The Christmas Mummers

It was Christmas Eve; the tree was trimmed, the stockings were hung, and Leah, with a pot of hot chocolate and a plate of cookies, was reading Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native, as ten-year-old girls are wont to do of a Christmas Eve.  She had just reached the part about the Christmas Mummers, when suddenly there was a furious pounding on the front door.  But before she had time to get up, the door burst open, and in came . . .

The Christmas Mummers!

“Room !  Room!

Give us room to rhyme!

We’re here with some diversion,

Now that it’s Christmastime!

“In comes I, St. George,

That man of courage bold!

With bright broadsword in hand

I won a crown of gold!”

“In comes I, the Valiant Soldier,

Bold Slasher is my name!

With sword and buckler by my side

I mean to win the game!”

“Then battle to battle with you I call,

To see which on the ground will fall!”

“Battle to battle with you I cry,

To see which on the ground will lie!”

!!!

“Alack!  Alack!  Look what I’ve done!

I’ve killed my Father’s only son!

Is there a Doctor can be found

To cure his deep and deadly wound?”

“In comes I, the Doctor!”

“What’s thy cure, Doctor?”

“The Crippen, the palsy, and the gout,

Raging pains both in and out!

Cure the sick, heal the lame,

And bring the dead to life again!”

“What’s thy fee, Doctor?”

“Ten guineas is my fee,

But ten times that I’ll take of thee.”

“Try thy skill, Doctor!”

“I have a bottle by my side,

The fame of which spreads far and wide.

The stuff therein is Elacampane,

And it brings the dead to life again!

A drop to the head,

A drop to the heart,

Arise St. George,

And take thy part!”

“Once I was dead,

But now I’m alive!

Blessed be the Doctor

Who made me revive!”

“With a pocket full of money,

And a cellar full of beer,

We wish you Merry Christmas,

And a Happy New Year!”

“Wonderful!” Leah exclaimed, “St. George, I know you’re Jane, I recognize your accent!  The Doctor must be Kelly, because she’d want to be part of this Ancient Pagan Fertility Ritual.  But Bold Slasher has me stumped!”

“Bailey!  I might have known the three roommates would be in this together.  This calls for hot chocolate and cookies all around!”

“Back home,” Jane said, “when the Yuletide Guisers came to deLacey Hall, the Steward would give them cakes and ale, and a silver penny or two.  But hot chocolate and cookies are just Jim Dandy, and have cakes and ale beat all hollow!  God Rest Ye Merry, Sisters!”

A Living History Thanksgiving

A LIVING HISTORY THANKSGIVING

(THE ANATOMIE OF ABUSES)

Samantha, Nellie, and Julia surveyed the Thanksgiving dinner spread before them.

“I am impressed with Jane,” said Julia, “Usually she wants nothing to do with Thanksgiving because it celebrates Puritans, and, having known Puritans, she wants nothing to do with them.”

            “The Pilgrims weren’t Puritans,” said Nellie, “They called themselves Separatists.”

            “Be that as it may,” Julia went on, “she has prepared a dinner consisting of what the Pilgrims probably ate at the First Thanksgiving – venison, duck, fish, and cornmeal mush.”

“She didn’t even say anything when I said I was going to wear the Traditional Pilgrim Girl costume.” Said Samantha.

 “She asked me to put on my favorite frock and hat,” Julia remarked, “and even suggested that I put a little rouge on my cheeks and lips.”

“Hmm,” Nellie frowned, “The dear girl is up to something.”

Suddenly Jane burst into the dining room, garbed in their historically accurate Pilgrim Girl costume.  Loudly, she began to harangue them.

           “From whence spring all these evils in man?  For, as from the root all things do grow, so from the cursed root of pestiferous Pride do all evils sprout.  The pride of the heart, the pride of the mouth . . . 

            
                “And the pride of apparel, which offendeth God more than the other two!”
 

She stepped up to Julia, grabbed her face, and continued with renewed vehemence.

“Women use to color their faces with certain oils and unguents, whereby they think their beauty is greatly decored, but who see not that their souls are thereby deformed. Do they think thus to adulterate the Lord, his workmanship?  To change thy natural face which God hath made, for a painted face, which thou hast made thy self?”

She spun Julia around and seized hold of her long, red tresses.

“Women are not simply content with their own hair but dying it of what color they list.  So now have they made it an ornament of Pride, and destruction to themselves for ever, except they repent!”

Turning the poor girl once more to face her, Jane snatched the hat from Julia’s head.

“Then on tops of these heads is more vanity, as a French hood, hat, cap, and such like, whereof some be of velvet, some of taffeta, some of this fashion, some of that, according to the variable fantasies of their serpentine minds!”  And she threw that hat to the floor.

Next, she confronted the phonograph, and picked up a recording of the latest popular dance tune.  She made as though to smash it, her tone increasingly shrill.

“Music stireth up filthy lust, womanisheth the mind, and bringeth in uncleanness. It maketh them inclined to all kind of whoredom and mischief.”

“Dancing is a preparative to wantonness & an introit to all kind of lewdness.  Yet notwithstanding, both men, women & children, are so skillful in this science, as they may be thought nothing inferior to a prostitute ribald, nor yet to an effeminate varlet, thinking it an ornament to be expert in this science of heathen devilry!”

            
             She went to the heavily-laden table.   

“Nowadays, if the table be not covered from the one end to the other as thick as one dish can stand by another, it is thought there unworthy the name of a dinner. Yea, so many dishes that the devouringest glutton can scarce eat of every one a little. And all kind of wines are not wanting. Oh, what vanity, excess, riot, and superfluity is here?

“Wherof, if they repent not it shall be easier for that Land of Sodom and Gomorrah at the day of judgement then for them!”

Jane stopped as suddenly as she had begun.  The other girls stood a moment in stunned silence.  Finally, Julia spoke, “Are you quite finished?”

Jane smiled.  “I quote Phillip Stubbes, his pamphlet, The Anatomie of Abuses, published in 1583, two years before I was born.  It is a veritable handbook of Puritanism, which, as you may recall, was a religious movement embraced by several Reformed Protestant sects, regardless of what they called themselves, be it Church of England Puritans, Separatists, Calvinists, Anabaptists, et cetera.  But enough of this; let us sit and eat.”

They sat, and Jane opened a bottle of Chateau Belle Poupee, 1897, and filled their glasses.

“I am thankful,” she said, “that Puritanism is not embraced in this house.  Likewise, I am thankful that, along with what the Pilgrims had at the First Thanksgiving, we have something they did not have, this fine Bordeaux!”