Mumming

“ Christmas was the grand scene of mumming, and some mummers were disguised as bears, others like unicorns, bringing presents. Those who could not procure masks rubbed their faces with soot, or painted them. In the Christmas mummings the chief aim was to surprise by the oddity of the masks, and singularity and splendour of the dresses. Everything was out of nature and propriety. They were often attended with an exhibition of gorgeous machinery. [69] It was an old custom also to have mummeries on Twelfth night. They were the common holiday amusements of young people of both sexes ”

“ In the middle ages, mummings were very common. Mumm is said to be derived from the Danish word mumme, or momme in Dutch, and signifies to disguise oneself with a mask: hence a mummer; which is properly defined by Dr. Johnson to be a masker, one who performs frolics in a personated dress. The following verse occurs in Milton's Samson Agonistes, line 1325:
Jugglers and dancers, antics, mummers, mimics. ”

“ Here we have the Scandinavian or Teutonic original of the mumming-play, with which the Scandinavian sword-dance became combined after passing through the Easter play. Henderson tells us that throughout Yorkshire mummers go round visiting at houses where they know they are likely to meet with entertainment, disguised in finery of different sorts, with blackened faces or masks, and carrying with them an image of a white horse. ”

“ Sometimes among the mummers there was a Fool, who wore the skin of a calf with the tail hanging down behind, and wielded a stick with an inflated bladder tied to it, which he applied with rude vigour to the heads and shoulders of the human team. Another mummer generally wore a fox's skin in the form of a hood with the tail dangling on his back. If any churl refused to contribute to the money-box, the plough-bullocks put their shoulders to the plough and ploughed up the ground in front of his door.972
The object of the dances on Plough Monday is probably to ensure the growth of the corn. ”

“ Mummel, the great angry water god, has many beautiful daughters. These he guards jealously, and will allow no one to see them in their maiden forms except by the dim moonlight.
These beautiful water nymphs are not at all like their stern father. They are pure, and gentle and graceful and kind. They never do harm to anyone, and are not displeased if people come to visit the lake. Indeed they like to have people come to see them dance upon the water at night. ”

“ Mummel has caught the intruder and taken him down to his abode below the lake. There the unhappy youth has had to act as a servant.
Whenever anyone attempts to come too close to his daughters, too, Mummel takes [108] away their human shapes at once. He transforms them into water lilies, and makes them stand with bowed heads along the farther shore of the lake.
Every morning, too, as soon as the first light of day begins to appear, the beautiful figures leave their fairy dance upon the lake. Mummel transforms them into their lily forms and makes them stand in the water along the shore. ”

“ The place is haunted by Mummel, a great water god, [102] and by his daughters, the beautiful water sprites.
“Long years ago,” the mother went on, “a man committed a great crime in order that he might get a rich treasure. In his flight he came to the Mummelsee. He could not swim across with the bag of treasure! What should he do? He knew that he would be caught unless he did something at once.
“‘Ah! I will just drop it into the edge of the lake,’ he said to himself. ‘The water is dark and no one will be able to find the Treasure. ”

“ The grub of this fly spends its whole life buried head downward in the mud at the bottom of some shallow pool—thick, black mud, which is largely made up of decaying leaves—and never comes out of it even to breathe. But at the end of its body it has a long tube, the tip of which rests just above the surface of the water, so that it can draw down as much air as it requires. ”

“ Like some hungry monster the muskeg mouths its victims with oozing saliva, supping slowly, and seemingly revels in anticipation of the delicate morsel of human flesh. The watchers heard the gurgling mud, like to a great tongue licking, as it wrapped round the doomed man's body, sucking him down, down. ”

“ Those that have alighted walk about with short steps, looking round for materials. Some seem not to find the mud suitable, but seize on a piece of straw, or grass, which, tempering in the mud, they then fly off with. Returning now to the building, we see one using its tail planted against the wall, or against the nest, if sufficiently advanced, as a support, deposit the material it has brought by giving its head a wriggling motion, so that the mud slides gently into the crevices of yesterday’s work ”

“ It can breathe oxygen dissolved in water by its gills; it can also breathe dry air by means of its swim-bladder, which has become a lung. It is a _double-breather_, showing evolution in process. For seven months of the year, the dry season, it can remain inert in the mud, getting air through an open pipe to the surface. When water fills the pools it can use its gills again. Mud-nests or mud encasements with the lung-fish inside have often been brought to Britain and the fish when liberated were quite lively. ”

“ That of the meadows, if analyzed, proves to be compounded of very worthy entities—water, clay, sand, and leaf-mold. Why, because they are associated, should they be so studiously shunned? No chemical change has taken place resulting in the formation of a dangerous mixture. Mud is unlovable only when you are made its prisoner; but even a fool knows it is best to remain outside the bars when he comes to a lion’s cage. The lily loves the mud from which it springs, and who in the wide world loves not the lily? Let us accept her as an authority that this mud has merit. ”

“ At the edge of the dry mud lay a derelict fish-trunk around which a group of bare-legged boys had gathered—and all along the shore, on the faded grass, on the dry mud and wading in the soft slime, the human water-rats were to be seen, turning over drift-rubbish, prying under stranded boats or grubbing in the soft mud. ”

“ Bumps thought they must be approaching the city. They were pushing their way through a little thicket—Bunny hurrying on ahead, as usual—when Bumps heard the hiss of a snake. He looked around quickly to see where it came from, and right in front of him on the ground he saw a poor little bird held spellbound by the glittering eye of an ugly snake, so frightened that it could neither move nor fly. Without stopping to think that the snake might injure him, Bumps seized a big stick and killed it. Instantly the poor little bird was transformed into a beautiful Fairy, not much bigger than a robin. ”

“ The mud-fish is common enough in all the larger English aquariums, owing to a convenient habit in which it indulges, and which permits it to be readily conveyed to all parts of the globe on the same principle as the vans for furniture. When the dry season comes on and the rice-fields are reduced to banks of baking mud, the mud-fish retire to the bottom of their pools, where they form for themselves a sort of cocoon of hardened clay, lined with mucus, and with a hole at each end to admit the air ”

“ Outside the “honey-pots,” the mud was soft and tenacious to a depth varying from a few inches to a couple of feet, but with a hard clay foundation beneath the slime. Through this clinging red ooze the old bear, with her huge strength, made her way without difficulty; but the cub, in a few moments, began to find himself terribly hampered. His fur collected the mud. ”

“ We rode forward in pained silence, spurring on until we caught up with Lezard and Fooss and the pack-mules; then we all pressed ahead, a prey, now, to the deepest moral anxiety and agitation.
The splashing of our mule's feet on the partly melted surface of the mud aroused the man as we rode up and he scrambled madly to get out of the hammock as soon as he saw us. ”

“ The boar lay all that day about the Moss Thorn, and Mumps lay in his bosom, but no pitying damsel, witch, or fairy, came near him. He grew extremely hungry in the evening, and was deeply distressed what to do for food, for he pitied Mumps more than himself. ”

“ If the water is shallow, only one or two tubes are needed, and the tail appears somewhat thick, but if, owing perhaps to a sudden shower, the water deepens, then the creature can draw out tube after tube until the tail is two inches in length, and graduates to a thread-like point. If these grubs were thrown into deep water they would be drowned, being suffocated from want of air, but in ditches, where they are usually found, they can crawl along in the mud by means of very small legs on the thorax and abdomen, and ascend the sloping bank until they reach the needful air. ”

“ He lives composedly in semi-fluid mud, or lies torpid in the hard baked clay at the bottom of the dry tank from which all the water has utterly evaporated in the drought of summer. As long as the mud remains soft enough to allow the fish to rise slowly through it, they come to the surface every now and then to take in a good hearty gulp of air, exactly as gold fish do in England when confined with thoughtless or ignorant cruelty in a glass globe too small to provide sufficient oxygen for their respiration. ”

“ So the narrowest mud flat on the sea-shore or muddy beach will give us the same dead and inanimate aspect which characterizes a more extensive coast of like character, where the gases always generated in mud are deadly to many kinds of animals. The beings who find a home in such localities are of closely allied species, chiefly a variety of worms, who burrow their way into the mud, and seem to court the miasma so [Pg 142] fatal to other creatures. ”

“ Why doesn't the mud close in behind the animal? The fact is that the worm is always pouring out from its skin a sticky slime which quickly becomes quite hard and firm. And this binds the sandy mud together as the worm forces its way down, and forms a kind of lining to its burrow, just like the brickwork with which we line our railway tunnels. ”

“ No neat little housewife, with skirts carefully tucked out of the dirt, could be more adept in tackling a job so prejudicial to the cleanliness of her clothes. These mud-gatherers have not an atom of soil upon them, so careful are they to tuck up their skirts in their fashion, that is to say, to keep their whole body out of the way, all but the tips of their legs and the busy points of their mandibles. In this manner a dab of mud is collected, almost the size of a pea. Taking the load in its teeth, the insect flies off, adds a layer to its building and soon returns to collect another pellet. ”

“ The same causes of obliteration have no power to efface the foot-prints which the same creatures may leave, under favourable circumstances, imprinted on an ancient mud-bank or shore, on which new strata may be from time to time thrown down. In the red mud of recent origin spread over wide areas by the high tides of the bay of Fundy, innumerable foot-tracks of recent birds (Tringa minuta) are preserved in successive layers, and hardened by the sun. Yet none of the bones of these birds, though diligently searched for, have yet been discovered in digging trenches through the red mud. ”

“ Similar conditions must prevail in many situations; but, clearly, the more binding and plastic the building material, the longer the nest will withstand the action of the dripping water and the greater chance will there be of the young being reared in safety. Observe, therefore, how far-reaching an effect so small a detail as the nature of the mud can have upon the status of the species in any given locality. ”

“ The mouth of the burrow is closed with a most ingeniously constructed mud flap, through which are several small perforations, which permit the animal to breathe air directly, as it is also one of the few species gifted with both lungs and gills. While enclosed in its nest, the fish is frequently dug out by the natives, who highly prize its flesh. ”

“ He stumbled a little further, where the mud began to get softer and deeper, but struggling up again, went hopping on towards the river.
I shouted to him, but he never looked back. At every few yards he would sink down almost to his knees in the black mud, but wrenching himself free would flounder forward. Then, still some distance from the river, he fell upon his face, and did not rise again. I saw his arms beating feebler and feebler as he sank till at last the oily slime closed over him, and I could detect nothing but a faint heaving underneath the mud. ”

“ She is a mason, making a pretty mud vase for a home. The clay, or mud, she moistens, then moulds it, little by little, into the vase, which she fastens on to a twig. Some mud-daubers make small cylinders placed side by side. Into these they put stung spiders, after tearing off their legs to make sure they will not recover and run away before the eggs hatch. Sometimes the mud-daubers plaster up the keyholes in a house, and so have snug homes.
"One day last summer, as I was sitting outside my cabin, I noticed a wasp carrying something green in its mouth. ”

“ Numerous horns of red-deer have been found in the peaty mud, generally (as I was informed) at 5 or 6 feet below the surface, seldom deeper; many attached to the skull, others separate, and with the appearance of having been shed naturally. What is most remarkable, several of those which were found with the skulls attached had been [291] sawn off just above the brow antlers—not broken, but cut off clean and smoothly, evidently by human agency. Some of these horns are of large size, measuring 9 inches round immediately below the brow antler.... ”