Pace Eggers
Pace Eggers
There's one, two, three jolly lads all in one mind,
We have come a-pace egging, We hope you'll prove kind.
We hope you'll prove kind with your eggs and strong beer,
And we’ll come no more nigh you, until the next year.
An Easter version of the Christmas Mummers Play, the Pace Egg Play also has death and resurrection of certain characters and was widely performed by young men known as Pace Eggers (in Yorkshire and Lancashire) and Jolly Boys (in the North East) whose costumes were generally made with paper and highly colourful - not to say bizarre! Although ostensibly the begging for eggs was their prime reason for going around, the plays took on a life of their own with characters such as Old Tosspot, Betsy Brownbags and topical ones like Lord Nelson.
The popularity of these plays dwindled in the early part of the twentieth century, but some still exist today. In the Calder Valley, Yorkshire, the Midgley version is enacted by the boys of the Calder Valley High School, in Mytholmroyd, on Good Friday. Their performances start at 9am on a housing estate near the school and then moves to various other locations such as Luddenden Foot, Midgley, Hebden Bridge and Todmorden throughout the day. Old Tosspot, King George and the Turkish Knight are the stock characters who wear odd, mortar board type hats embellished with highly coloured crepe paper, and carry wooden swords.
A similar play has been revived at Brighouse, also in Yorkshire.
You can download a sample text of the Bury Pace Egging Play, complete with its song and a lesson plan for using it with Key Stage 1 and 2 pupils, from the PDF tab at the top of this panel.
