In the St. George plays dancing holds a very subordinate place, far more so than in the ‘Plow-boys’ play of Revesby. Dances and songs are occasionally introduced before the _quête_, but rarely during the main performance. In the eccentric Brill version, however, a complete morris-dance appears. And of course it must be borne in mind that the fighting itself, with its gestures and pacings round the circle and clashing of swords, has much more the effect of a sword-dance than of a regular fight. So far as it is a fight, the question arises whether we ought to see in it, besides the heroic element introduced by the _cantilenae_, any trace of the mimic contest between winter and summer, which is found here and there, alternating with the resurrection drama, as a symbolical representation of the _renouveau_. The fight does not, of course, in itself stand in any need of such an explanation; but it is suggested by a singular passage which in several versions is put in the mouth of one or other of the heroes. St. George, or the Slasher, or the Turkish Knight, is made to boast something as follows: ‘My arms are made of iron, my body’s made of steel, My head is made of beaten brass, no man can make me feel.’ It does not much matter who speaks these words in the versions of Holophernes, but there are those who think that they originally belonged to the representative of winter, and contained an allusion to the hardness of the frost-bound earth[766]. Personally I do not see why they should refer to anything but the armour which a champion might reasonably be supposed to wear.