With regard to the main drift of this chapter, the criticism presents itself; if the folk-plays are essentially a celebration of the _renouveau_ of spring, how is it that the performances generally take place in mid-winter at Christmas? The answer is that, as will be shown in the next chapter, none of the Christmas folk-customs are proper to mid-winter. They have been attracted by the ecclesiastical feast from the seasons which in the old European calendar preceded and followed it, from the beginning of winter and the beginning of summer or spring. The folk-play has come with the rest. But the transference has not invariably taken place. The Norfolk versions belong not to Christmas but to Plough Monday, which lies immediately outside the Christmas season proper, and is indeed, though probably dislocated from its primitive date, the earliest of the spring feasts. The St. George play itself is occasionally performed at Easter, and even perhaps on May-day, whilst versions, which in their present form contain clear allusions to Christmas, yet betray another origin by the title which they bear of the ‘Pace-eggers’’ or ‘Pasque-eggers’’ play[790]. Christmas, however, has given to the play the characteristic figure of Old Father Christmas. And the players are known as ‘mummers’ and ‘guisers,’ or, in Cornwall, ‘geese-dancers,’ because their performance was regarded as a variety of the ‘mumming’ or ‘disguising’ which, as we shall see, became a regular name for the Christmas revel or _quête_[791]. CHAPTER XI THE BEGINNING OF WINTER [_Bibliographical Note._--I have largely followed the conclusions of A. Tille, _Deutsche Weihnacht_ (1893) and _Yule and Christmas_ (1899). The Roman winter feasts are well treated by J. Marquardt and T. Mommsen, _Handbuch der römischen Alterthümer_ (3rd ed. 1881-8), vol. vii; W. W. Fowler, _The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic_ (1899); G. Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der Römer_ (1902); and the Christian feasts by L. Duchesne, _Origines du Culte chrétien_ (2nd ed. 1898). On the history of Christmas, H. Usener, _Das Weihnachtsfest_, in _Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen_, vol. i (1889), and F. C. Conybeare’s introduction to _The Key of Truth_ (1898) should also be consulted. Much information on the Kalends customs is collected by M. Lipenius, _Strenarum Historia_, in J. G. Graevius, _Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanarum_ (1699), vol. xii. I have brought together a number of ecclesiastical references to the Kalends, from the third to the eleventh century, in Appendix N.]