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Peter Spä th

Learn Kotlin for Android Development

The Next Generation Language for Modern Android
Apps Programming
Peter Spä th
Leipzig, Germany

Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the

author in this book is available to readers on GitHub via the book’s
product page, located at www.​apress.​com/​9781484244661 . For more
detailed information, please visit http://​www.​apress.​com/​source-code
.

ISBN 978-1-4842-4466-1 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-4467-8

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4467-8

© Peter Spä th 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the

Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned,
specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other
physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.

Trademarked names, logos, and images may appear in this book. Rather
than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked
name, logo, or image we use the names, logos, and images only in an
editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no
intention of infringement of the trademark. The use in this publication
of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if
they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of
opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights.

While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true
and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the
editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any
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Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer Science+Business

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To Alina
Introduction
Computer programs are for executing operations using input data to
produce output data, sometimes by manipulating data taken from a
database during that operation. The word database here is used in the
most general sense: It could be a file, some memory storage, or a full-
fledged database product.
Many different programming languages exist nowadays, each with
its own merits and drawbacks. Some of them aim at execution stability,
some at high performance, some are tailored to solve specific tasks, and
some exist only because a company wants to establish a strong market
position. Looking at the way programming languages have developed
over time is an interesting subject in and of itself, and it has
implications for various aspects of information technology. One could
write a separate book about that, but for this book I simply want to
stress one important fact about computer language development,
which I think has a direct effect on the way modern computer programs
are written. If you are looking at the historical development of
computer languages, you will notice a substantial change in the
abstraction level the languages exhibit. Whereas in the infancy of the
industry a programmer needed to have a fairly good knowledge of
computer hardware, now different levels of abstraction have been
introduced into the languages, meaning an increased conceptional and
linguistic distance from hardware features. This has increasingly
alleviated the requirement that software developers know what is
occurring in a computer’s central processing unit (CPU).
Along with an increasing level of abstraction, modern computer
languages—sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly—exhibit a
prominent new feature: the expressiveness of language constructs. Let
me try to illustrate this using an example written in pseudo-code. Let’s
say you have a list of items and want to perform an operation on each of
the items. With some knowledge of the internal functioning of
computers, a programmer might write a code snippet like this:
Create some array of data in the memory.
Assign a pointer to the first element.
Loop over the array.
 Dereference the pointer, retrieving a list
element.
Do something with the element (example.g.,
print it).
Increment the pointer, let it point to the next
item.
If we are beyond the last element, exit the
loop.
End loop.
Although this looks a little bit complex, it closely relates to what
computers are doing under the hood, and early languages looked more
or less like this. As a first abstraction and a way to improve readability,
we can try to get rid of the “pointer” element and instead write:
variable theList = [somehow create the list of
items]
loop over "theList", assigning each item to an
iteration variable "item":
do something with "item", for example print it
end loop
This already looks more expressive compared to the first version,
and a lot of current programming languages allow for this kind of
programming style. We can do even better, though: You can see the
definition of the list being written in one line, separated from the list
processing in the loop. There’s nothing preventing us from writing a lot
of overly complex code between the list definition and the loop, and this
is what you see quite often, making the program hard to read and
understand. Wouldn’t it be better to have it all in one statement? Using
a more expressive snippet allows us to write such a combined
statement. In pseudo-code, it could look like this:

[somehow create the list of items].

[maybe add some filter].
forEach { item ->
 do something with "item", for example
print it
}
This is about the maximum of expressiveness you can get, if you see
the dot “ . ” as some kind of “do something with it” command and “{ … }”
as a block of code doing something, with the identifier in front of the ->
in this case designating a loop variable.

Note Making your code expressive from the very beginning will
not only help you to write good code, it will also help you to develop
your programming skills beyond average. Expressive code is easier
to maintain and extend, easier to reuse, easier to understand for
others, and easier to debug if the program shows some deficiencies.

The programming language Kotlin is capable of getting us to such an

extent of expressiveness, and in this book I want to introduce Kotlin as
a programming language for Android that allows you to accomplish
things in an expressive and concise way. As a matter of fact, in Kotlin
the little looping example, with a filter added, reads:

arrayOf("Blue", "Green", "Yellow", "Gray").

filter { it.startsWith("G") }.
forEach { item ->
println(item)
}

If you run this, it will print the text Green Gray on two lines of the
console. With the notion of parameters being placed inside round
brackets, you should be able to understand this snippet without
knowing a single Kotlin idiom.

Note Don’t worry if you don’t know how to write and run this, we’ll
be getting our feet wet very soon in the first chapter of the book.

Once you reach the end of the book, you should be an advanced
developer able to address problems in the Kotlin language, with
particular attention on Android matters. Of course, you will not know
all possible libraries that are out there in the wild for solving specific
problems, as only experience will help you there. Knowing most of the
language constructs and having good ideas concerning programming
techniques, however, will set you on the way to become an expert
programmer for Android.
The Kotlin version referred to in this book is 1.3. Most of the
examples and most of what gets explained here is likely valid for later
versions as well.

The Book’s Target Audience

The book is for beginning software developers with little or no
knowledge of programming, and for developers with knowledge of
other languages who are interested in using Kotlin for future Android
projects. The target platforms are Android devices. The book is not
meant to present a thorough introduction into Android; instead, it uses
Android as a platform as is and thoroughly introduces the Kotlin
programming language and how it gets used for Android.
Basic knowledge of how to use a desktop or laptop computer,
including the installation and starting of programs, is expected. The
operating system you want to use plays no major role, but because we
are using Android Studio as a development environment, you must
choose an operating system able to run this integrated development
environment (IDE). This is the case for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS.
Screenshots are taken from an Ubuntu Linux installation.
In the end, you will be able to write and run Kotlin programs for
Android of beginning to midlevel complexity.

Source Code
All source code shown or referred to in this book can be found at
https://github.com/Apress/learn-kotlin-for-
android-development

How to Read This Book

Reading this book sequentially from the beginning to the end will
provide the maximum benefit. If you already have some basic
development knowledge, you can skip sections and chapters at will, and
of course you can always take a step back and reread sections and
chapters while you are advancing through the book.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1:​Your First Kotlin Application:​Hello Kotlin
Setting Up an IDE:​Android Studio
Connecting Your Android Device
Starting Your First Kotlin App
Setting Up and Using Emulators
Continuing with the HelloKotlin App
Using the Command Line
Chapter 2:​Classes and Objects:​Object Orientation Philosophy
Kotlin and Object-Oriented Programming
Class Declaration
Exercise 1
Property Declaration
Exercise 2
Exercise 3
Class Initialization
Exercise 4
Exercise 5
An Invoice in Kotlin
More Invoice Properties
Invoice Initialization
Exercise 6
Instantiation in Kotlin
Adding Functions to Invoices
Exercise 7
The Complete Invoice Class
A Simple Number Guessing Game
Constructors
Exercise 8
Constructor Invocation
Exercise 9
Exercise 10
Named Constructor Parameters
Exercise 11
Exercise 12
Constructor Default Values
Exercise 13
Exercise 14
Secondary Constructors
Exercise 15
If Classes Are Not Needed:​Singleton Objects
Exercise 16
Exercise 17
If State Doesn’t Matter:​Companion Objects
Exercise 18
Exercise 19
Describing a Contract:​Interfaces
Exercise 20
Exercise 21
Exercise 22
Structuring and Packages
A Structured Project
 Exercise 23
Namespaces and Importing
Exercise 24
Chapter 3:​Classes at Work:​Properties and Functions
Properties and Their Types
Simple Properties
Exercise 1
Property Types
Property Value Assignment
Exercise 2
Literals
Exercise 3
Property Visibility
Null Values
Exercise 4
Property Declaration Modifiers
Member Functions
Functions Not Returning Values
Exercise 5
Exercise 6
Functions Returning Values
Exercise 7
Exercise 8
Exercise 9
Accessing Masked Properties
Exercise 10
 Function Invocation
Exercise 11
Function Named Parameters
Exercise 12
Function Default Parameters
Exercise 13
Function Vararg Parameters
Exercise 14
Abstract Functions
Polymorphism
Local Functions
Inheritance
Classes Inheriting from Other Classes
Constructor Inheritance
Exercise 15
Overriding Functions
Overriding Properties
Exercise 16
Exercise 17
Accessing Superclass Assets
Local Variables
Exercise 18
Visibility of Classes and Class Members
Self-Reference:​This
Converting Classes to Strings
Exercise 19
Chapter 4:​Classes and Objects:​Extended Features
Anonymous Classes
Inner Classes
Functions and Properties Outside Classes
Exercise 1
Importing Functions and Properties
Exercise 2
Data Classes
Exercise 3
Exercise 4
Enumerations
Exercise 5
Custom Property Accessors
Exercise 6
Exercise 7
Exercise 8
Kotlin Extensions
Extension Functions
Extension Properties
Extensions with Nullable Receivers
Encapsulating Extensions
Functions with Tail Recursion
Infix Operators
Operator Overloading
Exercise 9
Delegation
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
 horse, and bearing a holly bough, and an axe of green
steel, entered the hall. He challenged any man of the
Round Table to deal him a buffet with the axe on condition
of receiving one in return after the lapse of a year. Sir
Gawain accepts. The stranger’s head is cut off, but he
picks it up and rides away with it. This is a close parallel to
the resurrection of the slain ‘wild man.’
[638] Frazer, ii. 105, 115, 163, 219; Pausanias, iii. 53; v. 259;
Gardner, New Chapters in Greek History, 395, give
Russian, Greek, and Asiatic parallels.
[639] Frazer, ii. 71; Pfannenschmidt, 302. The victim is
sometimes known as the Carnival or Shrovetide ‘Fool’ or
‘Bear.’
[640] Dyer, 93. The Jack o’ Lent apparently stood as a cock-
shy from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday, and was then
burnt. Portuguese sailors in English docks thrash and duck
an effigy of Judas Iscariot on Good Friday (Dyer, 155).
[641] Alleluia was not sung during Lent. Fosbrooke, British
Monachism, 56, describes the Funeral of Alleluia by the
choristers of an English cathedral on the Saturday before
Septuagesima. A turf was carried in procession with
howling to the cloisters. Probably this cathedral was
Lincoln, whence Wordsworth, 105, quotes payments ‘pro
excludend’ Alleluya’ from 1452 to 1617. Leber, ix. 338;
Barthélemy, iii. 481, give French examples of the custom;
cf. the Alleluia top, p. 128.
[642] Dyer, 158. Reeds were woven on Good Friday into the
shape of a crucifix and left in some hidden part of a field or
garden.
[643] Dyer, 333. The village feast was on St. Peter’s day, June
29. On the Saturday before an effigy was dug up from
under a sycamore on May-pole hill; a week later it was
buried again. In this case the order of events seems to
have been inverted.
[644] Frazer, i. 221. The French May-queen is often called la
mariée or l’épouse.
[645] Frazer, i. 225; Jevons, Plutarch R. Q. lxxxiii. 56.
[646] Waldron, Hist. of Isle of Man, 95; Dyer, 246.
[647] Olaus Magnus, History of Swedes and Goths, xv. 4, 8, 9;
Grimm, ii. 774.
[648] Grimm, ii. 765; Paul, Grundriss (ed. 1), i. 836.
[649] Frazer, Pausanias, iii. 267.
[650] Cf. ch. iv.
[651] Grimm, ii. 675, 763; Swainson, Folk-lore of British Birds
(F. L. S.), 109; Hardy, Popular History of the Cuckoo, in F.
L. Record, ii; Mannhardt, in Zeitschrift für deutsche
Mythologie, iii. 209. Cf. ch. v.
[652] Aristotle, Poetics, i. 5 αὐτῷ δέ τῷ ῥυθμῷ [ποιεῖται τὴν
μίμησιν] χωρὶς ἁρμονίας ἡ [τέχνη] τῶν ὀρχηστῶν, καὶ γὰρ
οὗτοι διά τῶν σχηματιζομένων ῥυθμῶν μιμοῦνται καὶ ἤθη
καὶ πάθη καὶ πράξεις. Cf. Lucian, de Saltatione, xv. 277. Du
Méril, 65, puts the thing well: ‘La danse n’a été l’invention
de personne: elle s’est produite d’elle-même le jour que le
corps a subi et dû refléter un état de l’âme.... On ne tarda
pas cependant à la séparer de sa cause première et à la
reproduire pour elle-même ... en simulant la gaieté on
parvenait réellement à la sentir.’
[653] Wallaschek, 216; Grosse, 165, 201; Hirn, 157, 182, 229,
259, 261; Du Méril, Com. 72; Haddon, 346; Grove, 52, 81;
Mrs. Gomme, ii. 518; G. Catlin, On Manners ... of N. Amer.
Indians (1841), i. 128, 244. Lang, M. R. R. i. 272, dwells on
the representation of myths in savage mystery-dances, and
points out that Lucian (loc. cit.) says that the Greeks used
to ‘dance out’ (ἐξορχεῖσθαι) their mysteries.
[654] The chanson of Transformations (cf. p. 170) is sung by
peasant-girls as a semi-dramatic duet (Romania, vii. 62);
and that of Marion was performed ‘à deux personnages’ on
Shrove Tuesday in Lorraine (Romania, ix. 568).
[655] Giraldus Cambrensis, Itinerarium Cambriae, i. 2 (Opera,
R.S. vi. 32) ‘Videas enim hic homines seu puellas, nunc in
ecclesia, nunc in coemiterio, nunc in chorea, quae circa
coemiterium cum cantilena circumfertur, subito in terram
corruere, et primo tanquam in extasim ductos et quietos;
deinde statim tanquam in phrenesim raptos exsilientes,
opera quaecunque festis diebus illicite perpetrare
consueverant, tam manibus quam pedibus, coram populo
repraesentantes. videas hunc aratro manus aptare, illum
 quasi stimulo boves excitare; et utrumque quasi laborem
mitigando solitas barbarae modulationis voces efferre.
videas hunc artem sutoriam, illum pellipariam imitari. item
videas hanc quasi colum baiulando, nunc filum manibus et
brachiis in longum extrahere, nunc extractum occandum
tanquam in fusum revocare; istam deambulando productis
filis quasi telam ordiri: illam sedendo quasi iam orditam
oppositis lanceolae iactibus et alternis calamistrae cominus
ictibus texere mireris. Demum vero intra ecclesiam cum
oblationibus ad altare perductos tanquam experrectos et
ad se redeuntes obstupescas.’
[656] Cf. p. 151 with Mrs. Gomme’s Memoir (ii. 458) passim,
and Haddon, 328. Parallel savage examples are in
Wallaschek, 216; Hirn, 157, 259.
[657] Mrs. Gomme, ii. 399, 494 and s. vv.; Haddon, 340.
Similar games are widespread on the continent; cf. the
Rabelais quotation on p. 167. Haddon quotes a French
formula, ending

‘Aveine, aveine, aveine,

Que le Bon Dieu t’amène.’

[658] Wallaschek, 273; Hirn, 285.

[659] The German data here used are chiefly collected by
Müllenhoff and F. A. Mayer; cf. also Creizenach, i. 408;
Michels, 84; J. J. Ammann, Nachträge zum Schwerttanz, in
Z. f. d. Alterthum xxxiv (1890), 178; A. Hartmann,
Volksschauspiele (1880), 130; F. M. Böhme, Geschichte
des Tanzes in Deutschland (1886); Sepp, Die Religion der
alten Deutschen, und ihr Fortbestand in Volkssagen,
Aufzügen und Festbräuchen bis zur Gegenwart (1890), 91;
O. Wittstock, Ueber den Schwerttanz der Siebenbürger
Sachsen, in Philologische Studien: Festgabe für Eduard
Sievers (1896), 349.
[660] Tacitus, Germania, 24 ‘genus spectaculorum unum atque
in omni coetu idem. nudi iuvenes, quibus id ludicrum est,
inter gladios se atque infestas frameas saltu iaciunt.
exercitatio artem paravit, ars decorem, non in quaestum
tamen aut mercedem; quamvis audacis lasciviae pretium
est voluptas spectantium.’
[661] Beowulf, 1042. It is in the hall of Hrothgar at Heorot,

‘þæt wæs hilde-setl: heah-cyninges,

þonne sweorda-gelác: sunu Healfdenes
efnan wolde: nǽfre on óre lǽg
wíd-cúþes wíg: þonne walu féollon.’

[662] Appendix N, no. xxxix; ‘arma in campo ostendit.’

[663] Strutt, 215. The tenth-century τὸ γοτθικόν at Byzantium
seems to have been a kind of sword-dance (cf. ch. xii ad
fin.).
[664] Strutt, 260; Du Méril, La Com. 84.
[665] Mayer, 259.
[666] Müllenhoff, 145, quoting Don Quixote, ii. 20; Z. f. d. A.
xviii. 11; Du Méril, La Com. 86.
[667] Webster, The White Devil, v. 6, ‘a matachin, it seems by
your drawn swords’; the ‘buffons’ is included in the list of
dances in the Complaynt of Scotland (†1548); cf. Furnivall,
Laneham’s Letter, clxii.
[668] Tabourot, Orchésographie, 97, Les Bouffons ou
Mattachins. The dancers held bucklers and swords which
they clashed together. They also wore bells on their legs.
[669] Cf. Appendix J.
[670] Henderson, 67. The sword-dance is also mentioned by
W. Hutchinson, A View of Northumberland (1778), ii ad fin.
18; by J. Wallis, Hist. of Northumberland (1779), ii. 28, who
describes the leader as having ‘a fox’s skin, generally
serving him for a covering and ornament to his head, the
tail hanging down his back’; and as practised in the north
Riding of Yorks, by a writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine
(1811), lxxxi. 1. 423. Here it took place from St. Stephen’s
to New Year’s Day. There were six lads, a fiddler, Bessy
and a Doctor. At Whitby, six dancers went with the ‘Plough
Stots’ on Plough Monday. The figures included the placing
of a hexagon or rose of swords on the head of one of the
performers. The dance was accompanied with ‘Toms or
clowns’ masked or painted, and ‘Madgies or Madgy-Pegs’
in women’s clothes. Sometimes a farce, with a king, miller,
 clown and doctor was added (G. Young, Hist. of Whitby
(1817), ii. 880).
[671] Cf. Appendix J.
[672] R. Bell, Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the
Peasantry of England, 175.
[673] Cf. Appendix J.
[674] Mayer, 230, 417.
[675] Henderson, 67. The clown introduces each dancer in
turn; then there is a dance with raised swords which are
tied in a ‘knot.’ Henderson speaks of a later set of verses
also in use, which he does not print.
[676] R. Bell, Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the
Peasantry of England, 175 (from Sir C. Sharpe’s Bishoprick
Garland). A Christmas dance. The captain began the
performance by drawing a circle with his sword. Then the
Bessy introduced the captain, who called on the rest in
turn, each walking round the circle to music. Then came an
elaborate dance with careful formations, which
degenerated into a fight. Bell mentions a similar set of
verses from Devonshire.
[677] Bell, 172. A Christmas dance. The clown makes the
preliminary circle with his sword, and calls on the other
dancers.
[678] Bell, 181. The clown calls for ‘a room,’ after which one of
the party introduces the rest. This also is a Christmas
dance, but as the words ‘we’ve come a pace-egging’ occur,
it must have been transferred from Easter. Bell says that a
somewhat similar performance is given at Easter in
Coniston, and Halliwell, Popular Rhymes and Nursery
Tales, 244, describes a similar set of rhymes as used near
York for pace-egging.
[679] Described by Müllenhoff, 138, from Ausland (1857), No.
4, f. 81. The clown gives the prologue, and introduces the
rest.
[680] Cf. p. 221.
[681] Mayer prints and compares all three texts.
[682] Cf. p. 185. The original names seem to be best
preserved in the Styrian verses: they are Obersteiner (the
 Vortänzer) or Hans Kanix, Fasching (the Narr), Obermayer,
Jungesgsell, Grünwald, Edlesblut, Springesklee,
Schellerfriedl, Wilder Waldmann, Handssupp, Rubendunst,
Leberdarm, Rotwein, Höfenstreit.
[683] H. Pröhle, Weltliche und geistliche Volkslieder und
Volksschauspiele (1855), 245.
[684] Müllenhoff, Z. f. d. A. xx. 10.
[685] Brand-Ellis, i. 142; Douce, 576; Burton, 95; Gutch, Robin
Hood, i. 301; Drake, 76.
[686] Burton, 117; Warner, Albion’s England, v. 25 ‘At Paske
begun our Morrise, and ere Penticost our May.’ The morris
was familiar in the revels of Christmas. Laneham, 23,
describes at the Bride-ale shown before Elizabeth at
Kenilworth ‘a lively morrisdauns, according too the auncient
manner: six daunserz, Mawdmarion, and the fool.’
[687] A good engraving of the window is in Variorum
Shakespeare, xvi. 419, and small reproductions in Brand, i.
145; Burton, 103; Gutch, i. 349; Mr. Tollet’s own account of
the window, printed in the Variorum, loc. cit., is interesting,
but too ingenious. He dates the window in the reign of
Henry VIII; Douce, 585, a better authority, ascribes it to that
of Edward IV.
[688] Ben Jonson, The Gipsies Metamorphosed (ed.
Cunningham, iii. 151):
‘Clod. They should be morris-dancers by their gingle, but
they have no napkins.
‘Cockrel. No, nor a hobby-horse.
‘Clod. Oh, he’s often forgotten, that’s no rule; but there is
no Maid Marian nor Friar amongst them, which is the surer
mark.
‘Cockrel. Nor a fool that I see.’
[689] The lady, the fool, the hobby-horse are all in Tollet’s
window, and in a seventeenth-century printing by
Vinkenboom from Richmond palace, engraved by Douce,
598; Burton, 105. Cf. the last note and other passages
quoted by Douce, Brand, and Burton. In Two Noble
Kinsmen, iii. 5, 125, a morris of six men and six women is
thus presented by Gerrold, the schoolmaster:
 ‘I first appear ...
The next, the Lord of May and Lady bright,
The Chambermaid and Serving-man, by night
That seek out silent hanging: then mine Host
And his fat Spouse, that welcomes to their cost
The galled traveller, and with a beck’ning
Informs the tapster to inflame the reck’ning:
Then the beast-eating Clown, and next the Fool,
The Bavian, with long tail and eke long tool;
Cum multis aliis, that make a dance.’

Evidently some of these dramatis personae are not traditional;

the ingenuity of the presenter has been at work on them.
‘Bavian’ as a name for the fool, is the Dutch baviaan,
‘baboon.’ His ‘tail’ is to be noted; for the phallic shape
sometimes given to the bladder which he carries, cf.
Rigollot, 164. In the Betley window the fool has a bauble; in
the Vinkenboom picture a staff with a bladder at one end,
and a ladle (to gather money in) at the other. In the window
the ladle is carried by the hobby-horse. ‘The hobby-horse is
forgot’ is a phrase occurring in L. L. L. iii. 1. 30; Hamlet, iii.
2. 144, and alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher, Women
Pleased, iv. 1, and Ben Jonson, in the masque quoted
above, and in The Satyr (Cunningham, ii. 577). Apparently
it is a line from a lost ballad.
[690] Stubbes, i. 147, of the ‘devil’s daunce’ in the train of the
lord of misrule, evidently a morris, ‘then haue they their
Hobby-horses, dragons & other Antiques.’ In W.
Sampson’s Vow-breaker (1636), one morris-dancer says
‘I’ll be a fiery dragon’; another, ‘I’ll be a thund’ring Saint
George as ever rode on horseback.’
[691] Burton, 40, 43, 48, 49, 56, 59, 61, 65, 69, 75, 115, 117,
121, 123, cites many notices throughout the century, and
gives several figures. The morris is in request at wakes and
rushbearings. Both men and women dance, sometimes to
the number of twenty or thirty. Gay dresses are worn, with
white skirts, knee-breeches and ribbons. Handkerchiefs are
carried or hung on the arm or wrist, or replaced by dangling
streamers, cords, or skeins of cotton. Bells are not worn on
the legs, but jingling horse-collars are sometimes carried
on the body. There is generally a fool, described in one
account as wearing ‘a horrid mask.’ He is, however,
 generally black, and is known as ‘King Coffee’ (Gorton),
‘owd sooty-face,’ ‘dirty Bet,’ and ‘owd molly-coddle.’ This
last name, like the ‘molly-dancers’ of Gorton, seems to be
due to a linguistic corruption. In 1829 a writer describes the
fool as ‘a nondescript, made up of the ancient fool and
Maid Marian.’ At Heaton, in 1830, were two figures, said to
represent Adam and Eve, as well as the fool. The masked
fool, mentioned above, had as companion a shepherdess
with lamb and crook.
[692] Burton, 115, from Journal of Archaeol. Assoc. vii. 201.
The dancers went on Twelfth-night, without bells, but with a
fool, a ‘fool’s wife’ and sometimes a hobby-horse.
[693] Jackson and Burne, 402, 410, 477. The morris-dance
proper is mainly in south Shropshire and at Christmas. At
Shrewsbury, in 1885, were ten dancers, with a fool. Five
carried trowels and five short staves which they clashed.
The fool had a black face, and a bell on his coat. No other
bells are mentioned. Staves or wooden swords are used at
other places in Shropshire, and at Brosely all the faces are
black. The traditional music is a tabor and pipe. A 1652
account of the Brosely dance with six sword-bearers, a
‘leader or lord of misrule’ and a ‘vice’ (cf. ch. xxv) called the
‘lord’s son’ is quoted. In north-east Shropshire, the
Christmas ‘guisers’ are often called ‘morris-dancers,’
‘murry-dancers,’ or ‘merry-dancers.’ In Shetland the name
‘merry dancers’ is given to the aurora borealis (J. Spence,
Shetland Folk-Lore, 116).
[694] Leicester F. L. 93. The dance was on Plough Monday
with paper masks, a plough, the bullocks, men in women’s
dresses, one called Maid Marian, Curly the fool, and
Beelzebub. This is, I think, the only survival of the name
Maid Marian, and it may be doubted if even this is really
popular and not literary.
[695] P. Manning, Oxfordshire Seasonal Festivals, in F. L. viii.
317, summarizes accounts from fourteen villages, and
gives illustrations. There are always six dancers. A broad
garter of bells is worn below the knee. There are two sets
of figures: in one handkerchiefs are carried, in the other
short staves are swung and clashed. Sometimes the
dancers sing to the air, which is that of an old country-
dance. There is always a fool, who carries a stick with a
 bladder and cow’s tail, and is called in two places ‘Rodney,’
elsewhere the ‘squire.’ The music is that of a pipe and
tabor (‘whittle’ and ‘dub’) played by one man; a fiddle is
now often used. At Bampton there was a solo dance
between crossed tobacco-pipes. At Spelsbury and at
Chipping Warden the dance used to be on the church-
tower. At the Bampton Whit-feast and the Ducklington
Whit-hunt, the dancers were accompanied by a sword-
bearer, who impaled a cake. A sword-bearer also appears
in a list of Finstock dancers, given me by Mr. T. J. Carter, of
Oxford. He also told me that the dance on Spelsbury
church-tower, seventy years ago, was by women.
[696] Norfolk, Monmouthshire, Berkshire (Douce, 606);
Worcestershire, Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire,
Somersetshire, Wiltshire, Warwickshire, and around
London (Burton, 114).
[697] L. H. T. Accounts, ii. 414; iii. 359, 381.
[698] Pfannenschmidt, 582; Michels, 84; Creizenach, i. 411.
Burton, 102, reproduces, from Art Journal (1885), 121, cuts
of ten morris-dancers carved in wood at Munich by
Erasmus Schnitzer in 1480.
[699] Douce, 585, and Burton, 97, reproduce Israel von
Mecheln’s engraving (†1470) of a morris with a fool and a
lady.
[700] Coquillart, Œuvres (†1470), 127.
[701] Mémoires de Pétrarque, ii. app. 3, 9; Petrarch danced
‘en pourpoint une belle et vigoureuse moresque’ to please
the Roman ladies on the night of his coronation.
[702] Somers Tracts, ii. 81, 87. The Earl of Nottingham, when
on an embassy from James I, saw morrice-dancers in a
Corpus Christi procession.
[703] Douce, 480; Favine, Theater of Honor, 345: at a feast
given by Gaston de Foix at Vendôme, in 1458, ‘foure young
laddes and a damosell, attired like savages, daunced (by
good direction) an excellent Morisco, before the assembly.’
[704] Tabourot, Orchésographie, 94: in his youth a lad used to
come after supper, with his face blackened, his forehead
bound with white or yellow taffeta, and bells on his legs,
and dance the morris up and down the hall.
[705] Douce, 577; Burton, 95.
[706] A dance certainly of Moorish origin is the fandango, in
which castanets were used; cf. the comedy of Variety
(1649) ‘like a Bacchanalian, dancing the Spanish Morisco,
with knackers at his fingers’ (Strutt, 223). This, however,
seems to show that the fandango was considered a variety
of morisco. Douce, 602; Burton, 124, figure an African
woman from Fez dancing with bells on her ankles. This is
taken from Hans Weigel’s book of national costumes
published at Nuremberg in 1577.
[707] Tabourot’s morris-dancing boy had his face blackened,
and Junius (F. Du Jon), Etymologicum Anglicanum (1743),
says of England ‘faciem plerumque inficiunt fuligine, et
peregrinum vestium cultum assumunt, qui ludicris talibus
indulgent, ut Mauri esse videantur, aut e longius remota
patria credantur advolasse, atque insolens recreationis
genus ad vexisse.’ In Spousalls of Princess Mary (1508)
‘morisks’ is rendered ‘ludi Maurei quas morescas dicunt.’ In
the modern morris the black element is represented,
except at Brosely, chiefly by ‘owd sooty face,’ the fool: in
Leicestershire it gives rise to a distinct figure, Beelzebub.
[708] Du Méril, La Com. 89, quotes a sixteenth-century French
sword-dance of ‘Mores, Sauvages, et Satyres.’ In parts of
Yorkshire the sword-dancers had black faces or masks
(Henderson, 70).
[709] Cotgrave, ‘Dancer les Buffons, To daunce a morris.’ The
term ‘the madman’s morris’ appears as the name of the
dance in The Figure of Nine (temp. Charles II); cf. Furnivall,
Laneham’s Letter, clxii. The buffon is presumably the ‘fool’;
cf. Cotgrave, ‘Buffon: m. A buffoon, jeaster, sycophant,
merrie fool, sportfull companion: one that lives by making
others merrie.’
[710] Henderson, 70. In Yorkshire the sword-dancers carried
the image of a white horse; in Cheshire a horse’s head and
skin.
[711] Cf. ch. x; also Wise, Enquiries concerning the
Inhabitants, ... of Europe, 51 ‘the common people in many
parts of England still practise what they call a Morisco
dance, in a wild manner, and as it were in armour, at proper
intervals striking upon one another’s staves,’ &c. Johnson’s
 Dictionary (1755) calls the morris ‘a dance in which bells
are gingled, or staves or swords clashed.’
[712] Müllenhoff, 124; cf. Mayer, 236.
[713] Douce, 602; Burton, 123. The bells were usually
fastened upon broad garters, as they are still worn in
Oxfordshire. But they also appear as anklets or are hung
on various parts of the dress. In a cut from Randle Holme’s
Academie of Armorie, iii. 109 (Douce, 603; Burton, 127), a
morris-dancer holds a pair of bells in his hands. Sometimes
the bells were harmonized. In Pasquil and Marforius (1589)
Penry is described as ‘the fore gallant of the Morrice with
the treble bells’; cf. Rowley, Witch of Edmonton, i. 2.
[714] Müllenhoff, 123; Mayer, 235.
[715] Tabourot, Orchésographie, 97.
[716] Cf. Appendix J. A figure with a bow and arrow occurs in
the Abbots Bromley horn-dance (p. 166).
[717] W. Kempe’s Nine Days Wonder (ed. Dyce, Camden
Soc.) describes his dancing of the morris in bell-shangles
from London to Norwich in 1599.
[718] Müllenhoff, 114.
[719] The ‘Squire’s Son’ of the Durham dances is probably the
clown’s son of the Wharfdale version; for the term ‘squire’
is not an uncommon one for the rustic fool. Cf. also the
Revesby play described in the next chapter. Why the fool
should have a son, I do not know.
[720] The ‘Nine Worthies’ of Love’s Labour’s Lost, v. 2, are a
pageant not a dance, and the two sets of speeches quoted
from Bodl. Tanner MS. 407, by Ritson, Remarks on
Shakespeare, 38, one of which is called by Ashton, 127,
the earliest mummers’ play that he can find, also probably
belong to pageants. The following, also quoted by Ritson
loc. cit. from Harl. MS. 1197, f. 101* (sixteenth century),
looks more like a dance or play:

‘I ame a knighte
And menes to fight
And armet well ame I
Lo here I stand
With swerd ine hand
 My manhoud for to try.

Thou marciall wite

That menes to fight
And sete vppon me so
Lo heare J stand
With swrd in hand
To dubbelle eurey blow.’

[721] Mayer, 230, 425, finds in the dance a symbolical drama

of the death of winter; but he does not seem to see the
actual relic of a sacrificial rite.
[722] Müllenhoff, 114; Du Méril, La Com. 82; Plato, Leges,
815; Dion Cassius, lx. 23; Suetonius, Julius, 39, Nero, 12;
Servius ad Aen. v. 602; cf. p. 7. A Thracian sword-dance,
ending in a mimic death, and therefore closely parallel to
the west European examples mentioned in the next
chapter, is described by Xenophon, Anabasis, v. 9.
[723] Müllenhoff, 115; Frazer, iii. 122; W. W. Fowler, The
Roman Festivals, 38, 44. The song of the Salii mentioned
Saeturnus, god of sowing. It appears also to have been
their function to expel the Mamurius Veturius in spring.
Servius ad Aen. viii. 285, says that the Salii were founded
by Morrius, king of Veii. According to Frazer, Morrius is
etymologically equivalent to Mamurius—Mars. He even
suggests that Morris may possibly belong to the same
group of words.
[724] Cf. Appendix J. In other dances a performer stands on a
similar ‘knot’ or Stern of swords. Mayer, 230, suggests that
this may represent the triumph of summer, which seems a
little far-fetched.
[725] Mayer, 243; O. Wittstock, in Sievers-Festgabe, 349.
[726] Grimm, i. 304, gives the following as communicated to
him by J. M. Kemble, from the mouth of an old
Yorkshireman: ‘In some parts of northern England, in
Yorkshire, especially Hallamshire, popular customs show
remnants of the worship of Fricg. In the neighbourhood of
Dent, at certain seasons of the year, especially autumn, the
country folk hold a procession and perform old dances, one
called the giant’s dance: the leading giant they name
 Woden, and his wife Frigga, the principal action of the play
consisting in two swords being swung and clashed together
about the neck of a boy without hurting him.’ There is
nothing about this in the account of Teutonic mythology in
J. M. Kemble’s own Saxons in England. I do not believe
that the names of Woden and Frigga were preserved in
connexion with this custom continuously from heathen
times. Probably some antiquary had introduced them; and
in error, for there is no reason to suppose that the ‘clown’
and ‘woman’ of the sword-dance were ever thought to
represent gods. But the description of the business with the
swords is interesting.
[727] Müllenhoff, Z. f. d. A. xviii. 11, quoting Covarubias,
Tesoro della lengua castellana (1611), s.v. Danza de
Espadas: ‘una mudanza que llaman la degollada, porque
cercan el cuello del que los guia con las espadas.’ With
these sword manœuvres should be compared the use of
scythes and flails in the mock sacrifices of the harvest-field
and threshing-floor (p. 158), the ‘Chop off his head’ of the
‘Oranges and Lemons’ game (p. 151), and the ancient tale
of Wodan and the Mowers.
[728] Mayer, 229.
[729] Gentleman’s Magazine, lxxxi (1811), 1. 423. The dance
was given in the north Riding from St. Stephen’s day to the
New Year. Besides the Bessy and the Doctor there were
six lads, one of whom acted king ‘in a kind of farce which
consists of singing and dancing.’
[730] Bell, 178; cf. p. 193. I do not feel sure whether the actual
parish clergyman took part, or whether a mere personage
in the play is intended; but see what Olaus Magnus (App. J
(i)) says about the propriety of the sword-dances for clerici.
It will be curious if the Christian priest has succeeded to the
part of the heathen priest slain, first literally, and then in
mimicry, at the festivals.
[731] Printed by Mr. T. F. Ordish in F. L. J. vii. 338, and again
by Manly, i. 296. The MS. used appears to be headed
‘October Ye 20, 1779’; but the performers are called ‘The
Plow Boys or Morris Dancers’ and the prologue says that
they ‘takes delight in Christmas toys.’ I do not doubt that
the play belonged to Plough Monday, which only falls just
outside the Christmas season.
[732] On the name Pickle Herring, see W. Creizenach, Die
Schauspiele der englischen Komödianten, xciii. It does not
occur in old English comedy, but was introduced into
Anglo-German and German farce as a name for the ‘fool’
or ‘clown’ by Robert Reynolds, the ‘comic lead’ of a
company of English actors who crossed to Germany in
1618. Probably it was Reynolds’ invention, and suggested
by the sobriquet ‘Stockfish’ taken by an earlier Anglo-
German actor, John Spencer. The ‘spicy’ names of the
other Revesby clowns are probably imitations of Pickle
Herring.
[733] The lines (197-8)

‘Our old Fool’s bracelet is not made of gold

But it is made of iron and good steel’

suggest the vaunt of the champions in the St. George

plays.
[734] Is ‘Anthony’ a reminiscence of the Seven Champions?
The Fool says (ll. 247-9), like Beelzebub in the St. George
plays,

‘Here comes I that never come yet, ...

I have a great head but little wit.’

He also jests (l. 229) on his ‘tool’; cf. p. 196 n.

[735] Brand, i. 278; Dyer, 37; Ditchfield, 47; Drake, 65; Mrs.
Chaworth Musters, A Cavalier Stronghold, 387. Plough
Monday is the Monday after Twelfth night, when the field
work begins. A plough is dragged round the village and a
quête made. The survivals of the custom are mainly in the
north, east and east midlands. In the city, a banquet marks
the day. A Norfolk name is ‘Plowlick Monday,’ and a Hunts
one ‘Plough-Witching.’ The plough is called the ‘Fool
Plough,’ ‘Fond Plough,’ ‘Stot Plough’ or ‘White Plough’; the
latter name probably from the white shirts worn (cf. p. 200).
At Cropwell, Notts, horses cut out in black or red adorn
these. In Lincolnshire, bunches of corn were worn in the
hats. Those who draw the plough are called ‘Plough
Bullocks,’ ‘Boggons’ or ‘Stots.’ They sometimes dance a
 morris-or sword-dance, or act a play. At Haxey, they take a
leading part in the Twelfth day ‘Hood-game’ (p. 150). In
Northants their faces are blackened or reddled. The plough
is generally accompanied by the now familiar grotesques,
‘Bessy’ and the Fool or ‘Captain Cauf-Tail.’ In Northants
there are two of each; the Fools have humps, and are
known as ‘Red Jacks’; there is also a ‘Master.’ In
Lincolnshire, reapers, threshers, and carters joined the
procession. A contribution to the quête is greeted with the
cry of ‘Largess!’ and a churl is liable to have the ground
before his door ploughed up. Of old the profits of the quête
or ‘plow-gadrin’ went into the parish chest, or as in Norfolk
kept a ‘plow-light’ burning in the church. A sixteenth
century pamphlet speaks of the ‘sensing the Ploughess’ on
Plough Monday. Jevons, 247, calls the rite a ‘worship of the
plough’; probably it rather represents an early spring
perambulation of the fields in which the divinity rode upon a
plough, as elsewhere upon a ship. A ploughing custom of
putting a loaf in the furrow has been noted. Plough Monday
has also its water rite. The returning ploughman was liable
to be soused by the women, like the bearer of the ‘neck’ at
harvest. Elsewhere, the women must get the kettle on
before the ploughman can reach the hearth, or pay forfeit.
[736] Printed by Mrs. Chaworth Musters in A Cavalier
Stronghold (1890), 388, and in a French translation by Mrs.
H. G. M. Murray-Aynsley, in R. d. T. P. iv. 605.
[737] ‘Hopper Joe’ also calls himself ‘old Sanky-Benny,’ which
invites interpretation. Is it ‘Saint Bennet’ or ‘Benedict’?
[738]

‘In comes I, Beelzebub,

On my shoulder I carry my club,
In my hand a wet leather frying-pan;
Don’t you think I’m a funny old man?’

Cf. the St. George play (p. 214).

[739] ‘Dame Jane’ says,

‘My head is made of iron,

My body made of steel,
 My hands and feet of knuckle-bone,
I think nobody can make me feel.’

In the Lincolnshire play Beelzebub has this vaunt. Cf. the St.
George play (p. 220).
[740] The Doctor can cure ‘the hipsy-pipsy, palsy, and the
gout’; cf. the St. George play (p. 213).
[741] Printed in French by Mrs. Murray Aynsley in R. d. T. P. iv.
609.
[742] The farce recorded as occasionally introduced at Whitby
(cf. p. 192, n. 1) but not described, probably belonged to
the ‘popular’ type.
[743] Chambers, Popular Rhymes of Scotland, 169, prints a
Peebles version. Instead of George, a hero called Galatian
fights the Black Knight. Judas, with his bag, replaces
Beelzebub. But it is the same play. Versions or fragments
of it are found all over the Lowlands. The performers are
invariably called ‘guizards.’ In a Falkirk version the hero is
Prince George of Ville. Hone, E. D. B., says that the hero is
sometimes Galacheus or St. Lawrence. But in another
Falkirk version, part of which he prints, the name is
Galgacus, and of this both Galacheus and Galatian are
probably corruptions, for Galgacus or Calgacus was the
leader of the Picts in their battle with Agricola at the Mons
Graupius (a. d. 84; Tacitus, Agricola, 29).
[744] Appendix K. Other versions may be conveniently
compared in Manly, i. 289; Ditchfield, 310. The best
discussions of the St. George plays in general, besides Mr.
Ordish’s, are J. S. Udall, Christmas Mummers in
Dorsetshire (F. L. R. iii. 1. 87); Jackson and Burne, 482; G.
L. Gomme, Christmas Mummers (Nature, Dec. 23, 1897).
The notes and introductions to the versions tabulated
above give many useful data.
[745] In F. L. x. 351, Miss Florence Grove describes some
Christmas mummers seen at Mullion, Cornwall, in 1890-1.
‘Every one naturally knows who the actors are, since there
are not more than a few hundred persons within several
miles; but no one is supposed to know who they are or
where they come from, nor must any one speak to them,
nor they to those in the houses they visit. As far as I can
 remember the performance is silent and dramatic; I have
no recollection of reciting.’ The dumb show is rare and
probably a sign of decadence, but the bit of rural etiquette
is archaic and recurs in savage drama.
[746] In Berkshire and at Eccleshall, Slasher is ‘come from
Turkish land.’ On the other hand, the two often appear in
the same version, and even, as at Leigh, fight together.
[747] Burne-Jackson, 483.
[748] Ibid. 483. He appears in the MSS. written by the actors
as ‘Singuy’ or ‘Singhiles.’ Professor Skeat points out that,
as he ‘sprang from English ground,’ St. Guy (of Warwick)
was probably the original form, and St. Giles a corruption.
[749] Here may be traced the influence of the Napoleonic
wars. In Berkshire, Slasher is a ‘French officer.’
[750] F. L. v. 88.
[751] Ditchfield, 12.
[752] Sandys, 153.
[753] P. Tennant, Village Notes, 179.
[754] Beelzebub appears also in the Cropwell Plough Monday
play; cf. p. 209. Doubtless he once wore a calf-skin, like
other rural ‘Fools,’ but, as far as I know, this feature has
dropped out. Sandys, 154, however, quotes ‘Captain Calf-
tail’ as the name of the ‘Fool’ in an eighteenth-century
Scotch version, and Mr. Gomme (Nature, Dec. 23, 1897),
says ‘some of the mummers, or maskers as the name
implies, formerly disguised themselves as animals—goats,
oxen, deer, foxes and horses being represented at different
places where details of the mumming play have been
recorded.’ Nowadays, Beelzebub generally carries a club
and a ladle or frying-pan, with which he makes the quête.
At Newport and Eccleshall he has a bell fastened on his
back; at Newbold he has a black face. The ‘Fool’ figured in
the Manchester chap-book resembles Punch.
[755] See notes to Steyning play in F. L. J. ii. 1.
[756] Mr. Gomme, in Nature for Dec. 23, 1897, finds in this
broom ‘the magic weapon of the witch’ discussed by
Pearson, ii. 29. Probably, however, it was introduced into
the plays for the purposes of the quête; cf. p. 217. It is used
 also to make a circle for the players, but here it may have
merely taken the place of a sword.
[757] Parish, Dict. of Sussex Dialect, 136. The mummers are
called ‘John Jacks.’
[758] Cf. p. 268, n. 4.
[759] Sandys, 301.
[760] Cf. Capulet, in Romeo and Juliet, i. 5. 28 ‘A hall, a hall!
give room! and foot it, girls’; and Puck who precedes the
dance of fairies in Midsummer Night’s Dream, v. 1. 396

‘I am sent with broom before,

To sweep the dust behind the door.’

[761] Ditchfield, 315. ‘The play in this village is performed in

most approved fashion, as the Rector has taken the matter
in hand, coached the actors in their parts, and taught them
some elocution.’ This sort of thing, of course, is soon fatal
to folk-drama.
[762] Burne-Jackson, 484; Manly, i. 289.
[763] Burne-Jackson, 402, 410; F. L. iv. 162; Dyer, 504. The
broom is used in Christmas and New Year quêtes in
Scotland and Yorkshire, even when there is no drama.
Northall 205, gives a Lancashire Christmas song, sung by
‘Little David Doubt’ with black face, skin coat and broom. At
Bradford they ‘sweep out the Old Year’; at Wakefield they
sweep up dirty hearths. In these cases the notion of
threatening to do the unlucky thing has gone.
[764] Ditchfield, 12. An ‘Old Bet’ is mentioned in 5 N. Q. iv.
511, as belonging to a Belper version. The woman is
worked in with various ingenuity, but several versions have
lost her. The prologue to the Newcastle chap-book
promises a ‘Dives’ who never appears. Was this the
woman? In the Linton in Craven sword-dance, she has the
similar name of ‘Miser.’
[765] I hardly like to trace a reminiscence of the connexion
with the renouveau in the ‘General Valentine’ and ‘Colonel
Spring’ who fight and are slain in the Dorset (A) version;
but there the names are. Mr. Gomme (Nature for Dec. 23,
1897) finds in certain mumming costumes preserved in the
 Anthropological Museum at Cambridge and made of paper
scales, a representation of leaves of trees. Mr. Ordish, I
believe, finds in them the scales of the dragon (F. L. iv.
163). Some scepticism may be permitted as to these
conjectures. In most places the dress represents little but
rustic notions of the ornamental. Cf. Thomas Hardy, The
Return of the Native, bk. ii. ch. 3: ‘The girls could never be
brought to respect tradition in designing and decorating the
armour: they insisted on attaching loops and bows of silk
and velvet in any situation pleasing to their taste. Gorget,
gusset, bassinet, cuirass, gauntlet, sleeve, all alike in the
view of these feminine eyes were practicable spaces
whereon to sew scraps of fluttering colour.’ The usual
costume of the sword-dancers, as we have seen (p. 200),
was a clean white smock, and probably that of the
mummers is based upon this.
[766] T. F. Ordish, in F. L. iv. 158.
[767] Printed in The Old English Drama (1830), vol. iii. Burne-
Jackson, 490, think that ‘the masque owes something to
the play,’ but the resemblances they trace are infinitesimal.
A play of St. George for England, by William or Wentworth
Smith, was amongst the manuscripts destroyed by
Warburton’s cook, and a Bartholomew Fair ‘droll’ of St.
George and the Dragon is alluded to in the Theatre of
Compliments, 1688 (Fleay, C. H. ii. 251; Hazlitt, Manual,
201).
[768] In the Dorset (A) version, the king of Egypt is ‘Anthony’
and the doctor ‘Mr. Martin Dennis.’ Conceivably these are
reminiscences of St. Anthony of Padua and St. Denys of
France. The Revesby Plough Monday play (cf. p. 208) has
also an ‘Anthony.’ The ‘Seven Champions’ do not appear in
the English sword-dances described in ch. ix, but the
morris-dancers at Edgemond wake used to take that name
(Burne-Jackson, 491). Mrs. Nina Sharp writes in F. L. R. iii.
1. 113: ‘I was staying at Minety, near Malmesbury, in Wilts
(my cousin is the vicar), when the mummers came round
(1876). They went through a dancing fight in two lines
opposed to each other—performed by the Seven
Champions of Christendom. There was no St. George, and
they did not appear to have heard of the Dragon. When I
inquired for him, they went through the performance of
 drawing a tooth—the tooth produced, after great agony,
being a horse’s. The mummers then carried into the hall a
bush gaily decorated with coloured ribbons.... [They] were
all in white smock frocks and masks. At Acomb, near York,
I saw very similar mummers a few years ago, but they
distinguished St. George, and the Dragon was a prominent
person. There was the same tooth-drawing, and I think the
Dragon was the patient, and was brought back to life by the
operation.’ I wonder whether the ‘Seven Champions’ were
named or whether Mrs. Sharp inferred them. Anyhow, there
could not have been seven at Minety, without St. George.
The ‘bush’ is an interesting feature. According to C. R.
Smith, Isle of Wight Words (Eng. Dial. Soc. xxxii. 63) the
mummers are known in Kent as the ‘Seven Champions.’
[769] Entered on the Stationers’ Registers in 1596. The first
extant edition is dated 1597. Johnson first introduced
Sabra, princess of Egypt, into the story; in the mediaeval
versions, the heroine is an unnamed princess of Silena in
Libya. The mummers’ play follows Johnson, and makes it
Egypt. On Johnson was based Heylin’s History of St.
George (1631 and 1633), and on one or both of these
Kirke’s play.
[770] Jackson and Burne, 489: ‘Miss L. Toulmin Smith ...
considers that the diction and composition of the
[Shropshire] piece, as we now have it, date mainly from the
seventeenth century.’
[771] Dyer, 193; Anstis, Register of the Garter (1724), ii. 38; E.
Ashmole, Hist. of the Garter (ed. 1672), 188, 467; (ed.
1715), 130, 410.
[772] F. Blomefield, Hist. of Norfolk (1805), iv. 6, 347;
Mackerell, MS. Hist. of Norfolk (1737), quoted in Norfolk
Archaeology, iii. 315; Notices Illustrative of Municipal
Pageants and Processions (with plates, publ. C. Muskett,
Norwich, 1850); Toulmin Smith, English Gilds (E. E. T. S.),
17, 443; Kelly, 48. Hudson and Tingey, Cal. of Records of
Norwich (1898), calendar many documents of the guild.
[773] Hartland, iii. 58, citing Jacobus à Voragine, Legenda
Aurea, xciii, gives the story of St. Margaret, and the
appearance of the devil to her in the shape of a dragon.
She was in his mouth, but made the sign of the cross, and
he burst asunder.