Talk:Mummers' play

message: This entry has so many errors of fact, it's difficult to know where to start.
Perhaps I should start with my credentials. I have been researching folk drama for over 30 years in association with the University of Sheffield, England, where I gained my PhD on "The Origins and Development of English Folk Plays" in 2002. I have written many papers on the subject and I am webmaster of www.folkplay.info - arguably the best website on English folk drama. I know my stuff on matters of fact, and am up to speed on the latest theories.
OK. Here goes:
1. Mummers' plays have nothing to do with Christian Mystery plays. While there are some superficial similarities of style (e.g. verse speeches), mystery plays were Medieval, whereas there is no evidence for Mummers's plays before the 18th century.
2. It is true that nowadays, many morris dancing groups also perform mumming plays. However, this is a 20th century development arising out of the English Folk Revival. In the past, morris dancers and mummers were independent.
3. It is very much a matter of opinion whether or not Mummers' plays are "highly symbolic enactments of religious significance". Most traditional performers would have been surprised by this. As far as they are concerned, they were just entertaining and collecting money. The mystery plays are something else of course.
4. While St.George is a common character in mummers' plays, the Dragon is rare. The Turkish Knight is one of St.George's main adversaries, the other common opponent being Slasher. I have no idea where the "Persian Knight" came from. It's a character I have never encountered. Ditto Old Father Abraham. Old Father Christmas yes. He is particularly frequent in southern English plays, where he is the play's introducer. There are a few Robin Hood plays in the Cotswolds, but he is not common.
5. A few mummers' plays do indeed have a "hobby horse", but these horses have no relation to the spectacular Padstow and Minehead 'Obby 'Osses (who appear on May Day). It is unlikely that there is any link with Pantomime horses either.
6. The defining feature of mumming plays is the quack Doctor, and the main purpose of the fight is to provide him with a patient to cure. The protagonists vary widely, and it is often unclear who is the hero and who the villain. In some plays there is not even a fight, just an assault. Once again therefore, whether or not "the plays contain the archetypes: duality and resurrection" is a matter of opinion. It's a valid enough interpretation, but not the only one.
7. "The performers are masked." Occasionally yes, although usually not with the sort of face masks you can buy in a shop. Rather we are talking about hats or headgear that obscure the face. More often, mummers' faces are blackened or painted red by way of disguise. Many mummers and guisers, however, have no facial disguise at all.
8. No firm conclusions have been come to regarding the etymology of the word "mummer". The alternatives given in the article are the main contenders. Some people have said that it derives from the Danish or Dutch "Mumme" or similar, which also means "Mask". There are also possible relationships with the words "murmer" and "mutter".
9. We are now pretty sure that Mummers' plays do NOT have a Pagan or pre-Christian origin, nor any origin in the Crusades. The reason is that no evidence has been found for the plays before the 18th century, despite assiduous research. This contrasts with other English customs such as morris dancing, maypoles, Plough Monday, etc., where much unequivocal evidence has been found back to the Reformation and in some cases beyond.
10. The paragraph on Mystery Plays implies that they developed from the mummers' plays. As has already been explained, this is chronologically impossible.
To conclude, the item on Mummers' plays needs totally rewriting to present an accurate description of the plays, and to remove the disproven theories re pagan origins. The material on Mystery Plays need to be moved elsewhere, and the references to the Padstow and Minehead 'Obby 'Osses also need removing. The links are appropriate (apart from the one to Padstow). More folk play links (about 1000) can be found at www.folkplay.info.
I hope that the encyclopaedia article is updated soon.
Regards
Peter Millington
Webmaster, www.folkplay.info, Traditional Drama Research Group
and Honorary Research Associate, NATCECT, University of Sheffield, England
Email: p.millington1@sheffield.ac.uk
:you should make all those revisions yourself, that's what "wiki" is for -Hsio 04:47, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for continuing the grand Wikipedia tradition sometimes known as the  "Complain and Leave Drive-by". We do need more expert participation here, but we need true participation from experts, complete with sources and WP:NOR and WP:NPOV, rather than just complaints. I'm removing the non-standard dispute notice, until somoene who is an actual Wikipedia editor can step up. --NightMonkey 02:08, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have to disagree with the above "fix it yourself" comments. Wikipedia forbids original research. Therefore, the author of a site specializing in this subject should probably not cite himself or his own research. And I do thank him for bringing his work to our attention. --Craig Stuntz 02:14, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: 2005 complaints

message: Intend to include a short section on the mummery play and book, which has great significance to the new religious movement of Adidam (authored by spiritual teacher Adi Da )  located ( the annual theatre presentation ) in Nothern California , this is not intended to be any form of promotion ( for the sacred theatre performance or book ) but more to take its place in the history of mummers and mummery for readers of the article. Here is a link to get the basic feeling and background , any objections or comments please put forward, thanks  --Scribe5 00:32, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You have a point, but this is a very controversial area these days. Early scholarship and study of mummers' plays, and other seasonal customs, was very much concerned with origin theory. Victorian and later scholars delighted in finding far-flung (and, probably, far-fetched) parallels in other cultures, pointing to ancient fertility ceremonies and ritual re-enactments of death-and-resurrection, but this is very much frowned upon nowadays, for various reasons (see Peter Millington's incisive comments, above). Now scholars place much more emphasis on the social significance of the customs, and their importance to the participants. I have sympathy with both approaches, and feel sure that there must have been some common ancestor from which all those hundreds of plays must have diverged, despite the baroque accretions which have gathered round and obscured that original nucleus. But to confidently ascribe the plays a pre-Christian origin in some pagan ritual is a huge leap of faith. The same goes for the Manichaean duality struggle. Some themes are eternal and provide a good basis for drama, whether in the form of sophisticated stage plays, novels, films, even comic books... or mumming plays. SiGarb | Talk 12:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adidam Mummery Sacred Theatre 

message: Is there any evidence that the Newfoundland tradition is 200 years old? Ogg 12:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was certainly known in the 19th century, but how early I'm not sure. It might be worth checking through this lot of links if you are interested:  SiGarb | Talk 12:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Citation for Newfoundland mumming = Palmer, Craig T. and Christina Nicole Pomianek. 2007. Applying signaling theory to traditional cultural rituals: The example of Newfoundland Mumming. Human Nature, 18, 295-312. They have further citations which may be more useful since that article is not primarily interested in the mumming per se.--droptone (talk) 19:18, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newfoundland 

message: I can see no justification for a link to the art movement called Dadaism so I have removed it. Ogg 15:36, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dadaism 

message: From some texts and papers I'd read, it looks like a grab bag of practices involving costumed play and costumed performance had been categorised as mumming.  I would assert that the mystery plays are a fair bit older than 19th century, some of them involve referents to Raleigh that get later changed to Nelson (that old horse one - they replace the horse torso with a ship, and keep the horse head.)  The aristocratic stuff - well some people kept the receipts, and some found illuminations  from the time explicitly describing a courtly mumming foray.  It described a mask of Henry's in gold leaf about a foot tall.  I was looking into it to see the development of anthropomorphic costuming, but admired some of the archaic references.  My apologies for not citing anything tonight - this was just a casual addition because I noticed a deficit, and there's a pile of paperwork a foot tall I need to get through.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.253.53.25 (talk) 13:30, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Social Mumming 

message: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummer_%28album%29  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.90.121.26 (talk) 13:57, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mummer needs a disambiguation 

message: I've proposed that the recently-created article Mummering is merged here and left as a redirect. --Dweller (talk) 15:19, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm responding as the creator. I've set up the mummering article separate from the Mummers Play section, as it is clearly a distinct house-visiting tradition in Newfoundland and Labrador, which largely is undertaken without reference to or even knowledge of the more formal play tradition. More detailed references on the article page to follow. Dalejarvis (talk) 15:30, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: You're suggesting that quite by chance, there's a tradition of house visiting at Christmas time, which uses the same name, but it's totally not connected? Seems an unlikely bunch of coincidences. (Have you read this article? Its title is misleading) --Dweller (talk) 15:36, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merge from [[Mummering]] 

message: The added text suggested that there was evidence for mummery in the Annals of the Four Masters dating back to 2000 years BCE. That's basically nonsense - if you read the Annals, until they get quite close to the era of the authors (900-1600 CE) they are legends, and not in any way a reliable source. 'King Conor' usually means Conchobar mac Nessa, from the Cú Chulainn myths. Evidence from a book of legends for things said to have happened at a mythical kings court...well, it's maybe interesting (more so for the wrenboys article) but doesn't belong in the opening paragraph.
This did draw my attention to the link to the Irish tradition of wrenboys being used as a citation for mummers originating in England though(???) which turned out to have been from an anon edit that replaced 'British Isles' with 'England' with no explanation. I've reverted that too. Bazzargh (talk) 02:46, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed 'King Conor' addition to opening para 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Mummers play. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20160106140249/http://freespace.virgin.net/peter.millington1/Mystery_History.htm to http://freespace.virgin.net/peter.millington1/Mystery_History.htm
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 10:33, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Mummers play. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140808050538/http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/706.html to http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/706.html
*Added  tag to http://www.fermanagh.info/aughakillymaude
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 06:38, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified (February 2018) 

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
* Kalyada KR 2012 425.JPG
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:22, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion