Wassail Cup in the Fool's Song. But it
seems at one time to have been made of milk. In a play of the 16th
century it is described as--

"Wassayle, wassayle, out of the mylke payle;
Wassayle, wassayle, as white as my nayle,"

and Selden calls it "a slabby stuff," which sounds as if it had got
mixed up with frumenty.

Since the above went to press, I have received some extracts from the
unwritten version of "Peace Egg" in the West Riding of Yorkshire to
which I have alluded. They recall to me that the piece properly opens
with a "mumming round," different to the one I have given, _that_ one
belonging to the end. The first Mumming Song rehearses each character
and his exploits. The hero of the verse which describes him singing
(autobiographically!) his own doughty deeds in the third person. Thus
St. George begins; I give it in the vernacular.

"The first to coom in is the Champion bould,
The Champion bould is he,
He never fought battle i' all his loife toim,
But he made his bould enemy flee, flee, flee,
He made his bould enemy flee."

The beauty of this song is the precision with which each character
enters and joins the slowly increasing circle. But that is its only
merit. It is wretched doggrel, and would make the play far too
tedious. I was, however, interested by this verse:--

The next to come in is the Cat and Calftail,
The Cat and Calftail is he;
He'll beg and he'll borrow, and he'll steal all he can,
But he'll never pay back one penny, penny,
He'll never pay back one penny.

Whether "Cat and Calftail" is a corruption of Captain Calftail or
(more likely) Captain Calftail was evolved from a Fool in Calf's hide
and Cat's skins, it is hard to say. They are evidently one and the
same shabby personage!

The song which I have placed at the head of the Peace Egg Play has
other verses which also recite "the argument" of the piece, but not
one is worth recording. A third song does not, I feel sure, belong to
the classic versions, but to another "rude and vulgar" one, which I
have not seen for some years, and which was played in a dialect dark,
even to those who flattered themselves that they were to the manner
born. In it St. George and the Old Fool wrangle, the O.F. accusing the
Patron Saint of England of stealing clothes hung out to dry on the
hedges. St. George, who has previously boasted--

I've travelled this world all round,
And hope to do it again,