Pace Eggy Time

It’s that time of year again! One of the nice things about living out in the sticks, is that there are a number of local traditions, many of which revolve around drinking, and ye olde Pace Egg play on Good Friday is one of (if not) the best. This involves the Heptonstall Players performing the said play four times during the day, starting at around 1.00 ish, with the last one at around four o’clock, and going to the local hostelry between performances.

The play is a strange affair believed to be of Middle-Eastern origin, featuring Saint George, The Black Knight (I never said it was P.C.!) and other assorted characters bashing each other with swords. We got there in time for the third performance of the day, during which Slasher managed to clatter Saint George on the head so hard that he draw blood. The mood is such that everyone is in fits of laughter, even the injured George, and the players carry on regardless. It’s a good job they’re drunk!

After the play, we retired to the local pub for a pint. The players were in there and the actor who plays the Black Knight was talking to a guy with a foreign accent. ‘You’re not English are you?’ he asked ‘No’ the other man replied. ‘Where are you from?’ ‘Argentina’ ‘What – the Argentina? The big one?’ (er, no, the one next to Bradford, I thought – how many Argentinas are there for fuck’s sake?). The Black Knight then gave his sword to a baby in a pram to play with. When will people learn, weapons and alcohol are a bad mix!

Anyway, some mates pf ours had turned up and so we stayed with them to watch the final performance but it was a waste of time for me as I couldn’t see a bloody thing. I confused one of my mates as she thought it was a traditional English play ‘Er, no,’ I said. ‘It’s from the Middle East’. ‘So what’s Saint George in it for?’ she asked ‘Because he’s from the Middle East’ I told her. She was predictably astonished at this news, as are many English people who don’t realise that George was not in fact English. Furthermore, it is likely that the whole thing about England and the Cross of Saint George was a massive branding exercise, because really there was no such thing as England until the late Saxon times.

‘So didn’t he really kill a dragon?’ She asked, then added, ‘Only kidding I know that’s not true really’
‘Well’, I replied. ‘It depends on your definition of dragon. He might have’ This did her head in completely and she shut up.

One of the funny things about the Pace Egg though is that no-one really understands it, no matter how many years they have come up to Heptonstall to watch it. It’s a mystery. But then isn’t the whole Easter thing? Ahh!