The Shepherds are a strange dichotomy: they are clearly from Yorkshire, they speak with Yorkshire accents and talk of places around Wakefield, England, but are also the Shepherds from the Christmas story. What this does is humanize the characters and would have made the Christmas story intensely immediate to the shepherds and farmers from Yorkshire who were watching the play in the 14th century.

The Shepherds provide a lot of comedy as well as some truly moving moments. For instance, as the Kings lay their gold, frankincense and myrrh before the Infant, the Shepherds lay their own gifts: some cherries, a ball and a small bird one has caught. These are not magnificent gifts, but they are from the heart.

Early in the play, as the Shepherds watch their flocks, they decide to sing a song. The song I've had them choose is a hymn that was composed by John Dunstable to celebrate Henry V's victory over the French at Agincourt (1415). As the Wakefield mysteries were known to have been performed as late as Shakespeare's day, I feel justified in having them sing it.

Again, we have the dichotomy of the new and old with the Shepherds singing a song composed fourteen hundred years after Jesus' time, the time which they are supposed to be enacting. Throughout the plays, there is a unique innocence regarding place and time, with characters using Christian terms even as they go to worship at Jesus' birth. It's a lovely quality to the scripts.

Thank God, Englishmen,
Thank Him for victory.


<center><table border=1><tr><td>Deo Gratias
Deo Gratias 2.not (37.1 k)</td></tr></table></center>