Apples and pears with right good corn, Come in plenty to every one, Eat and drink good cake and hot ale, Give Earth to drink and she’ll not fail.
{261}
The time-honoured amusement appropriate to Christmas Eve was provided by the Mummers and the Lord of Misrule.
The Mummers (or Maskers, as the name imports) were to be found in every village. They dressed themselves to represent various characters, and the chief pageant exhibited by them was a version of the national legend of St. George and the Dragon. The principal characters of course were the gallant Knight, and as close a copy of the Dragon as the wit and ingenuity of the village could contrive; then there was Old Father Christmas, the Turk, the Maiden, and a Doctor with a huge box of pills ready to execute any repairs rendered necessary by the internecine fury of the Knight, the Turk, and the Dragon. The performance varied a good deal according to the fancy of the performers, but in all places there seems to have been a set form of recitation in verse describing the various antics of the players. The Lord of Misrule, or Master of Merry Disports, was elected as Master of the Ceremonies, and his term of office extended from All-hallow Eve to Candlemas Day. He directed the revels, exercised full power and authority over high and low in the ordering of the festivities, and played the wit and fool with what skill nature had endowed him.
And so in mirth and jollity the evening rolls away, and Christmas Day appears. Sir Roger de Coverley says, or at any rate the Spectator reports that he said: “I have often thought it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the middle of winter. It is the most dead, uncomfortable time of the year, when the poor people would suffer very much from their poverty and cold, if they had not good cheer, warm fires, and Christmas gambols to support them. I love to rejoice their poor hearts at this season, and to see the whole village merry in my great hall. I allow a double quantity of malt to my small beer, and set it a-running for twelve days for everyone that calls for it.”
From Round about our Coal Fire it may be gathered that “an English Gentleman at the opening of the great day (i.e., on Christmas day in the morning) had all his tenants and neighbours enter his hall by daybreak. The strong beer was broached, and the black jack went merrily about with toast, nutmeg, and good Cheshire Cheese.”
It may not be generally known that the Old English Gentleman is but a version of a very similar song published in 1600, in a book entitled Le Prince d’Amour. The earlier song contains the following verse relating to our subject:— {262}
With an old fashion when Christmas was come To call in all his neighbours with a bagpipe or drum. And good cheer enough to furnish out every old rome, And beer and ale would make a cat speak and a wise man dumb Like an old Courtier of Queens, And the Queen’s old Courtier.
On Christmas Day, and indeed during all the Christmas holidays, the tables were spread from morn till eve; sirloins of beef, mince pies and foaming ale formed the chief ingredients of the feast. In many places, in the houses of the great, the ceremonious custom was observed of bringing in the boar’s head on a dish of costly plate, the whole company following in procession, chanting the well-known lines beginning:—
Caput apri defero, Reddens laudes Domino.