Note 763 — Chapter X · THE MUMMERS’ PLAY
Reading edition
Burne-Jackson, 402, 410; F. L. iv. 162; Dyer, 504. The broom is used in Christmas and New Year quêtes in Scotland and Yorkshire, even when there is no drama. Northall 205, gives a Lancashire Christmas song, sung by ‘Little David Doubt’ with black face, skin coat and broom. At Bradford they ‘sweep out the Old Year’; at Wakefield they sweep up dirty hearths. In these cases the notion of threatening to do the unlucky thing has gone.