it’s St George who fights a Turkish Knight instead of King William fighting Little Man John. The Christmas play in London on Bankside uses the same names, as does the one in St Albans. Elsewhere in the Cotswolds there’s a variant play with Robin Hood; in Scotland the St George character is called Galoshin. Sometimes, the murderer is simply called ‘Slasher’. In some Irish variants, it’s St Patrick against the evil Oliver Cromwell. Beelzebub hops through the majority of them, collecting money from the audience, Father Christmas almost always announces the proceedings, and in most cases the
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