F. W. Moorman traces the play back to the vegetation festivals of “Green George” (Essays and Studies, II [1911], 152). Gomme, G. L. (Nature, LVII [Dec. 23, 1897], 176Google Scholar) and Karpeles, Maud (Folk Lore, XLIII [1932], 123–143CrossRefGoogle Scholar) both stress the importance of the ritual combat between Winter and Spring. See Further: Harwood, H. W. and Marsden, F. H., The Pace Egg: The Midgley Version (Halifax, 1935), p. 3Google Scholar; Mill, A. J., Mediaeval Plays in Scotland (St. Andrews University Publications, XXIV (Blackwood, 1927), p. 11Google Scholar; Baskervill, C. R., “Mummers' Wooing Plays in England,” Modem Philogy, XXI, iii (February 1924), 227Google Scholar; Philpotts, B. S., The Elder Edda and Ancient Scandinavian Drama (1920), p. 114Google Scholar; and Beatty, A., “The St. George, or Mummers', Plays: A Study in the Protology of the Drama,” Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy, XV, ii (1907), 273–324.Google Scholar

10 Baskervill, C. R., “Dramatic Aspects of Mediaeval Folk Festivals in England,” Studies in Philology, XVII (1917), 33.Google Scholar Miss E. Welsford writes in a similar vein of the mummers who “come leaping and dancing that the crops may grow,… [and] perform sword dances and dramas of death and resurrection to help on by imitative magic the eternal struggle between summer and winter, darkness and light, life and death.”

11 The Court Masque (Cambridge University Press, 1927), p. 5. Beatty, , op. cit. (note 9, above), p. 321.Google Scholar See also: Chambers, E. K., The Mediaeval Stage (Oxford University Press, 1903), I, 94.Google Scholar

12 The Observer (September 1, 1963); The Guardian (September 10, 1963).

13 This vague idea may have been rationalized so that it was simply thought “unlucky” to dismiss the mummers from one's door (Folk Lore, XXVII [1917], 420). See also: Welsford, p. 19.

14 Douglas, G. W., The American Book of Days (New York, 1948), p. 6.Google Scholar

15 Tiddy, Ch. i.

16 Chambers, , op. cit., I, 206.Google Scholar

17 Bradbrook, M. C., Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan Tragedy, p. 40.Google Scholar

18 Chambers, , op. cit., 1, 206.Google Scholar

19 A Study of History (Oxford University Press, 1948), VI, 439.

20 Ibid.

21 Lines about Nelson and Collingwood were introduced into one Lancashire play by a “loblolly boy” who had served on H.M.S. Victory and had later returned home to publicize his war service.

22 Tiddy, pp. 200–02.

23 Folk Lore, LXI–II (1950–51), 463–67.

24 van Gennep, A., La Formation des Legendes, p. 193.Google Scholar

25 Compare these four lines from a Staffordshire play: It's many a joint where I so do, Where I'd ram this fiery dagger through., It's I who slew Slabberer from the stake, What more can mortal man undertake?

with the same lines from an uncorrupted text: Many a giant I did subdue, And ran a fiery dragon through, I freed fair Sabra from the stake, What more could mortal man undertake?

26 Folk Lore Review, III (1880), 115.

27 Nicoll, Allardyce, The World of Harlequin (1963).Google Scholar

28 Yorkshire Evening Post, January 17, 1923.

29 Folk Lore, XXIV (1913), 86–7.

30 Folk Lore Journal, IV (1886), 98.

31 County Folk Lore, V (1908), 186.

32 Folk Lore Review, III (1880), 92.

33 Harwood and Marsden. This play was actually performed at Easter, though the costumes do not differ from those worn in the play which was acted at Christmas.

34 Chambers, E. K., The English Folk Play (Oxford, 1933), pp. 83–7.Google Scholar

35 Ditchfield, , Old English Customs, p. 9Google Scholar; Folk Lore, XI (1900), 262; Folk Lore, IV (1893), 149–75; Folk Lore Review, III (1880), 88. But compare: Folk Lore, XII (1901), 193.

36 Mrs. Gomme, op. cit. (note 9, above); G. L. Gomme, op. cit. (note 9, above); Beatty, op. cit. (note 9, above).

37 Folk Lore, IV (1893), 163.

38 Hauser, p. 439.

39 Toynbee, p. 439.

40 Welsford, p. 19, n.6 above.

41 Hauser, p. 284.

42 Hauser, p. 300.

43 Welsford, pp. 17–18.

44 Folk Lore, LXV/VI (1954–5), 74–86.