and servants of the lord to share in the
Christmas banquet. Rank and ceremony were laid aside: all were
deemed equal, whether lords or barons, serfs or peasants--a custom
which arose, doubtless, from the remembrance of Him who on the first
Christmas Day, "although He was rich, yet for our sakes became
poor."

And now on the huge oaken table were placed the various dishes of
the feast--a mighty boar's head, decorated with laurel and rosemary,
whose approach was often heralded with trumpets as the king of the
feast; then came a peacock, stuffed with spices and sweet herbs, and
adorned with its gay feathers, and then followed a goodly company of
geese, capons, sirloins of beef, pheasants, mince-pies, and
plum-porridge. A carol was often sung when the boar's head was
brought in; here is one from the collection of Wynkyn de Worde:

Caput Apri defero
Reddens laudes Domino,
The Boar's Head in hand bring I
With garlands gay and rosemary;
I pray you all sing merrily
Qui estis in convivio.

The Boar's Head, I understand,
Is the chief service in this land;
Look wherever it be fande:
Servile cum cantico.

Be glad, lords, both more and lasse,
For this hath ordained our steward
To cheer you all this Christmasse,
The Boar's Head with mustard.[18]

Neither were the ale and wassail-bowl forgotten, and they circulated
sometimes too often, I fear, and laid the seeds of gout and other
evils, from which other generations suffer. But when the prodigious
appetites of the company had been appeased, the maskers and mummers
entered the hall and performed strange antics and a curious play,
fragments of which have come down to our own time. The youths of the
villages of England still come round at Christmas-time and act their
mumming-drama, in which "St. George" kills a "Turkish knight," who
is raised to life by "Medicine Man," and performs a very important
part of the play--passing round the money-box. This is a remnant of
the mumming of ancient days, and perhaps of some "mystery" play, of
which I told you in a previous chapter.

In Berkshire the characters are represented by "Molly," a stalwart
man dressed in a woman's gown, shawl, and bonnet, with a besom in
his hand, who strives in his dialogue to imitate a woman's voice;
King George, a big burly man dressed as a knight, with a wooden
sword and a h