"AWAY back in the 'eighties' it was customary, in the North Dorset village of Sixpenny Handley, for the Mummers to go round each Christmas to the principal houses, farms and inns to perform the mediaeval play of St. George. The play is said to date from the 12th century and was not written but handed down verbally from generation to generation. Consequently versions varied in different parts of the country.

The Mummers wore a characteristic dress, made of coloured strips of cloth about one foot in length and half an inch wide, sewn on an old suit, each row of such strips overlapping the row below, and extending to the feet. Similar ribbons on the hat obscured the features of the wearer. Thus in Thomas Hardy's novel The Return of the Native, the heroine, Eustacia Vye, was able to take the part of the Turkish Knight without being detected.

The Mummers fought with long wooden swords and traditional gestures, marching slowly round and round in a circle. Those who were slain fell flat on the floor, and were later brought back to life by the Doctor, with his magic bottle.

The performance meant hours of preliminary rehearsal, and, at Christmas, many miles were covered in going from place to place to present the play. At Handley even the schoolboys used to fight in mock combat, repeating some of the rhymed sayings they had overheard.

It is difficult now-a-days to get the wording of the play, but the version here given may be taken as a fair sample of that performed in Dorset about the middle of the 19th century."