Joseph fears that the strangers may perchance be enemies, but reassured by an angel, he opens the door, only naïvely regretting that the lowly chamber "should be so badly lighted." They prostrate themselves before the cradle, and the choir bursts forth with:
Gloria Deo in excelsis,
O Domine te laudamus,
O Deus Pater rex caelestis,
In terra pax hominibus.
The shepherdesses then render their homage, and deposit on the altar steps a banner covered with flowers and greenery, from which hang strings of small birds, apples, nuts, chestnuts, and other fruits. It is their Christmas offering to the curé; the shepherds have already placed a whole sheep before the altar, in a like spirit.
The next scene takes us into Herod's palace, where the magi arrive, and are directed to proceed to Bethlehem. During their adoration of the Infant Saviour, Mass is finished, and the Sacrament is administered; after which the play is brought to a close with the flight into Egypt and the massacre of the Innocents.
This primitive drama gives a better idea of the early mysteries than do the performances at Ober Ammergau, which have been gradually pruned and improved under the eye of a critical public. But it is unusually free from the absurdities and levities which abound in most miracle plays; such as the wrangle between Noah and his wife in the old Chester Mysteries, in which the latter declares "by St John" that the Flood is a false alarm, and that no power on earth shall make her go into the Ark. Noah ends with putting her on board by main force, and is rewarded by a box on the ear.
The best surviving sample of a non-scriptural rustic play is probably Saint Guillaume of Poitou, a Breton versified drama in seven acts. The history of the Troubadour Count whose wicked manhood leads to a preternaturally pious old age, corresponds to every requirement of the peasant play-goer. Time and space are set airily at defiance; saints and devils are not only called, but come at the shortest notice; the plot is exciting enough to satisfy the strongest craving for sensation, and the dialogue is vigorous, and, in parts, picturesque. One can well believe that the fiery if narrow patriotism of a Breton audience would be stirred by the scene where the reformed Count William, who has withstood all other blandishments, is almost lured out of his holy seclusion by the Evil One coming to him in the shape of a fellow-townsman who represents his city as hard pressed by overwhelming foes, and in its extremest need, imploring his aid; that the religious fervour of Breton peasants would be moved by the recital of the vision in which a very wicked man appears at the bar of judgment: his sins out-number the hairs of his head, you would call him an irredeemable wretch; yet it does so happen that once upon a time he gave two pilgrims a bed of straw in a pig-stye, and now St Francis throws this straw into the balance, and it bends down the scale!
So in the Song of the Sun, in Sæmund's Edda, a fierce freebooter, who has despoiled mankind, and who always ate alone, opens his door one evening to a tired wayfarer, and gives him meat and drink. The guest meditates evil; then in his sleep he murders his host, but he is doomed to take on him all the sins of the man he has slain, while the one-time evil-doer's soul is borne by angels into a life of purity, where it shall live for ever with God. This motive is repeatedly introduced into folk-lore, and was made effective use of by Victor Hugo in Sultan Mourad, the infamous tyrant who goes to Heaven on the strength of having felt momentary compassion for a pig.