Editing Father Christmas (section)

===Early records of folk plays===

By the late 18th century Father Christmas had become a stock character in the Christmas folk plays later known as [[mummers play]]s. During the following century they became probably the most widespread of all calendar customs.<ref name="MillingtonTDF6">
{{cite journal | url=http://www.folkplay.info/Forum/TD_Forum_6_Sandys.htm | title=Who is the Guy on the Left? | author=Millington, Peter | journal=Traditional Drama Forum | year=2002 | issue=6 | access-date=16 December 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170924215626/http://www.folkplay.info/Forum/TD_Forum_6_Sandys.htm | archive-date=24 September 2017 | url-status=live}} Web page dated Jan 2003
</ref> Hundreds of villages had their own mummers who performed traditional plays around the neighbourhood, especially at the big houses.<ref name="EnglishYear393">{{cite book | title=The English Year | publisher=Penguin Books | author=Roud, Steve | year=2006 | location=London | pages=393 | isbn=978-0-140-51554-1}}</ref> Father Christmas appears as a character in plays of the Southern England type,<ref name="MillingtonPhD">
{{cite thesis | url=http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/13/ | title=The Origins and Development of English Folk Plays | publisher=Unpublished | author=Millington, Peter | year=2002 | location=University of Sheffield | access-date=19 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160130232445/http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/13/ | archive-date=30 January 2016 | url-status=live| type=phd }}
</ref><ref name="MillingtonConf106">{{cite conference | url=http://www.folkplay.info/Confs/Millington2002.pdf | title=Textual Analysis of English Quack Doctor Plays: Some New Discoveries | access-date=19 January 2016 | author=Millington, Peter | book-title=Folk Drama Studies Today | year=2002 | conference=International Traditional Drama Conference | pages=106 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130203064236/http://www.folkplay.info/Confs/Millington2002.pdf | archive-date=3 February 2013 | url-status=dead}}</ref> being mostly confined to plays from the south and west of England and Wales.<ref name="MillingtonWeb">
{{cite web | url=http://petemillington.uk/fatherxmas/ | title=Father Christmas in English Folk Plays | access-date=13 March 2018 | author=Millington, Peter | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161029211607/http://petemillington.uk/fatherxmas/ | archive-date=29 October 2016 | url-status=live| date=December 2006 }}
</ref> His ritual opening speech is characterised by variants of a couplet closely reminiscent of [[John Taylor (poet)|John Taylor]]'s "But welcome or not welcome, I am come..." from 1652.

The oldest extant speech<ref name="MillingtonWeb"/><ref name="MillingtonTruro">{{cite journal | jstor=30035067 | title=The Truro Cordwainers' Play: A 'New' Eighteenth-Century Christmas Play | author=Millington, Peter | journal=Folklore | date=April 2003 | volume=114 | issue=1 | pages=53–73 | doi=10.1080/0015587032000059870 | s2cid=160553381 | url=http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3297/1/Truro-Cordwainers-Play.pdf | access-date=8 November 2019 | archive-date=19 July 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180719181035/http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3297/1/Truro-Cordwainers-Play.pdf | url-status=dead }} The article is also available at eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3297/1/Truro-Cordwainers-Play.pdf.</ref> is from [[Truro, Cornwall]] in the late 1780s:
:{|
| hare comes i ould father Christmas welcom or welcom not&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br/>i hope ould father Christmas will never be forgot&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br/>ould father Christmas a pair but woance a yare&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br/>he lucks like an ould man of 4 score yare<ref name="TruroPlay">{{cite web | url=http://www.folkplay.info/Texts/78sw84em.htm | title=Truro [Formerly Mylor]: "A Play for Christmas", 1780s | editor-last=Millington | editor-first=Peter | access-date=26 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303182402/http://www.folkplay.info/Texts/78sw84em.htm | archive-date=3 March 2016 | url-status=dead}}</ref>

| ''Here comes I, old Father Christmas, welcome or welcome not,<br/>I hope old Father Christmas will never be forgot.<br/>Old Father Christmas appear[s] but once a year,<br/>He looks like an old man of fourscore year [80]''.
|}