Odd Player

Border-Crossing is a series of fifteen papers based on the proceedings of an international conference entitled “Mumming in Cross-Border and Cross-Community Contexts” held at the University of Ulster’s Academy of Irish Cultural Heritages in Derry, in 2003.

Three of the papers are directly concerned with mumming and rhyming in and around the border areas between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Taken together, these three papers build up a very vivid picture of how the mummers or rhymers of this area operated in the past and how the traditions have developed. In the 1930s and 1940s the mummers were not seen as a Catholic tradition. The houses of both Catholics and Protestants would be visited, and in some cases Protestants took part. The whole event would culminate in a mummers’ ball to which the whole community was invited, regardless of political and religious affiliations. After a decline during the troubles, there was a period when the mummers became a nationalistic expression. More recently, there has been an increase in groups of mummers in the area, and performances have moved from houses to community centres and pubs. Collections are made for charities, and the mummers’ dance has become a fundraiser. These performances may be in Catholic or Protestant venues, and cross-cultural charities are chosen to appeal to both sides of the community.

A fourth paper covers much of the same ground, but goes on to examine the apparent lack of texts in the Irish language. The author believes that although the main texts are of English origin, there are remnants of an Irish tradition within the ancillary characters. For instance, the doctor’s speech from the Antrim/West Tyrone/Armagh area has a series of impossible ingredients in the doctor’s cure. These can be closely matched to Irish texts of riddles for a cure for whooping cough. The author also hypothesises that the characters of Jack Straw and the Green Knight are actually two characters from an eighteenth-century Irish play (Sir Sopin and the Irish Chieftain, respectively). He surmises that an original Irish play has been supplanted by the English play, but that these independent characters have been retained.

As someone who has appeared as “Slasher” in a pace-egg play in Lancashire for more years than I care to remember, I found the paper on chapbooks from Belfast and Lancashire to be of particular interest. By comparing text and illustrations, the author seeks to show that the Christmas Rhyme chapbooks of Belfast are closely linked with the “Peace Egg” chapbooks of Lancashire and Yorkshire.

The remaining paper with a direct Irish connection compares the Irish mumming play with the Catholic Mass and the Masonic third degree. Each has the same basic structure and the author looks at the similarities and differences. He shows that the mumming play is a ritual, although not in the same sense as the Mass or Masonic third degree. While this sort of comparison may be an interesting academic exercise, I am not convinced by the paper. Others may find it more illuminating.

Four papers consider mumming traditions in the North of Europe: Denmark, Shetland and Faroe Islands, Norway, and Finland. The Danish paper shows how the apparent success of one tradition led to its downfall, due to incomers into the area taking up the mumming, but not understanding the unwritten rules associated with the custom.

The paper on Shetland and Faroese guising traditions shows how the customs usually stay within their own communities and their own borders. This paper gives an excellent description of the various mumming customs of Shetland. The Norwegian and Finnish papers both consider local mumming customs and imported customs. In Norway, Christmas and wedding mumming traditions are examined, while in Finland, three autumn festivals are compared, including the very recent introduction of Halloween.

Two papers, one on the Newfoundland wren tradition and the other on Halloween mumming, show how customs adapt to their new environment. In Newfoundland, the wren custom has lost the need to collect money; while in the United States, the Halloween traditions have incorporated begging traditions from Ireland and northern Europe and public display traditions from southern Europe and Africa.

The paper on “The English Folk Play in the Second Revival” firstly considers plays that are from outside the areas in which they are being performed, and then goes on to look at plays that have been introduced from within the community. It finishes with an oddity: a Lancashire pace-egg play that, although claimed to be local, appears to have come from another area, with a doctor’s scene added.

In a paper in which scripts of modern and re-written plays are analysed and compared with traditional plays and those of the Wexford Mummers, the author hypothesises that there were three stages in mumming customs. The first was non-verbal house visiting, and the second involved mummers dressed as particular characters who started using spoken lines to introduce themselves. Finally, he proposes that the first mumming play was written in the eighteenth century and that plays exploded from there, with “re-writings” to improve the scripts.

A “Game of Two Halves” considers a number of Scottish seasonal customs that all include some form of contest. While all these events appear to have two sides, the author argues that the outcome is either fixed or that it does not matter who wins, as it is the coming together of the community that is important. The paper includes some interesting descriptions of the various customs and their performance context.

All of the papers in this collection have something to recommend them and I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in or is involved in performing folkplays.