Originally prepared for textual analysis during his PhD research on the 'Origins and Development of English Folk Plays' by Peter Millington (2002).
Original spelling and typography is retained, except that superscripts, long s and ligatured forms are not encoded.
Line identifiers are those used for line types in the Folk Play Scripts Explorer.
The source of this text is letter written by W.Griffiths to Sydney Rider from Dunvant Post Office, dated 21st March 1916.
Griffiths' Introduction:...I can however claim to be a trustworthy authority on "Christmas Sport" as it was called in this district, as I have myself played in most of the parts when quite a little boy. And now with regard to its origin in these parts - as far as I can discover no one remembers its first coming. It was handed down from boy to boy and locally no adult was permitted to have anything to do with it in stage management or performance. It was commenced about 3 weeks before Christmas and the boys used to commence preparing dresses and weapons for it about 6 weeks before performance started.
The performers were from 10 years to 15 years of age and were very elaborately decorated. They wore a kind of high Grenadiers busby of different coloured papers cut into thin strips, and round their bodies a kind of broad band of gilt paper and also paper rosettes in imitation of decorations. Each one wore a wooden sword, though sometimes steel fencing foils were used. These were used so vigorously as to draw showers of sparks, steel against steel, and this was greatly admired by the spectators. The play itself seems to me a trifle heterogenous locally, parts having been added from time to time and other changes made. The following was the form used when I played it.
One of the party is dressed up to represent Father Christmas like an old man with a long white beard, learning upon his staff. The other parties were the Valiant Soldier or Bold Slasher Jack, the Turkey's Knight sometimes called Turkey's Snipe, Old Oliver Cromwell. Tommy Toddy and Beelzebub, the two latter characters generally solicited the money from the spectators. The method of procedure was as follows - a House to House performance was given. A House was approached and a gentle knock given at the door, and when it was opened one of the warriors (generally the bravest boy as they did not know always what reception they would get) advanced into the middle of the room, moved any stray furniture, clearing the room and saying it in a loud voice
Griffiths' epilogue:It seems to have built up in different periods, and additions made of characters which attracted public interest during their respective times. I have often thought that the Turkish Knight was added at a very early time, probably when the Crusades were matters of public interest.
Then old Beelzebub might have come down from the period of Miracle Plays, though the lines were probably later.
Tommy Noddy is another puzzle and is probably more of a biological than historical interest. If I remember, his lines were:
Note 1: Griffiths' lines for Tommy Toddy have been inserted at the appropriate point in his main text.
Peter Millington's Notes:The electronic text was copied from the website of Celfyddydau Mari Arts:
http://www.folkwales.org.uk/arctd6.html. They had obtained it from Ron Shuttleworth, who in turn had acquired as a conference handout. The paper was: Paul Smith "The Stanley Smith Collection of Traditional Plays", International Conference on Traditional Drama, Sheffield, 7th March 1998.
This text has been proof-read against Paul Smith's original transcript.