I was idly browsing the internet the other day – googling, I think they call it – when I hit upon the text of something called The Chithurst Mummers’ Play. Now I knew a bit about Mummers’ Plays because that talented and entertaining folklore group, The Madding Crowd, had performed one in St. Peter’s not so long ago, but I had no idea that Chithurst had one all of its own. Mummers’ Plays usually took the form of a Hero/Combat plot, culminating in a sword fight between the hero, usually St. George, and the villain. Eventually the villain is slain, and a quack doctor appears to perform a cure in a slapstick scene.

I knew, too, that Sussex was a stronghold of the Mummers’ tradition, but the thought that Chithurst, a hamlet of a tiny church built on an artificial mound a thousand years ago, an old bridge over the River Rother and a few isolated houses, had its own play certainly surprised me. It was performed up until 1911 at Chithurst House, then home of the indefatigable collector and editor, Dorothy Marshall. What is more, it appears that Iping, the neighbouring village, had one too! The plays were a regular traditional entertainment between the Festivals of All Souls and the New Year.

The plays began to appear in the mid-eighteenth century, though the oral tradition may well date from earlier. The late nineteenth century interest in what we now call folklore saw to it that many were recorded in written form, happily just in time, as interest began to wane in the twentieth century, and by the end of World War I Mummers’ Plays were almost forgotten.

In Sussex Mummers were known as Tipteerers, and the Chithurst play has seven characters: Little Johnny Jack, Father Christmas, who carried a great staff decorated with colourful ribbons with a bunch of holly and mistletoe at the end, a Noble captain, King George, the Turkish Knight, a Gallant Soldier in a red military style coat bearing badges and medals, and the Doctor.

The Gallant Soldier, a veteran of the French wars, and the Turkish Knight fight, and the latter falls dead, and the Soldier, full of remorse, asks, “O is there a doctor to be found to raise this dead man from the ground?” Father Christmas immediately conjures up a Doctor who says he can cure the hipsy, pipsy, palsy or the gout, strains within and strains without, all for ten pounds.

The Turkish Knight is cured and rides off, whereupon there is a drunken celebration ending with a universal song The Moon Shone Bright.
“Our song is done, and we must begone;
We can tarry no longer here.
So God bless you all, both little, great and small,
And God send you a happy New Year.”

I know that visiting troups, like the Prize Old Mummers, bring plays to several local pubs, but it would be interesting to hear if the Chithurst play is ever performed locally nowadays.

Tom Muckley, December 2005

This article was originally published by the Petersfield Post

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