The Pace Egging Play The drama takes the form of
mock combat between the hero and villain, in which the hero is killed and brought back to life, often by a
quack doctor. In some plays the figure of
St George smites all challengers, and the
fool,
Toss Pot, rejoices. In other versions, the antagonist is a Turkish knight. Other characters are called the Noble Youth, the Lady Gay, the Soldier Brave.
The Pace Eggers The bands of performers, called Pace Eggers, were locals who performed in their surrounding villages. They often
blacked their faces (as was common in English folk traditions such as
Border Morris) and wore animal skins,
The eggs Traditionally, eggs were wrapped in
onion skins and boiled to make their shells look like mottled gold, or wrapped in flowers and leaves first in order to leave a pattern, a custom also practised in traditional
Scandinavian culture. Eggs could also be drawn on with a wax candle before staining, often with a person's name and date on the egg. and
Anne Gilchrist collected one in nearby
Casterton in 1909. In the early 1930s, the American folklorist
James Madison Carpenter recorded a version from a man named Herbert James Blades in
Hunton,
Yorkshire, who had learnt the song 40 years prior from a Thomas Thompson (born c.1810); the recording is available on the
Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website. Pace egging originally involved young boys collecting money and begging for pace eggs, with the drama being an 18th-century
Lancashire addition. The 'captain' of the group of boys would sing something along the lines of the following: ==History==