If you're within arm's reach of the Globe near London Bridge this Sunday, our own Callum Coates and his crew the Lions part will be holding their 28th Twelfth Night celebration, featuring a host of ancient mumming traditions and oodles of wassail. This from the Facebook event:

TWELFTH NIGHT
the Lions part invites you to the 28th TWELFTH NIGHT CELEBRATION beginning on the Bankside near
Shakespeare’s Globe and continuing in procession to a new historic site: SOAP YARD in BOROUGH
YARDS!
A collective celebration of the New Year, TWELFTH NIGHT mixes
ancient Midwinter seasonal customs and contemporary festivity
Begins on Bankside near Shakespeare’s Globe
Sunday 7th January 2024 at 2.00pm

THE HOLLY MAN FROM THE THAMES

To herald the celebration, the extraordinary HOLLY MAN, the winter guise of the GREEN MAN
(from our pub signs, pagan myths and folklore), decked in fantastic green garb and evergreen
foliage, is piped over the River Thames, with the devil Beelzebub.

THE BANKSIDE WASSAILS

On Bankside by Shakespeare’s Globe, led by the BANKSIDE MUMMERS and our London Beadle,
the HOLLY MAN will ‘bring in the green’ and toast or ‘WASSAIL’ the people, the River Thames and
the Globe. (Wassailing is an old tradition to encourage good health).

THE MUMMERS’ PLAY

The MUMMERS then process to the BANKSIDE JETTY, and perform the traditional ‘freestyle’ FOLK
COMBAT PLAY, featuring the Turkey Sniper, Clever Legs, the Old ‘Oss and many others, dressed in
spectacular costumes. The play is full of wild verse and boisterous action, a time-honoured custom of
the season, recorded since the Crusades.

KING BEAN AND QUEEN PEA

CAKES safely distributed at the end of the play have a BEAN and a PEA hidden in two of them.
Those from the crowd who find them are hailed KING and QUEEN for the day and crowned with
ceremony. They then ‘dance’ the people along the Thames Path through Dirty Lane to
SOAP YARD in Borough Yards,
for DANCING, with the FOWLERS MOLLY, STORYTELLING, SINGING
and the KISSING WISHING TREE.
TWELFTH NIGHT is for ALL THE FAMILY, FREE, FUN and PHOTO-FRIENDLY