Originally prepared for textual analysis during his PhD research on the 'Origins and Development of English Folk Plays' by Peter Millington (2002).
Original spelling and typography is retained, except that superscripts, long s and ligatured forms are not encoded.
Line identifiers are those used for line types in the Folk Play Scripts Explorer.
"'YULE-BOYS - Boys who ramble the country during the Christmas holidays. They are dressed in white, all but one in each gang, the Belzebub of the corps. They have a foolish kind of rhyme they go through before people with, and so receive bawbees and pieces. This rhyme is now a-days so sadly mutilated, that I can make little of it as to what it means, but it evidently seems to have an ancient origin: and in old Scottish books I see some notice taken of Quhite boys of Zule. The plot of the rhyme seems to be, two knights disputing about a female, and fight; the one falls, and Belzebub appears and cures him. I may give here a sketch of something like the scene, with the attending rhymes."
PTM's NotesScanned from the transcript in:
B.Hayward (1992) Galoshins : The Scottish Folk Play. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1992, ISBN 07486 0338 7, pp.181-184.
Hayward's transcript was taken from the 2nd edition (1876) of MacTaggart's encyclopedia. However, I have proof-read the scanned text against MacTaggart's first edition.
Hayward's Notes:"The first edition of MacTaggart's Encyclopedia (1824) had a very limited circulation, and the second edition is more frequently encountered. Recently, however, the original has been reprinted, in an edition by L.L. Ardern in 1981, printed by the Clunie Press at Old Ballechin in Perthshire.
There are several points of interest about this information:
- This is by far the earliest of the Galloway accounts, preceding the others by around seventy-five years.
- The first seven and the closing thirteen lines appear in other versions- the remainder I take to be the author's invention.
- This report, and the unlocated Johnstone account, are only two to ascribe the Galloway play to the midwinter season,
- The phrase 'Yule Boys' is not known from any other source, and I have been able to trace no 'old Scottish books' that take notice of 'Quhite Boys of Zule'.
The 'irregularity' of MacTaggart's account has to be set againt his admirable credentials as an informant. His biography, which he himself gives under the heading 'MacTaggart', informs us that he was born in 1791, the son of a farmer, at Borgue (a feudal seat), and moved to Torrs when he was seven. Torrs is north of Borgue, five miles from Kirkcudbright (a play location), where he attended school until he was thirteen. Then he travelled widely in Britain, had a spell at Edinburgh University, and returned to Torrs from Canada c. 1820. at which place he composed the Encyclopedia, and died in 1830.
Although MacTaggart lived as man and boy in a farmhouse folk-play area, he gives no hint of having either seen or taken part the folk play.
In only one area is McTaggart consonant with the remainder the Galloway information: the Encyclopedia does not include the word 'Goloshan'."