Note 743 — Chapter X · THE MUMMERS’ PLAY

Chambers, Popular Rhymes of Scotland, 169, prints a Peebles version. Instead of George, a hero called Galatian fights the Black Knight. Judas, with his bag, replaces Beelzebub. But it is the same play. Versions or fragments of it are found all over the Lowlands. The performers are invariably called ‘guizards.’ In a Falkirk version the hero is Prince George of Ville. Hone, E. D. B., says that the hero is sometimes Galacheus or St. Lawrence. But in another Falkirk version, part of which he prints, the name is Galgacus, and of this both Galacheus and Galatian are probably corruptions, for Galgacus or Calgacus was the leader of the Picts in their battle with Agricola at the Mons Graupius (A. D. 84; Tacitus, Agricola, 29).