Tis the season for St. George, Father Christmas, Dick the Green Horse's Head, Napoleon and Slasher to take to the streets...

Tis the season for Mumming...

But what exactly is Mumming?

Well for a start it's ancient, cropping up somewhere in the early 17th century, and it's English very English.

Mumming, best described as early panto, is based loosely, very loosely, on the legend of St. George and the dragon.

Half a dozen characters are involved heavily disguised as St. George, Napoleon (boo hiss), the Turkish Knight (boo hiss) and Dick the Horse who battle it out with medieval sword play until someone, not necessarily the hero, keels over dead.

Cue the quack doctor who enters, performs a miraculous, albeit comedic, cure on the stiff and in the process neatly performs the symbolic act of reawakening the earth from the death of winter.

The Ragged Heroes have been out mumming on Christmas Eve for the last 20 years in the small village of Lacock.

But a couple of years ago Matt, a learner Mummer from New Zealand, joined them for their annual mumming outing and this is his account:

Little Johnny Jack
who carries his family on his back

Little Johnny Jack, who carries his wife and his family on his back.

I was given the traditional part for the new lad, which is Little Johnny Jack, who carries his wife and his family on his back.

The wife and family weigh nearly 30kgs as they are cast in bronze and mounted on a frame attached to backpack-like shoulder straps.

It is a kind of rite-of-passage, into the Ragged Heroes, to wear this burden and stagger around the village and up the hill over the course of the evening. When you are fully decked out you have to negotiate doors and obstacles sideways because with small entrance ways you have no chance at getting through them frontways without getting stuck.

The Dog Powered Spit Roaster

We started out with two plays in the George. The first was in a ridiculously small space beside a large fireplace which had an iron contraption in it that was once a dog powered spit roaster. You could see where a small dog once ran in a wheel, which turned the spit above the fire.

The wife and family weigh nearly 30kgs as they are cast in bronze

I nearly took out a couple of waitresses and some supports as I made my entrance but managed to remember my lines and stay out of the way of trouble.

In the other part of the pub we did our play again and this time I remembered to make my entrance sideways.

You had to really listen at the door for your cue, because there was not enough room for everyone to come on at once. One by one we would take our turns to prize open the door a few centimetres and listen for our cue.

The second play that we did at the George was in the part that is used as a restaurant. Waitresses were quite regularly ignoring the play altogether whilst stepping over bodies and avoiding flying swords in order to get to the tables.

Beelzebub's part usually involves taking a large swig of someone's drink and this always gets a good laugh.

The Carol Singer Showdown

Beelzebub's part usually involved taking a large swig of someone's drink

At the Red Lion we came up to a large group of carol singers who had finished singing and were milling around outside the pub. It seems that there's been at least some sort of stand off, most years, between the mummers and the carol singers and as we turned up it seemed that they were abandoning their plans to enter the pub and had decided to head on to the next one.

I thought that I heard one of them calling back that they would see us in the carpark.

I had visions of a West Side Story like show down with Slasher and St. George fighting out front for us against the massed onslaught of carol singers bearing grudges. I found out later that I'd misheard.

Old Father Christmas

Old Father Christmas looked more like a Green Man to me than Father Christmas but I know that it makes a lot more sense to have a green Father Christmas out with mummers.

Old Father Christmas

Between pubs we would march in single file to the beating of a drum and the ringing of a bell.

We walked in order of our appearance on the stage. There were several lamps and flaming sticks for us to carry along the way.

As we walked people would come to their doors and windows with their drinks in their hands and call out Merry Christmas, and we would call back to them the same.

The distances between the pubs seemed to increase sharply, as did the inclines. By the end of the night we had left Lacock and were quite high above it.

Dick the Green Horses Head

In the Ragged Heroes, Dick the Horse has traditionally been played by a woman. He is a green horse's head because of there being some left over copper in the acid bath at his cleaning.

Jack Vinney, the man of the woods, with Dick, the Green Horse.

The story of his arrival actually sounds horrifyingly familiar. When it comes down to it, there can't be too many ways I guess to get a horse's skull clean. Anyway Dick has now been a Ragged Hero for longer than he had ever been a horse, which I suppose is quite an honour.

The audiences seemed to thrive on the mumming. I think that most of them were expecting the mummers to be there, and they were all in good spirits, especially by the time we arrived at the last pub, at the top of the hill, at about 10:30.