Harrowing of Hell
The best known pageant in the Towneley manuscript is "The Second Shepherds' Pageant", a burlesque of the Nativity featuring Mak the sheep stealer and his wife Gill, which more or less explicitly compares a stolen lamb to Jesus Christ. The "Harrowing of Hell", derived from the apocryphal "Acts of Pilate", was a popular part of the York and Wakefield cycles.