h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I would like to recommend the following entry:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A645699.

I might wish to include a couple of external links, but I need to be sure they're good. I will set these up as a separate entry to test them as advised on a previous entry. One of these at least would give indications of where these plays can be seen.

Ever get that feeling of deja vu

Ok here goes.

Just one point I noticed straight away (I'll read the article in depth tomorrow).

In the paragraph on pace egging, you mention 'mummers', but you don't actually explain what they are until much later in the article.

It might be worth either shifting footnote 5 up to this point, or just adding '(See paragraph on .... for details)'.

(As usual, feel free to ignore me, i won't be at all offended )


whisky

PS, excellent stuff

Thanks, Whisky,

I'll make an amendment. I had put something in an earlier version, which had other stuff attached, but I took the lot out. In retrospect, I should have covered the point.

Hi, Zarquon's Singing Fish!

I really like this entry - it's a very interesting topic and you have covered it well. A few suggestions:

I think it would be a good idea to put a reference to 'in English-speaking countries' in the introduction. Also, I think you should seriously consider reversing the order in which you deal with the different versions: mumming is easily the best known of the three, and from your entry seems to be the most widespread, and you might be better off putting it first, before pace-egging and souling.

I think you need a bit more information about souling - as it stands, the 'early Christians' reference makes it sound as if you're skipping about 1500 years of history - is there really any reference to the custom in early Christian times? I'm curious, because it sounds more like what I'd expect from the later Middle Ages.

Finally, it would be a good idea to explain where the 'In comes I' of the title comes from. If you're using it as an example of how these plays preserve older usages and English dialect, it might be worth pointing that out for readers who are not native speakers of English.

Good luck!
Azara

Hi, Azara,

Thanks for the comments

All sound suggestions and I'm happy to incorporate them. I chose the order because that's the order they come in the year, Easter, All Hallows (just after Halloween) and Christmas and maybe because Pace-Egging is my favourite, as I was brought up in Lancashire.
NB: I'm happy to say that it still goes on in my native town and was danced in and around several pubs this year!

You're right about the medieval connection for souling - I don't think it happened (or I've no evidence of it happening before that). Do you think it would be helpful making the connection with Halloween, of which it was a precurser and telling the tale of Jack o'Lantern?

Also, do you think I should take out the reference to the Turkish Knight and just call him Bold Slasher? Given current tensions, i don't want to add to them!

I've now amended this in line with suggestions (I think I've covered all of them). I've also inserted some links (there were loads more I could have put in, but I've tried to be selective>

Comments, please!

Hi, !

I like most of the changes a lot I definitely think the less specific references to souling are safer! There are just two points where I would still be a little wary:

First, in the reference to souling being the origin of Halloween celebrations in the US and Canada, I would think this is quite debatable. The Celtic Samhain festival (which became Halloween in English) was always on th 31st October rather than the 2nd November, and there were various Irish and probably Scottish traditions of bonfires and dressing-up on Halloween which were certainly never called souling. Unfortunately, this is one of those topics where it is very hard to pin down exact information, and where the web is full of misinformation. Maybe 'one of the precursors' would hedge your bets a bit?

The second point is one that only an Irish person like myself would notice, but I think that the information on the Galway site you link to is a bit dodgy: mummers and Wren Boys might be regarded as the same thing in that particular village, but in the rest of the country they normally refer to quite different traditions. The classic mummers were more common in the areas with a longer tradition of speaking English, such as County Wexford, and in Northern Ireland. The Wren Boys came originally from the Irish-speaking tradition, and very specifically had their procession on St. Stephen's Day (26th December). I'd be inclined to drop this reference altogether.

If you want an Irish mummers link (which would certainly be nice), doing a google search for 'wexford' and 'mummers' should find the Ballybrennan mummers play from the 1820s, whose characters include St. Patrick and Cromwell as well as St. George.

Anyway, those are only very minor points - I might be the only person here who would notice them! Once again, I really like the entry, and I think you've done a great job with it. And I don't think you should worry about referring to the Turkish Knight... the context is clear enough.

Good luck!
Azara

Hi, Azara !

Thanks for your considered comments. I will amend the reference to souling and Halloween as suggested. My thoughts on them are that they were separate, but I had come across several very definite references in the States to souling being a precursor. As such I was only applying that over there.

I'll strike the reference to the Wren Boys. Hunting the wren ceremonies were carried out in England (and may still be for all I know) and I know there are connections with mumming plays, although I have never seen one. There's a rather nice song 'the Cutty Wren' about it as well, which I know from more years ago than I care to mention. I'll stick with what I know best. I will check out that reference you gave me as well.

I wonder if there is a connection between the Irish speaking tradition and the English ones? All these traditions were pre-Christian in origin and it might point to some common links, which is perhaps more likely than them having evolved independently.


Thank

Hi, !

I'm sure you're right, that the various traditions had a common origin, often in pre-christian celebrations. What |I find frustrating is that it's so hard to get definite information on this kind of topic, which is why I'm wary.

Anyway, your entry is looking well. from me!

Azara

Hi, Azara!

I checked out that reference and it led me to the Sheffield University's Traditional Drama Research Group (TDRG), which I'd already included as a link. Following it through, it looks as though the Ballybrennan play is no longer performed there. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and it has all the elements of the tradition.

Further looking at the site, I found the Wren Boys. Now my original source for them was different. It was their own site. Looking at it in the context of the other folk plays, it fits well into the context, but should perhaps have a separate entry as being sufficiently distinct. What do you think? Or the entry could be left as it is and rely on the link to the TDRG.

I have expanded the entry for the TDRG, showing more of the breadth of links including performances in a range of countries and the availability of texts.

I've even known a mumming play to be performed at an office's Christmas party - not mine, so I never saw it, but I heard reports.

By the way, do you know the meaning of Feile (as in Woodford Mummers Feile)?

Hi, !

I've had a look at some of the Irish links on the TDRG site, and the article, 'Irish Folk Drama' by Ruarí Ó Caomhanach looks very reliable - if anything he says contradicts anything I said, then he's definitely right! I'm glad to see that he agrees with what I had thought about the Wren Boys' tradition being older, and predating the arrival of English style mumming in Ireland.

I can also see your original point that the Wren Boys' performance is enough of a folk play to be worth including here. Listing them as a fourth style of folk performance would be one way to deal with them, but go ahead and do whatever you think is best. If you do decide to list them, the celebration in Dingle, County Kerry is probably the most well-known Wren Boy celebration, often known locally as just 'The Wran'.

Good Luck!
Azara

Hi, Azara,

Thanks for the info. I'll do some more hunting.

I'll certainly consider putting in a fourth category. I had definitely heard of hunting the wren before in English tradition, but I was not aware the tradition was still alive until I started further research and it was a surprise to find it in Ireland.

Would it be in order for me to include you as a co-author/researcher for the piece?

Hi, !

Thank you for the kind offer, I really appreciate the thought, but there's no need to. I think for your first few entries to the Edited Guide you should take full credit yourself!

The problem with co-author credit is that we would both be listed equally, and I think my name would come first because I have an earlier researcher number. Then a whole load of people would start asking *me* questions about pace-egging and souling, and I would have to refer them to you. So thanks again, but there's no need, as far as I'm concerned.

Azara

Hi, Azara !

I'm happy to! I've had endless fun rummaging around the TDRG site. Although I had found it and quoted it, I hadn't really taken the time to look properly. I've found a whole load of stuff about my home town, the folk club I used to sing at and the pace-egging group I knew before and when I was a student. I'm not going to include it, but it brought back nice memories. (There should be a smiley for .)

I'm probably going to add another section on for other traditions and include the Wren boys and the Plough boys. Otherwise, I would have either to extend the title to an unwieldy length, or to shorten it to folk plays, which loses a little.

I've now expanded the entry to include sections on Hunting the
Wren and Plough Plays. As far as I can see, the entry is now complete.

Any further comments?

Great work, !

I think the new sections fill out the entry extremely well, and the 'common ancestry' part is a good idea - I never realised how close the Wren Boys were to mummers until I started discussing them with you!

There's one slight problem: the links to Samhain and Beltane are to unedited entries, and standard policy when an entry is edited is to strip them out, since the authors may change the unedited entries at any time. It might be easiest just to drop the sentence about information on the pagan seasons.

Well done, and good luck!

Azara

Hi, Azara!

I've found your comments extremely interesting and helpful and they have made me stretch more than I would have done otherwise. Before I first came across the Woodford Mummers, I was unaware of the Irish tradition of Wren Boys - I only knew of the English tradition of Hunting the Wren, which appears to have died out except for the songs.

This brought up another line of enquiry, that of the sacrifice of animals to ensure a good harvest, which survives in song. The Cutty Wren is a good example. The Derby Ram, Poor Old Horse, The Herring's Heid are songs and the Abbotts Bromley Horn Dance are other examples from the tradition. Again, I was aware of them, but I think they are just out of the central theme of this entry.

I did wonder about using unedited entries and I will take out the ones on Samhain and Beltane. Pity, though - they provided useful extra information.

Thank you for all your help . By the way, what *does* Feile mean?

Oh, sorry, a Féile is a Festival in Irish: for example, the Irish name for Poetry Festival would be Féile Filíochta. If it's a hybrid of Irish and English, you get things like the Belfast Féile or the Woodford Mummer's Feile. It's pronounced roughly like fey-leh.

Azara

Thanks for that explanation .

In view of earlier comments about links with non-edited entries, I will have to take out the one on Grasmere. All other links are solid, I think.