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Cornel Stan

Energy
versus
Carbon
Dioxide
How can we save the world?
59 Theses
Energy versus Carbon Dioxide
Cornel Stan

Energy versus
Carbon Dioxide
How can we save the world?
59 Theses
Professor Dr.-Ing. habil. Prof. E.h. Dr. h.c. mult. Cornel Stan
FTZ – Research and Technology Association
West Saxon University
Zwickau, Germany

ISBN 978-3-662-64161-3 ISBN 978-3-662-64162-0 (eBook)


https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-64162-0

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2022


This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation,
reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage
and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks,
etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement,
that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and
therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice
and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of
publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty,
expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
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regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Editorial Contact: Markus Braun


This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer-Verlag
GmbH, DE part of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: Heidelberger Platz 3, 14197 Berlin, Germany
Preface

How do we save the world?


The world's population will be eight billion people in
the next three years, and ten billion in the next three
decades. On the other hand, technical and economic
developments in the world are increasing annual per
capita energy consumption sharply. The number of
people multiplied from year to year by the respective
per capita consumption shows an exploding energy de-
mand. Whether Homo sapiens can somehow procure
this energy is no longer the problem: The deconvolu-
tion of most forms of energy, however, generates car-
bon dioxide, which has already caused a threatening
global warming. The climate neutrality of any form of
energy production and transformation is now abso-
lutely necessary. The closure of all coal-fired power
stations, but also of carbon dioxide-free nuclear power
stations, the banning of all internal combustion engines
that move ships, aircraft, construction machinery and
automobiles, are radical claims with no ideas or visions
about the consequences. Alternative solutions are cer-
tainly not the matter of the respective claims carriers.
This book is dedicated to the search for forms and
quantities of energy for the future, while maintaining
climate neutrality, partly by drastically reducing, partly
by recycling the resulting carbon dioxide emissions.

V
Preface

The path from energy to carbon dioxide begins in hu-


mans and animals with respiration and food, at the end
of assimilation reactions appears besides other prod-
ucts the carbon dioxide. Otherwise, in the case of
plants, the input of carbon dioxide generates food: this
leads to an inverted cycle in comparison with humans
and animals. This plant-like cycle is increasingly be-
ing taken into account in the construction of new ma-
chines and industrial plants, as numerous examples in
this book show.
The planes, the tankers and the automobiles are always
in the focus of criticism, but the true energy guzzlers
and at the same time carbon dioxide emitters are oth-
ers, as it is presented in the book. Electric drives in-
stead of combustion engines also do not solve the con-
flict between energy and carbon dioxide. There are
more efficient ways, which will be presented and ana-
lyzed in this book.
A central section of the book is devoted to energy with-
out carbon dioxide, starting with the hopefuls - photo-
voltaics, wind power and hydropower - with their ad-
vantages, but also with their disadvantages.
Nevertheless, this work is centered on the promising
solutions for energy generation with simultaneous cli-
mate neutrality from the perspective of energetic cy-
cles: The water cycle nature-electrolysis-machine-na-
ture is compared with the carbon dioxide cycle nature-
photosynthesis in plant-machine-nature. The results
of analysis are largely surprising from this perspective.
Energy production causes carbon dioxide emissions,
this fact is well known. But the “inversed” fact that car-

VI
Preface

bon dioxide can generate energy in form of heat, elec-


tricity and fuel is probably less so, which is why such
projects are also presented in this book.
Numerous research and development projects in the
relevant fields, with the active participation of the au-
thor, together with industrial partners from several
countries, are a good opportunity to devote themselves
to these topics.

Cornel Stan Zwickau, Germany, August 2021

VII
Table of Contents

Preface ..................................................................... V
Table of Contents ................................................... IX
Part I Energy and carbon dioxide ........................1
1 Matter ..............................................................3
2 Energy versus carbon dioxide in the
nutrition of human beings ................................6
3 Energy versus carbon dioxide in the
nutrition of other living beings ......................22
4 Energy from carbon dioxide for the nutrition
of plants and trees ..........................................26
5 Flora and fauna have inversed carbon
dioxide cycles ................................................31
6 Carbon dioxide, the greenhouse effect and
the warming of the Earth's atmosphere .........36
References for Part I...........................................47
Part II Causers of anthropogenic carbon
dioxide emissions .......................................49
7 No more cars with internal combustion
engines, but what about airplanes? ................51
8 Are we also electrifying cruise ships and
tankers? ..........................................................57

IX
Table of Contents

9 The real energy guzzlers ............................... 66


10 Electric car drive instead of propulsion by
combustion engine does not solve the
problems ....................................................... 82
References for Part II ........................................ 90
Part III Energy without carbon dioxide .............. 91
11 The hope-bearers at first: photovoltaics,
wind, water ................................................... 93
11.1 Photovoltaics ........................................ 94
11.2 Wind power ........................................ 107
11.3 Hydropower ....................................... 119
12 The last weapon: nuclear power ................. 130
13 The energetic water cycle: nature –
electrolysis – machine – nature .................. 136
13.1 Hydrogen production and storage ...... 136
13.2 Fuel cell with hydrogen...................... 141
13.3 Internal combustion engine with
hydrogen............................................. 153
13.4 Internal combustion engine with
hydrogen in the role of the fuel cell ... 156
14 The energetic carbon dioxide cycle: nature –
photosynthesis – machine – nature ............. 165
14.1 Ethanol, methanol, oil, ether – fuel
production from plants ....................... 165
14.2 Internal combustion engines with
ethanol, methanol, vegetable oils
and ether ............................................. 175
14.3 Fuel cell with methanol and
vegetable oils...................................... 181

X
Table of Contents

14.4 Thermal machine with internal


combustion of alcohol or oil in the
role of fuel cell ....................................184
References for Part III ......................................187
Part IV Energy using carbon dioxide .................189
15 Carbon dioxide-devouring heat engines ......191
16 Heat, electricity and fuel from waste ...........198
17 Heat, electricity and fuel from biogas .........204
18 Heat from wastewater and super-efficient
combustion engines with organic food ........214
References for Part IV ......................................222
Summary of Theses ...............................................223

XI
Part I

Energy and carbon dioxide


1
Matter

Is matter the counterpart of the idea, or a creation of


the spirit? Plato (Greek philosopher, 428-348 BC)
raised a demiurge, which is a benevolent God, as a car-
rier of ideas, who created from these the elements
earth, water, air, fire and ether and set them as the basis
for all other bodies.
Aristotle (Greek polymath, 384-322 BC), refined the
wisdom of his teacher Plato: "Matter is the possibility
of being formed".
To put it nicely – so you always expect matter to be
something material, that is, a substance, a body, a mass
– a body that is tangible, a mass as a weight!
The manifestation of matter was, according to the state
of knowledge at that time, the mass.
And what or who formes such a mass? Again, the
spirit, as a driver of the process between two states? So
we slowly come to the energy!
Is energy "living reality and efficacy", as the Ancient
Greek philosophers thought?
It was not until 1807 that Thomas Young (English
physicist, 1773-1829) defined energy as the "strength

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2022


C. Stan, Energy versus Carbon Dioxide,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-64162-0_1
Part I Energy and carbon dioxide

of very specific effects that a body (i.e. a mass) can


cause through its movement".
So the effect of a body evokes energy. Often this effect
consists in the exercise of a force (by means of this
mass) during a way, which is also called mechanical
work (a form of energy).
Can the mass influence the energy, or vice versa?
If we burn a liter of gasoline (that's about 0.7 kilograms
of mass) in a piston engine, work is done on the mov-
able piston, and consequently at the crankshaft, being
then is transmitted to the wheel. Has our kilogram of
gasoline disappeared as a result of energy conversion?
One would immediately say "yes": energy was paid for
with mass. That is absolutely wrong! The gasoline re-
acted chemically with oxygen from the air, it came to
other components (carbon dioxide, water and nitro-
gen). Is the mass of the resulting components smaller
than the sum of the masses of gasoline and air? No,
roughly speaking, it remains the same. More precisely,
however, the mass after the energy development is
larger than before! According to Einstein:
E (energy) = m (mass) x c2 (speed of light squared).
The manifestations of matter were, according to this
state of knowledge, mass and energy.
The greater the energy development, for example dur-
ing the combustion of gasoline, the greater the mass of
the products than that of the starting materials, because
Einstein considered the speed of light to be constant
(300 million meters per second).
For one kilogram of burnt gasoline, this increase would
be 0.474 x 10-6 grams/kilogram of gasoline [1]. Not

4
1 Matter

much for the weight of the car as a whole, but much


for the course of physical processes in general.
At the speed of light, the electromagnetic waves, for
example from the sun, are emitted by means of pho-
tons. Until recently, photons were considered as en-
ergy particles without an own mass. In the meantime,
however, their tiny mass has been discovered. But
there is something else interesting about the electro-
magnetic waves: Solar radiation, as the mother of all
radiation, is concomitant emitted at all wavelengths,
from cosmic rays to gamma, X-rays and ultraviolet to
visible and infrared. Moreover, the intensity of the ra-
diation at these wavelengths (watts/cubic meter) is
very different [1].
A radiation from electromagnetic waves, whether from
the sun, from a body (also human body), or from an
electrical/electronic device is an information carrier
due to the variable intensities and wavelengths.
The speed of light squared (physically speaking, this is
a specific energy), as Einstein wanted it to be, is an in-
formation between the energy donor and the mass of
the receiver. The information is an encoding that the
receiver uses to sort the received energy in its own
modules.
The manifestations of matter are, according to the cur-
rent state of knowledge, mass, energy and infor-
mation.
Thesis 1: The manifestations of matter – mass, en-
ergy and information – influence each other during
a process (state change) between two equilibrium
states of a material system.

5
2
Energy versus carbon dioxide in the nutrition
of human beings

Can a person feed directly with the energy of the sun's


rays? Hardly. That would solve one of humanity's big-
gest problems, malnutrition. It is precisely in the re-
gions of the world where this problem is particularly
acute that the sun shines the most. But that doesn't
work. The tourist, who is so hungry for the holiday sun
in Mallorca, can get by lying in the sun for too long,
without parasol and without cream, skin burns, head-
aches and diarrhea. The electromagnetic radiation of
the sun collides with his body with all wavelengths,
with high intensities, as a heat flow that is collected
over hours as heat (a form of energy, like work). But
collected is not stored, heat cannot be stored, it only
works during the state changes of the poor subject. The
form in which he stores this energy is called Inner En-
ergy. But it stores them encoded, on wavelengths and
intensities, in its various organs. The muscles get hot
and want to spray water through the skin. The skin lets
the water out through its pores, but its tissue on the sur-
face is burned and dried by the sun's rays, in the end it
is fiery red and peels off. The brain is not much better
off: The increase in its internal energy through the

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2022


C. Stan, Energy versus Carbon Dioxide,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-64162-0_2
2 Energy versus carbon dioxide in the nutrition of human beings

enormous heat supply makes the molecules in the gray


cells dance properly, which causes delusions in an un-
wanted half-sleep. If some wavelengths and intensity
peaks can be avoided, then the solar radiation gives
happiness to the human soul, it gives warmth to the
body: but it cannot satisfy hunger, it cannot impart its
energy to the body cells that need it for the preservation
of body functions. The cells need carbons and hydro-
carbons, which generate heat directly on site with the
oxygen from the air through chemical reactions similar
to combustion.
Thesis 2: The energy that a person or any other liv-
ing being needs for the nutrition of his body mass in
order to perform a work, can neither be generated
by solar radiation on the skin, nor by gusts of wind
in the nose or by water massage of the muscle.
When gasoline is burned with oxygen from the air in
an internal combustion engine, as mentioned, carbon
dioxide is produced in addition to water and nitrogen.
And if in the cells of the human body hydrocarbons
(carbohydrates) react chemically with oxygen from the
inhaled air, similar to the combustion processes? Does
carbon dioxide then also arise?
A person breathes air into the lungs on average 12 to
15 times per minute. The two lungs usually have a vol-
ume between 0.5 and 0.7 liters. So humans breathe in
between 6 and 10.5 liters of air per minute. 8 liters per
minute can serve as a guideline and comparison value.
The four cylinders of an automobile piston engine with
a total swept volume of two liters suck in air 1500 times
per minute at a speed of 3000 rpm.

7
Part I Energy and carbon dioxide

At an ambient temperature of 20 °C, the 8 liters that


humans breathe in per minute contain 9.5 grams of air.
In comparison, the piston engine sucks in 3.56 kilo-
grams of air per minute at 3000 rpm.
The piston engine therefore takes up 375 times more
air mass per minute than humans.
On the other hand, under the conditions shown, at full
breath, man exhales an exhaust air in which there is an
average of 0.605 grams of carbon dioxide per minute.
Under the conditions shown, the engine delivers 750
grams of carbon dioxide per minute at full load, which
is 1240 times more than a human being (both carbon
dioxide values will be derived in the following para-
graph).
Between the air intake ratio engine/human and the car-
bon dioxide output ratio engine/human there is as re-
sult a factor of around 1:3 (375:1240).
These values can be derived as follows: Man breathes
21% Vol. Oxygen in the 8 liters of air per minute, in
addition 78% Vol. Nitrogen, 0.038% Vol. Carbon di-
oxide and, moreover, few traces of noble gases such as
neon, argon and krypton. On exhaling it is 17% Vol.
Oxygen (4% Vol. were thus retained), 78% Vol. Nitro-
gen (unchanged between inhalation and exhalation)
and, now also 4.03% Vol. Carbon dioxide, which re-
sults from the combustion of the ingested food, or from
the processes in the entire organism.

8
2 Energy versus carbon dioxide in the nutrition of human beings

Fig. 1 A human breathes 9.5 grams of air per minute (8 liters,


of which 0.038% Vol. CO2); on exhale it is 4.03% Vol. CO2,
(but the oxygen concentration in the exhaled air decreased
by 4%)

9
Part I Energy and carbon dioxide

Conclusion: of the inhaled air volume, 4% oxygen was


retained, in the exhaled air volume appeared about 4%
carbon dioxide. However, the carbon dioxide has mol-
ecules with a larger mass than those that make up 99%
of the air (nitrogen and oxygen). For this reason, the
exhaled air is heavier than the inhaled, a remarkable
result!
The comparison between the air mass taken within a
year and the carbon dioxide mass emitted between hu-
mans and the engine then leads to a completely new
insight:
In the case of humans, the 9.5 grams of air per minute
means 0.57 kilograms of air per hour, or 5 tons of air
per year! The carbon dioxide emissions of 0.605 grams
per minute add up to 318 kilograms per year.
The engine needs 3.56 kilograms of air per minute,
which is 1871.136 tons annually - presupposed it
would run throughout the year, continuously, at full
load at 3000 rpm. However, the engine does not run
continuously at full load and lively speed throughout
the year.

10
2 Energy versus carbon dioxide in the nutrition of human beings

Fig. 2 A two-liter piston engine sucks in at 3000 rpm 3.56 kg of


air per minute, plus 0.24 kg of gasoline and, after combus-
tion, emits 0.74 kg of CO2, 1.42 kg of water and 1.64 kg of
nitrogen

11
Part I Energy and carbon dioxide

And the human? He would inhale 2100 m 3 of air per


year, if he allowed himself a pleasant time in an arm-
chair, provided that this condition would not change
for the whole year. Under these conditions, carbon di-
oxide emissions would amount to 163 kilograms per
year (4.03% Vol. CO2 in the exhaled air multiplied by
the CO2 density). But if the same human were strongly
stressed, it would inhale 25,000 m3 of air and exhale
1980 kg of CO2.
And the engine? The average annual driving distance
of an automobile in the European Union is statistically
15,000 kilometers in urban-rural traffic, not always at
full load, but according to a driving profile between
idle, partial load and rarely full load. So, an automo-
bile functions about 2 hours a day, but the human be-
ing functional 24 out of 24!
The average annual fuel consumption of a mid-size au-
tomobile with piston engine is 7 liters of fuel/100 km,
which is 1050 kilograms of fuel per year. This results
in, with a usually complete combustion of the gasoline,
3255 kg of CO2 [2].
Carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles have been
reduced by the European Union to a fleet value of 95
grams of CO2/km] from 2020. 0.095 kg/km results in
1425 kg CO2/year at 15,000 km/year. For a CO2 limi-
tation of 20 g CO2/km, which would mean a fleet con-
sumption of 0.88 liters of fuel/100km, the annual car-
bon dioxide emissions would be just 300 kilograms (to
be compared with the mentioned 163 – 1980 kg ex-
haled yearly by a human).

12
2 Energy versus carbon dioxide in the nutrition of human beings

Thesis 3: The combustion engine of a modern,


common automobile emits over an annual driving
distance of 15,000 kilometers in urban-rural traffic,
according to a usual EU driving profile, just as
much carbon dioxide per year as an average person
with a work program which is usual in Europe.
For a single internal combustion engine in an automo-
bile, however, it will hardly be possible to achieve a
fuel consumption of 0.88 l/100km, which could lead to
20 grams of carbon dioxide emissions per kilometer.
There are two alternative solutions for this: either a
combination of combustion engine/electric motor in
the propulsion system of each individual car, or the
production of a disproportionate number of electric
cars compared to combustion cars within a brand [2].
Before such solutions are found, however, it is recom-
mended to use CO2-neutral bio-fuels, which will be
discussed in detail in a further chapter.
Humans feed on many energy sources that contain car-
bon, just like the engine. Even if the annual carbon di-
oxide emissions of humans and engines are compara-
ble, there is currently a fundamental difference
between the respective energy sources: The foods with
which humans feed contain carbon atoms, which are
recycled in a natural, relatively short-term biological
cycle. However, the engine has so far been fed mainly
on fossil fuels – fuels from oil, as well as natural gas –
which achieved such structures over millions of years.
The carbon dioxide emitted by the engine as a result of
its combustion is accumulated in the atmosphere, with-
out recycling, within a measurable time interval.

13
Part I Energy and carbon dioxide

Thesis 4: An internal combustion engine, would


need in the future, like humans, energy carriers
that undergo photosynthesis, such as biowaste, or
have undergone organic changes, such as biogas.
Only then will a comparison between human car-
bon dioxide emissions and such of the combustion
engine be permitted.
Which of the foods for humans contain carbon atoms,
which then, as a result of energy processing in the or-
ganism, become carbon dioxide? The answer is clear:
all of them! A human needs hydrocarbons, proteins
and fats, all of which contain carbon atoms. Minerals
such as iron, cobalt, copper, manganese, selenium or
zinc, as well as vitamins such as thiamine, niacin or
pyridoxine are contained in such a small percentage
that they are negligible for a pure mass balance.
As far as the amount of food is concerned, a healthy
person who is neither lazy nor competitive athlete
needs a daily food intake of an average of 2000 kilo-
calories, i.e. 8363 kilojoules. The nutritionists gener-
ally share this food very strictly: daily 264 grams of
carbohydrates (hydrocarbons in motor language), 66
grams of fats, 72 grams of proteins. In addition, at least
2.2 liters of water per day. And if it ever becomes a
beer instead of water, its carbohydrates should be de-
ducted from the above-mentioned food limit.
The strictly recommended carbohydrates, fats and pro-
teins should be listed at this point, for a better under-
standing, in their tasty form, so as not to remain too
abstract. It is recommended to make such a balance for
a whole year, because man does not eat the same quan-
tity of bananas or potatoes every day. It is also very
revealing to make a qualified comparison between the
14
2 Energy versus carbon dioxide in the nutrition of human beings

recommendations of nutritionists and reality, as in


Tab. 1.
As an example, people in Germany eat on average, 1.6
times more annually than they should. The statistics do
not provide any information on the differences be-
tween ascetics and gourmands.
The combustion engine works with both fossil and re-
generative fuels.
A diesel fuel from petroleum generally consists of 84%
carbon and 16% hydrogen, natural gas (methane) of
75% carbon and 25% hydrogen. The calorific value of
both fuels is approximately the same, rather slightly
greater for methane. It is therefore more advantageous
to burn a kilogram of methane instead of a kilogram of
diesel fuel for the same energy retention in the form of
heat. However, after methane combustion, more water
and less carbon dioxide will be found in the exhaust
gas than in the case of diesel fuel combustion [2].
In the future, however, the methane for the combustion
engine should no longer come from fossil natural gas,
but from biogas, in order to ensure recycling of carbon
dioxide emissions in nature.
The remains of all the above-listed foods of the people
are the best basis for biogas production for the engine
food in the form of methane. Similar recyclable fuels
include, among others, alcohols such as methanol and
ethanol.
Ethanol is not only right for the combustion engine, but
also for many people. In the internal combustion en-
gine it burns quickly and well. In humans it burns

15
Part I Energy and carbon dioxide

quickly, but tasty, from whisky and cognac to grappa


and fruit spirit.
If a person cannot feed directly with the energy of the
sun's rays, then ethanol is an indirect product of solar
radiation, via photosynthesis in the plants from which
it was produced. Could man not obtain his energy as
work and heat only from ethanol, like an internal com-
bustion engine?
The daily energy ration for a person, of an average of
2000 kilocalories, i.e. 8363 kilojoules, as mentioned
before, is at this point, for the following comparison, a
little more detailed:
In general, for a woman of the best age and in the best
form is recommended an energy intake of one kilocal-
orie per kilogram of body weight, per hour. For a
woman who weighs 65 kilograms in 24 hours, this
makes 1560 kilocalories per day (please to excuse the
temporary use of kilocalories, because people have be-
come accustomed to it, but the kilojoules will come
soon in this chapter!).
For a man of the best age and in the best form, 2400
kilocalories per day are recommended, after all, he is
heavier than the woman and burns the kilocalories
more intensively. But even in this respect, man is not
the same as man, even if in good shape: For a compet-
itive athlete is recommended a daily energy intake of
6000 to 8000 kilocalories.
A kilocalorie corresponds to 4.184 kilojoules (or kilo-
Newton-meters, more precisely formulated: kilo- kilo-
gram-meters-per-second-squared-by-meter).

16
2 Energy versus carbon dioxide in the nutrition of human beings

The normal man therefore needs an energy supply of


10,000 kilojoules per day, the competitive athlete up to
33,500 kilojoules.
And now to the automobile: gasoline has an average
energy content of 43,000 kilojoules per kilogram, or
31,610 kilojoules per liter. Ethanol, as an energy sub-
stitute for gasoline in spark-ignition engines, has an
energy content of "only" 24,150 kilojoules per liter
(because, unlike gasoline, it also contains oxygen in its
structure).
An automobile with a fuel consumption of seven liters
per hundred kilometers swallows 221,270 kilojoules
on such a route [2]. This is 6.6 times more than in the
case of a competitive athlete per day. If the energy con-
version between the tank and the wheels of the car, or
the stomach and muscles of the athlete, proceeded
without any losses, this difference would shrink from
6.6:1 to only 2:1. This shows that the engineers should
significantly improve the efficiency of the car engines,
the human being is a good model for this.

17
Part I Energy and carbon dioxide

Tab. 1 Food for humans/per capita per year


TARGET
PER CAPITA
(RECOM
FOOD SORT CONSUMPTION
MENDED)
(AVERAGE)*
PER YEAR**
Cereals (Bread,
90 kg 73 kg
rolls, pasta, etc.)
70 kg
(4,5 kg rice,
Rice, legumes
0,5 kg legumes, 73 kg
and potatoes
61 kg potatoes,
1,5 kg potato starch)
50 kg
(33 kg sugar,
Sugar, glucose,
9,1 kg glucose,
isoglucose, honey not recommended
1,1 kg isoglucose,
and cocoa
1 kg honey,
3,1 kg cocoa mass)
overr 200 kg
(91 kg vegetables
Vegetables and 237,25 kg
70 kg fruit,
fruit (146 kg vegetables
45 kg citrus fruits,
91,25 kg fruit)
4 kg nuts,
1,4 kg dried fruit)
90 kg
(1,4 kg beef and veal,
54,1 kg pigmeat,
Meat and 0,9 kg sheepmeat and
15,6 kg
meat products goatmeat,
0,5 kg offal,
19 kg poultry meat,
2 kg other meat)
Fish and
16 kg 7,8 kg
fish products

18
2 Energy versus carbon dioxide in the nutrition of human beings

134 kg
(103 kg fresh milk
products,
6 kg cream,
91,25 kg
Milk and 2,1 kg condensed milk,
(73 kg milk/
milk products 0,3 kg goat's milk,
yoghurt
23 kg cheese
18,25 kg cheese)
1,7 kg whole milk
powder,
1 kg skimmed milk
powder)
20 kg
(5,6 kg butter, 9,13 kg
Oils and fats
5,3 kg margarine, (5,48 kg +
0,3 kg edible fats, 3,65 kg)
11,2 kg edible oil
Eggs 210 156

* Bundesanstalt für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung (BLE) (2010):


Statistisches Jahrbuch über Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und
Forsten. Bonn. (206. Consumption of food per capita)
** German Society for Nutrition

19
Part I Energy and carbon dioxide

Let's turn it around: If a human being could function


with gasoline, his 10,000 kilojoules per day would be
covered by 0.361 kilograms of gasoline or 0.414 kilo-
grams of ethanol. Now, however, whisky, cognac,
grappa and fruit spirit have an average ethanol concen-
tration of 40%, which proportionally lowers the calo-
rific value of ethanol, increasing consumption to 1.03
liters per day for 10,000 kilojoules per day. That would
be too much for the poor man: no food, but one liter of
schnapps per day, for the ordered ten thousand ki-
lojoules! Let's let him run healthy first, developing a
force upon a distance (Newton-meters, or kilo-New-
ton- meters) which means work, so energy: Recom-
mended are always about 8,000 steps per day, loose
running. With a stride length of 0.7 meters at 1.70 -
1.90 meters body height, it is 5.6 kilometers a day.
With a body weight of 75 kilograms, this makes 1,166
kilojoules from the daily ration of 10,000 kilojoules,
i.e. 11.7%.
Most of the energy is used to maintain the body tem-
perature of 37°C, considering the variable temperature
of the environment which causes a heat exchange [1]
and, in addition, the work of the organs in the body
(one quarter for the brain, one quarter for the muscles,
the rest for the liver, lungs, heart, kidneys, intestines
and other organs). And don´t forget the work that man
does to the outside world.
One example is very revealing: an unclothed man on
the beach, at an ambient temperature of 25°C, radiates
about 100 watts at his own body temperature of 37°C
[1].

20
2 Energy versus carbon dioxide in the nutrition of human beings

Thesis 5: If a person remained unclothed in the


open air for 24 hours at a constant ambient temper-
ature of 25°C, the heat radiation of his body would
cost him 2400 watt-hour, which is 8640 kilojoules,
i.e. exactly the recommended energy daily ration
for an average person.
This means that in order to keep his organs running,
humans would also have to be additionally nourished.
At lower ambient temperatures, its thermal radiation is
also much higher than 100 watts, so it can be under-
stood that the supply of high-energy liquid food in al-
ways cold areas, especially above the fiftieth northern
latitude, - whether vodka, whisky or homemade
schnapps - has its justification.
For the previously recommended running distance of
5.6 kilometers, for the sake of health, the liquor con-
sumption would be 0.1166 x 1.03 = 0.12 liters per day,
which is three times 4 cl.
For a hundred kilometers on foot per day, this value
would increase dramatically, to 2.14 liters! Therefore,
in order to stay healthy, you should not overdo it with
running!
All in all, to the question of whether ethanol, in con-
nection with possibly limited yields and production ca-
pacities, is more due to the automobile or to humans,
there is a clear answer: drive or drink.

21
3
Energy versus carbon dioxide in the nutrition
of other living beings

Human beings inhale air from the atmosphere. The air


consists of oxygen, nitrogen, but also of carbon dioxide
with a concentration of 0.038% Vol., as allready men-
tioned. In the exhaled air is missing 4% Vol. oxygen,
but there appear 4% Vol. carbon dioxide. The combus-
tion of the food ingested therefore needs oxygen, and
because every type of human food contains carbon,
this also results in carbon dioxide.
This mechanism applies to all living beings that
breathe in air and eat food based on hydrocarbons,
proteins and fats.
The largest animal on earth, the blue whale, which
weighs 200 tons, as average, needs daily an energy of
456,000 kilocalories – value mentioned in a study of
the Canadian University of British Columbia. For so
much kilocalories he consumes a ton of fish every day!
These are unusually large numbers, but on closer ex-
amination the blue whale is rather parsimonious with
energy: The 456,000 kilocalories divided to the whale
mass of 200 tons results in a ratio of 2.28 kilojoules per
kilogram.

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2022


C. Stan, Energy versus Carbon Dioxide,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-64162-0_3
3 Energy versus carbon dioxide in the nutrition of other living beings

In human bodies, 2000 kilojoules per 75 kilograms re-


sult in a ratio of 26.6 - so, practically, ten times higher
as in the case of a blue whale. Interesting is the fact
that the blue whale, with its heart, which weighs a ton,
has to get 7000 liters of blood going in the circulation.
In comparison, humans bring their 5 to 6 liters of blood
into the circulation with a frequency of the heart
(pulse) of 60 to 80 strokes per minute. The blue whale
usually has a pulse of only 2 beats per minute. Only
when a whale come out, the pulse rises up to 37 beats
per minute.
At the other extreme of the energy/body weight ratio,
there is a tomtit: it weighs on average only 20 grams
and needs as daily food 6 to 8 grams of grains, which
give an energy of 20-30 kilocalories. Is this value to
low? 20 kilocalories of energy per 20 grams of mass
result in a ratio of 1000 kilojoules per kilogram – com-
pared to 2.28 for blue whales and 26.6 for humans, this
energy hunger is sensational!
However, analyzing such ratios, it must be taken into
account as well, that the pulse of the tomtit is not 2
beats per minute (bpm) as in the body of a blue whale
and not 60 bpm, as in the bodies of humans, but 800
bpm!
The tomtit has to flutter in the air most of the time. The
whale, on the other hand, is kept almost all the time
due to Archimedes law in the water ("the buoyancy
force corresponds to the weight force of the displaced
liquid" – said the scholar). And the man? He slumbers
the most of the time in a chair, at his desk, in his car or
looking on TV. And for a third of the day he sleeps in
an horizontal bed.

23
Part I Energy and carbon dioxide

And what about the dog, the faithful escort of a man?


On average, a dog needs around 100 kilocalories per
kilogram of body mass per day. An exemplar of 10 kil-
ograms body weight needs 1000 kilocalories per day.
100 kilojoules per kilogram is only one tenth of the
mass-related energy consumption of a tomtit, on the
other hand, just as much as the needs of a competitive
athlete! Symptomatic is again the pulse, a dog achiev-
ing 80-120 beats per minute, which is only one tenth in
comparison with the pulse of a tomtit, but in the range
of that of an athlete!
Thesis 6: The energy supplied to humans or other
living beings in the form of food contains carbon at-
oms. Due to the combustion-like chemical reactions
in the cells of living beings, the carbon from food
reacts with oxygen from the air, forming, beside
other substances, also carbon dioxide.
The breathing air of every living being, which is ob-
tained from the environment, contains, as already
shown, in addition to oxygen and nitrogen also 0.038%
Vol. carbon dioxide.
After the reactions of food and air in the cells of hu-
mans a concentration of 4.03% Vol. carbon dioxide is
detected in the exhaled air.
Assuming that the processes in the cells of most living
beings are similar to those in the human body, the fol-
lowing thesis can be made:

24
3 Energy versus carbon dioxide in the nutrition of other living beings

Thesis 7: The air exhaled by humans and other liv-


ing beings on earth results in a hundredfold in-
crease in the volume of carbon dioxide concentra-
tion compared to the air inhaled, as a result of the
reactions of the nutrients with the atmospheric ox-
ygen in the body's cells. The absolute value (in kilo-
grams) of the exhaled carbon dioxide depends on
the lung capacity and the pulse rate of the respec-
tive being.
The discussions about carbon dioxide emissions from
humans and animals are not new, but they are con-
stantly being sparked in disputes about the climate
change:
"It is not the industry of the people, but the people
themselves who are responsible for climate change,
because the 7.8 billion people and the other living be-
ings exhale much more carbon dioxide than they in-
hale. And it is accumulating more and more in the at-
mosphere, which is accelerating the increase in the
greenhouse effect." (Speech of a Politician in the Ger-
man Bundestag, 2020, free citation).
Such a claim is based on a false logic: the living beings
exhale 100 times more carbon dioxide than they inhale,
but the coal in this dioxide comes from its food. And
the living beings feed on plants that contain carbon in
their molecules, bound in different structures. And if
he does not eat beet and potato, but meat from beef and
pork, then these animals first eat plant products.
In any case, it is crucial that the plants, for their own
food, bind carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This
closes the cycle of carbon dioxide in nature.

25
4
Energy from carbon dioxide for the nutrition
of plants and trees

Within the photosynthetic plant feeding cycle, carbon


dioxide and water are absorbed from the environment
and converted into glucose, as food, by means of en-
ergy from solar radiation. The basic chemical reaction
is:
Carbon dioxide + water = glucose + oxygen
𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡
6𝐶𝑂2 + 6𝐻2 𝑂 → 𝐶6 𝐻12 𝑂6 + 6𝑂2

However, photosynthesis takes place as a complex


concatenation of intermediate reactions, whereby there
are two main stages [2]:
- In the “light” response phase, the chlorophyll in
the plant is activated by light absorption, in
which adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and a form
of triphosphopyridine nucleotides (TPN) are
formed, splitting water to release the hydrogen
required for the process.

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2022


C. Stan, Energy versus Carbon Dioxide,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-64162-0_4
4 Energy from carbon dioxide for the nutrition of plants and trees

- In the "dark" reaction phase, the ATP and TPN


components provide the energy for the absorp-
tion of carbon dioxide. This results in carbohy-
drates or in different sugar forms, for the nutri-
tion of the plant.
On average, a beech or chestnut absorbs twice as much
CO2 as a spruce, so each of them stores twice as much
carbon. On the product side of the chemical reaction,
an old, healthy and large tree from one of these two
species generates so much oxygen a day that 10 people
can be supplied with breathing air!
While humans need the energy for heating their body
and for the function of the brain, liver, muscles, heart,
kidneys and intestines, a tree only needs to secure the
transport of water from the roots to the crown and the
flow of information to and from its environment.
The tree seems to have distributed its brain throughout
all his body. He communicates also with his neighbors.
A mimosa immediately notices an intruder, which is
clearly signaled by the movement of the leaves. A hu-
man carries his brain, as a concentrated mass, at the top
of his body. The head as a brain carrier acts like a dis-
play case of honor, it is perfumed, coiffed, powdered,
shaved.
With regard to the heat exchange of a plant with the
environment, at different temperatures of both systems
and to the work for heat transport, a large, robust tree
can be taken once again as an example:
Heat: A heat radiation or a convection from the tree
trunk to the environment, which would result in a heat
release, as in humans, are not detectable in a tree. The
tree does not have to constantly protect temperatures
27
Part I Energy and carbon dioxide

around 37°C in its trunk against lower temperatures in


the environment by dissipating heat. However, the tree
protects its living tissue against large temperature fluc-
tuations in the environment by thermal insulation. The
bark is like a coat: The numerous air bubbles in the
wood of the bark look like in the porous insulation ma-
terials for walls insulation in houses, storage tanks or
pipes that are built by humans. Air has a thermal con-
ductivity that is about five times lower than that of
wood, if it cannot circulate – hence the bubbles appear
as microscopic islands without contact with each other.
In addition, tree species that have to survive cold win-
ters have a kind of antifreeze, formed from sugar com-
pounds and proteins in the cell fluid. An antifreeze of
this type has such a deep freezing point that no destruc-
tive ice crystals can form in the wood.
Work: Many experts suppose that the water transport
in the trees is caused by suction stresses, i.e. by under-
pressure in the conductive tissues, as a result of evap-
oration on the stomata of the leaves (gap openings of
the epidermis, which serve for the internal and external
gas exchange of a leaf or a plant). The transpiration
suction required for this is possible because the water
molecules can withstand strong tensile stresses in the
woody conductive tissue by cohesion (inner connec-
tion of the water molecules). The pressure difference
for water transport within a 100 meters high sequoia
(Sequoia sempervirens) is not less than 20 bar! The
suck of the leaves in the tree crown, which can pull the
water flow upwards with such a pressure, is provoked
by the evaporation caused by the environment, and not

28
4 Energy from carbon dioxide for the nutrition of plants and trees

by the tree's own energy, based on its food. Why? Be-


cause the tree has no heart to nourish, which it could
pump!
Critics of this theory claim that even at lower tree
heights, the continuous water threads in the capillaries
could tear off, causing cavitation and the suture effect
can no longer work.
However, it has been proven that glucose is mobilized
in the storage cells in the spring and flows water from
the roots through the built-up osmotic pressure. The
tree absorbs the nutrient salts dissolved in the soil wa-
ter (mainly potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron).
The metabolism created in the crown requires energy.
The assimilated organic and non-organic substances,
based on the glucose and the nutrient salts, are then
transported down the stem via the bast and get the
thickness growth going.
A tall tree was in this case an extreme example of such
processes, which are similar in every other plant.
There is a certain similarity between the osmotic flow
system in plants and the lymphatic system in human
organism, which also has no pump. The heart in the
bloodstream of the human body, on the other hand, is
a pump that requires mechanical work.

29
Part I Energy and carbon dioxide

Thesis 8: Beings of the fauna need energy from


food for their own growth, for the heat exchange
with the environment in order to maintain their
own temperature, for the function of the internal
organs and for forces to the outside, during various
movements.
Beings of the flora need energy from food mainly
for their own growth.

30
5
Flora and fauna have inversed carbon dioxide
cycles

Humans cannot feed directly on the energy of solar ra-


diation, nor can animals. The whole fauna first needs
mass, mass of nutrients containing carbon atoms and
mass of air containing oxygen atoms. Through com-
bustion-like chemical processes, the potential energy
of the food components is converted into heat and/or
work in the body and outwards. The ingested mass thus
ignites energy (heat and work) in the body.
The plants – trees, shrubs, flowers, crops – feed di-
rectly on the energy of solar radiation. The whole flora
first needs energy, energy from the sun, and then from
carbon dioxide and water from the atmosphere to form
its food, as glucose, i.e. as mass. This food is the basis
for the cell processes that generate energy in the tree or
in the shrub.
The carbon dioxide cycle in the fauna:
Carbonaceous molecules (hydrocarbons C mHn, glu-
cose C6H12O6, alcohols such as ethanol C2H5-OH) re-
act with oxygen O2 from the air environment forming
molecules of carbon dioxide CO2 and molecules of wa-
ter H20.

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2022


C. Stan, Energy versus Carbon Dioxide,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-64162-0_5
Part I Energy and carbon dioxide

The carbon dioxide cycle in the flora:


Carbon dioxide molecules CO2 from the environment
react with water molecules H2O from the environment
to molecules of glucose C6H12O6 and molecules of ox-
ygen O2.
Thesis 9: The initial and the final products of the
reactions in flora and fauna appear to be exchanged
directly with each other. The inversed cycles in
flora and fauna maintain the balance of the earth's
climate on a natural greenhouse effect. Flora and
fauna feed each other: carbon dioxide from the
fauna for the flora, hydrocarbons from the flora for
the fauna.
The natural balance of carbon dioxide in the Earth's at-
mosphere would thus be given if the human did not de-
mand more energy than just for the preservation of his
being. However, he still consumes a lot of energy in
the form of work for the machines that do something
for him, for the house, clothing, means of mobility, and
even more energy in the form of heat for the stoves that
do something for him: cooking steel, cooking food,
keeping his house warm. As a result, in the atmosphere
accumulates more carbon dioxide than is given in the
natural balance.
Around 750 billion tons of carbon dioxide are emitted
into the atmosphere annually from the earth's land sur-
faces and from the seas and oceans. In the other direc-
tion are absorbed a little more carbon dioxide than the
mentioned amount: In the period 2000-2009, around
436 billion tons were emitted from land and vegeta-
tion, and they again absorbed 451 billion tons as a re-
sult of photosynthesis. The oceans shed 288 billion

32
5 Flora and fauna have inversed carbon dioxide cycles

tons (respiration of marine animals, decay of aquatic


animals and plants), and recovered 294 billion tons. In
addition, the industry blew off 36.6 billion tons (2018)
by burning fossil fuels, without taking anything back
itself [3]. The exchange process is very dynamic, in
some regions of the world carbon dioxide is absorbed
by the environment, in others it is released.
The oceans, as can be deducted from the above bal-
ance, absorbe much of the additional atmospheric load.
Nevertheless, half of the carbon dioxide emissions pro-
duced by humans outside their bodies remain in the at-
mosphere!
Furthermore, the increase in carbon dioxide concentra-
tion leads to acidification of seawater!
Vegetation on Earth also absorbs a significant propor-
tion of the additional carbon dioxide emissions caused
by humans. The best proof of this is the fact that our
planet has been getting greener and greener since 1980,
as satellite images show: the increase in vegetation is
2.3% per decade.
The Journal “Nature Sustainability” published recently
a paper showing that this behavior is caused by the in-
crease in carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere:
as long as the water, solar radiation and minerals are
sufficiently available upon and in the earth, the in-
crease in photosynthesis processes can be explained
with an increase in the carbon dioxide content in the
air. But there was also another cause of the increase in
vegetation: China and India, the countries with the
most inhabitants in the world, have planted so many
plants and trees since 2000 that they have caused a
third of this increase in vegetation.
33
Part I Energy and carbon dioxide

Regardless of these human interventions, the relation-


ship between the increase in carbon dioxide emissions
in the atmosphere and the increase in vegetation on
Earth appears as very clear: Scientists at Boston Uni-
versity recently evaluated corresponding data that were
recorded daily with the NASA Spectroradiometer,
across all regions of the world between the years 2000
and 2017.
Despite the fact that the increase in vegetation on Earth
as a result of the increased carbon dioxide content in
the atmosphere has been clearly demonstrated by such
studies, a differentiation is highly recommended: plant
is not the same as plant, tree is not equal to tree! Maize
and millet cannot process such an increase in carbon
dioxide, they do not grow faster as a result. On the con-
trary, soya and wheat grow faster, but the wheat con-
tains less protein. In tropical forests the lianas grow,
caused by the increase in carbon dioxide content in the
atmosphere, much faster than other plants. Conse-
quently, they displace the rest of the vegetation, espe-
cially the trees, which constitute large carbon dioxide
stores.
On average, a tree absorbs 10 kilograms of carbon di-
oxide per year, in the tropics this uptake is many times
higher. Ten kilograms compared to the gigatonnes
mentioned, that doesn't seem to be much. But we have
3,000 billion trees on Earth, as scientists at the Yale
University counted in 2015. But people have already
cut down 46% of the trees by that time, and they con-
tinue to do it cheerfully – 15 billion trees per year!
With 1,000 billion newly planted trees, however, we
would be able to buffer a quarter of the CO2 emissions.

34
5 Flora and fauna have inversed carbon dioxide cycles

However, the consideration of big trees as the largest


carbon dioxide absorber is somewhat narrow-minded:
when a tree dies or burns, which so often happens in
Brazil or Canada, it gives up everything it has stored.
In contrast, fast-growing plants, such as the aforemen-
tioned lianas, or sugar cane, appear to be very efficient
in an extended cycle: from such plants, methanol and
ethanol can be produced efficiently and inexpensively,
and thus generate energy in the form of heat or work
by combustion. The carbon dioxide emitted is then ab-
sorbed in a short time by the next growing plant of the
same species.
Thesis 10: In order to reduce the carbon dioxide
content in the Earth's atmosphere that is growing
through combustion processes, the Earth needs
many new, slow-growing trees as well as many new,
fast-growing plants!

35
6
Carbon dioxide, the greenhouse effect and the
warming of the Earth's atmosphere

Some 700,000 years before Christ, Homo erectus un-


derstood how to ignite a fire himself. Previously he uti-
lized only flames caused by lightning strikes in trees
and grasses. The fire initially gave Homo erectus light,
warmth and protection against wild animals. These
were first comfort elements, which he then never re-
nounced again.
About 600,000 years later, he also learned how to cook
the meat, so after the comfort the indispensable treat
for men´s palate was created as well. The human
burned for that wood, later oil or grease, that is to say
everything that could be recycled in terms of carbon
dioxide. Charred wood belonged to the same category.
The mining of lignite and hard coal, as fossil fuels that
cause carbon dioxide emissions but do not recycle any
in less than millions of years, began much later, ac-
cording to several historians, in the XII century AD.
After millennia of using the combustion of coal and
hydrocarbons for the generation of heat another form
of energy transformation has been discovered, a form
that changed our world: the work!

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2022


C. Stan, Energy versus Carbon Dioxide,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-64162-0_6
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Shetland dance, so far as the names go, is far more literary
and less of a folk affair than any of the English examples. The
grotesques are absent altogether, and the dancers belong wholly to
that heroic category which is also represented in a degenerate form
at Houghton-le-Spring. They are in fact those ‘seven champions of
Christendom’—St. George of England, St. James of Spain, St.
Denys of France, St. David of Wales, St. Patrick of Ireland, St.
Anthony of Italy, and St. Andrew of Scotland—whose legends were
first brought together under that designation by Richard Johnson in
1596[680].
Precisely the same divergence between a popular and a literary
or heroic type of nomenclature presents itself in such of the German
sword-dance rhymes as are in print. Three very similar versions from
Styria, Hungary, and Bohemia are traceable to a common ‘Austro-
Bavarian’ archetype[681]. The names of these, so far as they are
intelligible at all, appear to be due to the village imagination, working
perhaps in one or two instances, such as ‘Grünwald’ or ‘Wilder
Waldmann,’ upon stock figures of the folk festivals[682]. It is the
heroic element, however, which predominates in the two other sets
of verses which are available. One is from the Clausthal in the Harz
mountains, and here the dancers represent the five kings of
England, Saxony, Poland, Denmark, and Moorland, together with a
serving-man, Hans, and one Schnortison, who acts as leader and
treasurer of the party[683]. In the other, from Lübeck, the dancers are
the ‘worthies’ Kaiser Karl, Josua, Hector, David, Alexander, and
Judas Maccabaeus. They fight with one Sterkader, in whom
Müllenhoff finds the Danish hero Stercatherus mentioned by Saxo
Grammaticus; and to the Hans of the Clausthal corresponds a Klas
Rugebart, who seems to be the red-bearded St. Nicholas[684].
In view of the wide range of the sword-dance in Germany, I do
not think it is necessary to attach any importance to the theories
advanced by Sir Walter Scott and others that it is, in England and
Scotland, of Scandinavian origin. It is true that it appears to be found
mainly in those parts of these islands where the influence of Danes
and Northmen may be conjectured to have been strongest. But I
believe that this is a matter of appearance merely, and that a type of
folk-dance far more widely spread in the south of England than the
sword-dance proper, is really identical with it. This is the morris-
dance, the chief characteristic of which is that the performers wear
bells which jingle at every step. Judging by the evidence of account-
books, as well as by the allusions of contemporary writers, the morris
was remarkably popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries[685]. Frequently, but by no means always, it is mentioned in
company with the May-game[686]. In a certain painted window at
Betley in Staffordshire are represented six morris-dancers, together
with a May-pole, a musician, a fool, a crowned man on a hobby-
horse, a crowned lady with a pink in her hand, and a friar. The last
three may reasonably be regarded as Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and
Friar Tuck[687]. The closeness of the relation between the morris-
dance and the May-game is, however, often exaggerated. The
Betley figures only accompany the morris-dance; they do not
themselves wear the bells. And besides the window, the only trace of
evidence that any member of the Robin Hood cortège, with the
exception of Maid Marian, was essential to the morris-dance, is a
passage in a masque of Ben Jonson’s, which so seems to regard the
friar[688]. The fact is that the morris-dance was a great deal older, as
an element in the May-game, than Robin Hood, and that when Robin
Hood’s name was forgotten in this connexion, the morris-dance
continued to be in vogue, not at May-games only, but at every form
of rustic merry-making. On the other hand, it is true that the actual
dancers were generally accompanied by grotesque personages, and
that one of these was a woman, or a man dressed in woman’s
clothes, to whom literary writers at least continued to give the name
of Maid Marian. The others have nothing whatever to do with Robin
Hood. They were a clown or fool, and a hobby-horse, who, if the
evidence of an Elizabethan song can be trusted, was already
beginning to go out of fashion[689]. A rarer feature was a dragon, and
it is possible that, when there was a dragon, the rider of the hobby-
horse was supposed to personate St. George[690]. The morris-dance
is by no means extinct, especially in the north and midlands.
Accounts of it are available from Lancashire and Cheshire[691],
Derbyshire[692], Shropshire[693], Leicestershire[694], and
Oxfordshire [695]; and there are many other counties in which it
makes, or has recently made, an appearance[696]. The hobby-horse,
it would seem, is now at last, except in Derbyshire, finally ‘forgot’; but
the two other traditional grotesques are still de rigueur. Few morris-
dances are complete without the ‘fool’ or clown, amongst whose
various names that of ‘squire’ in Oxfordshire and that of ‘dirty Bet’ in
Lancashire are the most interesting. The woman is less invariable.
Her Tudor name of Maid Marian is preserved in Leicestershire alone;
elsewhere she appears as a shepherdess, or Eve, or ‘the fool’s wife’;
and sometimes she is merged with the ‘fool’ into a single nondescript
personage.
The morris-dance is by no means confined to England. There are
records of it from Scotland[697], Germany[698], Flanders[699],
Switzerland[700], Italy[701], Spain[702], and France[703]. In the last-
named country Tabourot described it about 1588 under the name of
morisque[704], and the earlier English writers call it the morisce,
morisk, or morisco[705]. This seems to imply a derivation of the name
at least from the Spanish morisco, a Moor. The dance itself has
consequently been held to be of Moorish origin, and the habit of
blackening the face has been considered as a proof of this[706].
Such a theory seems to invert the order of facts. The dance is too
closely bound up with English village custom to be lightly regarded
as a foreign importation; and I would suggest that the faces were not
blackened, because the dancers represented Moors, but rather the
dancers were thought to represent Moors, because their faces were
blackened. The blackened face is common enough in the village
festival. Hence, as we have seen, May-day became proper to the
chimney-sweeps, and we have found a conjectural reason for the
disguise in the primitive custom of smearing the face with the
beneficent ashes of the festival fire[707]. Blackened faces are known
in the sword-dance as well as in the morris-dance[708]; and there are
other reasons which make it probable that the two are only variants
of the same performance. Tabourot, it is true, distinguishes les
bouffons, or the sword-dance, and le morisque; but then Tabourot is
dealing with the sophisticated versions of the folk-dances used in
society, and Cotgrave, translating les buffons, can find no better
English term than morris for the purpose[709]. The two dances
appear at the same festivals, and they have the same grotesques;
for the Tommy and Bessy of the English sword-dance, who
occasionally merge in one, are obviously identical with the Maid
Marian and the ‘fool’ of the morris-dance, who also nowadays
similarly coalesce. There are traces, too, of an association of the
hobby-horse with the sword-dance, as well as with the morris-
dance[710]. Most conclusive of all, however, is the fact that in
Oxfordshire and in Shropshire the morris-dancers still use swords or
wooden staves which obviously represent swords, and that the
performers of the elaborate Revesby sword-dance or play, to be
hereafter described, are called in the eighteenth-century manuscript
‘morrice dancers[711].’ I do not think that the floating handkerchiefs of
the morris-dance are found in its congener, nor do I know what, if
any, significance they have. Probably, like the ribbons, they merely
represent rustic notions of ornament. Müllenhoff lays stress on the
white shirts or smocks which he finds almost universal in the sword-
dance[712]. The morris-dancers are often described as dressed in
white; but here too, if the ordinary work-a-day costume is a smock,
the festal costume is naturally a clean white smock. Finally, there are
the bells. These, though they have partially disappeared in the north,
seem to be proper to the morris-dance, and to differentiate it from
the sword-dance[713]. But this is only so when the English examples
are alone taken into consideration, for Müllenhoff quotes one
Spanish and three German descriptions of sword-dances in which
the bells are a feature[714]. Tabourot affords similar evidence for the
French version[715]; while Olaus Magnus supplements his account of
the Scandinavian sword-dance with one of a similar performance, in
which the swords were replaced by bows, and bells were added[716].
The object of the bells was probably to increase or preserve the
musical effect of the clashing swords. The performers known to
Tacitus were nudi, and no bells are mentioned. One other point with
regard to the morris-dance is worth noticing before we leave the
subject. It is capable of use both as a stationary and a processional
dance, and therefore illustrates both of the two types of dancing
motion naturally evolved from the circumstances of the village
festival[717].
Müllenhoff regards the sword-dance as primarily a rhythmic
Abbild or mimic representation of war, subsequently modified in
character by use at the village feasts[718]. It is true that the notice of
Tacitus and the allusion in Beowulf suggest that it had a military
character; and it may fairly be inferred that it formed part of that war-
cult from which, as pointed out in a previous chapter, heroic poetry
sprang. This is confirmed by the fact that some at least of the
dramatis personae of the modern dances belong to the heroic
category. Side by side with local types such as the Pitman or the
Sailor, and with doublets of the grotesques such as Little Foxey or
the Squire’s Son[719], appear the five kings of the Clausthal dance,
the ‘worthies’ of the Lübeck dance, and the ‘champions of
Christendom’ of the Shetland dance. These particular groups betray
a Renaissance rather than a mediaeval imagination; as with the
morris-dance of The Two Noble Kinsmen, the village schoolmaster,
Holophernes or another, has probably been at work upon them[720].
Some of the heterogeneous English dramatis personae, Nelson for
instance, testify to a still later origin. On the other hand, the
Sterkader or Stercatherus of the Lübeck dance suggests that
genuine national heroes were occasionally celebrated in this fashion.
At the same time I do not believe, with Müllenhoff, that the sword-
dance originated in the war-cult. Its essentially agricultural character
seems to be shown by the grotesques traditionally associated with it,
the man in woman’s clothes, the skin or tail-wearing clown and the
hobby-horse, all of which seem to find their natural explanation in the
facts of agricultural worship[721]. Again, the dance makes its
appearance, not like heroic poetry in general as part of the minstrel
repertory, but as a purely popular thing at the agricultural festivals.
To these festivals, therefore, we may reasonably suppose it to have
originally belonged, and to have been borrowed from them by the
young warriors who danced before the king. They, however, perhaps
gave it the heroic element which, in its turn, drifted into the popular
versions. We have already seen that popular heroic cantilenae
existed together with those of minstrelsy up to a late date. Nor does
Müllenhoff’s view find much support from the classical sword-dances
which he adduces. As to the origin of the lusus Troiae or Pyrrhic
dance which the Romans adopted from Doric Greece, I can say
nothing[722]; but the native Italian dance of the Salii or priests of
Mars in March and October is clearly agricultural. It belongs to the
cult of Mars, not as war-god, but in his more primitive quality of a
fertilization spirit[723].
Further, I believe that the use of swords in the dance was not
martial at all; their object was to suggest not a fight, but a mock or
symbolical sacrifice. Several of the dances include figures in which
the swords are brought together in a significant manner about the
person of one or more of the dancers. Thus in the Scandinavian
dance described by Olaus Magnus, a quadrata rosa of swords is
placed on the head of each performer. A precisely similar figure
occurs in the Shetland and in a variety of the Yorkshire dances[724].
In the Siebenbürgen dances there are two figures in which the
performers pretend to cut at each other’s heads or feet, and a third
in which one of them has the swords put in a ring round his
neck[725]. This latter evolution occurs also in a variety of the
Yorkshire dance[726] and in a Spanish one described by Müllenhoff
after a seventeenth-century writer. And here the figure has the
significant name of la degollada, ‘the beheading[727].’
CHAPTER X
THE MUMMERS’ PLAY

[Bibliographical Note.—The subject is treated by T. F.


Ordish, English Folk-Drama in Folk-Lore, ii. 326, iv. 162.
The Folk-Lore Society has in preparation a volume on
Folk-Drama to be edited by Mr. Ordish (F. L. xiii. 296). The
following is a list of the twenty-nine printed versions upon
which the account of the St. George play in the present
chapter is based. The Lutterworth play is given in
Appendix K.
Northumberland.
1. Newcastle. Chap-book—W. Sandys, Christmastide,
292, from Alexander and the King of Egypt. A mock
Play, as it is acted by the Mummers every Christmas.
Newcastle, 1788. (Divided into Acts and Scenes.)
Cumberland.
2. Whitehaven. Chap-book—Hone, E. D. B. ii. 1646.
(Practically identical with (1).)
Lancashire.
3. Manchester. Chap-book—The Peace Egg, published by
J. Wrigley, 30, Miller Street, Manchester. (Brit. Mus.
1077, g/27 (37): Acts and Scenes: a coloured cut of
each character.)
Shropshire.
4. Newport. Oral. Jackson and Burne, 484. (Called the
Guisers’ (gheez-u´rz) play.)
Staffordshire.
5. Eccleshall. Oral. F. L. J. iv. 350. (Guisers’ play:
practically identical with (4). I have not seen a version
from Stone in W. W. Bladen, Notes on the Folk-lore of
North Staffs.: cf. F. L. xiii. 107.)
Leicestershire.
6. Lutterworth. Oral. Kelly, 53; Manly, i. 292; Leicester F. L.
130.
Worcestershire.
7. Leigh. Oral. 2 N. Q. xi. 271.
Warwickshire.
8. Newbold. Oral. F. L. x. 186 (with variants from a similar
Rugby version).
Oxfordshire.
9. Islip. Oral. Ditchfield, 316.
10. Bampton. Oral. Ditchfield, 320.
11. Thame. Oral. 5 N. Q. ii. 503; Manly, i. 289.
12. Uncertain. Oral. 6 N. Q. xii. 489; Ashton, 128.
Berkshire.
13. Uncertain. Oral. Ditchfield, 310.
Middlesex.
14. Chiswick. Oral. 2 N. Q. x. 466.
Sussex.
15. Selmeston. Oral. Parish, Dict. of Sussex Dialect (2nd
ed. 1875), 136.
16. Hollington. Oral. 5 N. Q. x. 489.
17. Steyning. Oral. F. L. J. ii. 1. (The ‘Tipteerers’’ play.)
Hampshire.
18. St. Mary Bourne. Oral. Stevens, Hist. of St. Mary
Bourne, 340.
19. Uncertain. Oral. 2 N. Q. xii. 492.
Dorsetshire.
20. (A) Uncertain. Oral. F. L. R. iii. 92; Ashton, 129.
21. (B) Uncertain. Oral. F. L. R. iii. 102.
Cornwall.
22. Uncertain. Oral. Sandys, Christmastide, 298. (Slightly
different version in Sandys, Christmas Carols, 174; Du
Méril, La Com. 428.)
Wales.
23. Tenby. Oral. Chambers, Book of Days, ii. 740, from
Tales and Traditions of Tenby.
Ireland.
24. Belfast. Chap-book. 4 N. Q. x. 487. (‘The Christmas
Rhymes.’)
25. Ballybrennan, Wexford. Oral. Kennedy, The Banks of
the Boro, 226.
Uncertain Locality.
26. Sharpe’s London Magazine, i. 154. Oral.
27. Archaeologist, i. 176. Chap-book. H. Sleight, A
Christmas Pageant Play or Mysterie of St. George,
Alexander and the King of Egypt. (Said to be ‘compiled
from and collated with several curious ancient black-
letter editions.’ I have never seen or heard of a ‘black-
letter’ edition, and I take it the improbable title is Mr.
Sleight’s own.)
28. Halliwell. Oral. Popular Rhymes, 231. (Said to be the
best of six versions.)
29. F. L. J. iv. 97. (Fragment, from ‘old MS.’)]
The degollada figures of certain sword-dances preserve with
some clearness the memory of an actual sacrifice, abolished and
replaced by a mere symbolic dumb show. Even in these, and still
more in the other dances, the symbolism is very slight. It is
completely subordinated to the rhythmic evolutions of a choric figure.
There is an advance, however, in the direction of drama, when in the
course of the performance some one is represented as actually
slain. In a few dances of the type discussed in the last chapter, such
a dramatic episode precedes or follows the regular figures. It is
recorded in three or four of the German examples[728]. A writer in the
Gentleman’s Magazine describes a Yorkshire dance in which ‘the
Bessy interferes while they are making a hexagon with their swords,
and is killed.’ Amongst the characters of this dance is a Doctor, and
although the writer does not say so, it may be inferred that the
function of the Doctor is to bring the Bessy to life again[729]. It will be
remembered that a precisely similar device is used in the German
Shrove Tuesday plays to symbolize the resurrection of the year in
spring after its death in winter. The Doctor reappears in one of the
Durham dances, and here there is no doubt as to the part he plays.
At a certain point the careful formations of the dance degenerate into
a fight. The parish clergyman rushes in to separate the combatants.
He is accidentally slain. There is general lamentation, but the Doctor
comes forward, and revives the victim, and the dance proceeds[730].
It is but a step from such dramatic episodes to the more
elaborate performances which remain to be considered in the
present chapter, and which are properly to be called plays rather
than dances. They belong to a stage in the evolution of drama from
dance, in which the dance has been driven into the background and
has sometimes disappeared altogether. But they have the same
characters, and especially the same grotesques, as the dances, and
the general continuity of the two sets of performances cannot be
doubted. Moreover, though the plays differ in many respects, they
have a common incident, which may reasonably be taken to be the
central incident, in the death and revival, generally by a Doctor, of
one of the characters. And in virtue of this central incident one is
justified in classing them as forms of a folk-drama in which the
resurrection of the year is symbolized.
I take first, on account of the large amount of dancing which
remains in it, the play acted at the end of the eighteenth century by
‘The Plow Boys or Morris Dancers’ of Revesby in Lincolnshire[731].
There are seven dancers: six men, the Fool and his five sons, Pickle
Herring, Blue Breeches, Pepper Breeches, Ginger Breeches, and
Mr. Allspice[732]; and one woman, Cicely. The somewhat incoherent
incidents are as follows. The Fool acts as presenter and introduces
the play. He fights successively a Hobby-horse and a ‘Wild Worm’ or
dragon. The dancers ‘lock their swords to make the glass,’ which,
after some jesting, is broken up again. The sons determine to kill the
Fool. He kneels down and makes his will, with the swords round his
neck[733]; is slain and revived by Pickle Herring stamping with his
foot. This is repeated with variations. Hitherto, the dancers have
‘footed it’ round the room at intervals. Now follow a series of sword-
dances. During and after these the Fool and his sons in turn woo
Cicely, the Fool taking the name of ‘Anthony[734],’ Pickle Herring that
of ‘the Lord of Pool,’ and Blue Breeches that of ‘the Knight of Lee.’
There is nothing particularly interesting about this part of the play,
obviously written to ‘work in’ the woman grotesque. In the course of it
a morris-dance is introduced, and a final sword-dance, with an
obeisance to the master of the house, winds up the whole.
Secondly, there are the Plough Monday plays of the east
Midlands[735]. These appear in Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire
and Lincolnshire. Two printed versions are available. The first comes
from Cropwell in Nottinghamshire[736]. The actors are ‘the plough-
bullocks.’ The male characters are Tom the Fool, a Recruiting
Sergeant, and a Ribboner or Recruit, three farm-servants, Threshing
Blade, Hopper Joe[737], and the Ploughman, a Doctor, and
Beelzebub[738]. There are two women, a young Lady and old Dame
Jane. Tom Fool is presenter. The Ribboner, rejected by the young
Lady, enlists as a recruit. The Lady is consoled by Tom Fool. Then
enter successively the three farm-servants, each describing his
function on the farm. Dame Jane tries to father a child on Tom Fool.
Beelzebub knocks her down[739], and kills her. The Doctor comes in,
and after some comic business about his travels, his qualifications
and his remedies[740], declares Dame Jane to be only in a trance,
and raises her up. A country dance and songs follow, and the
performance ends with a quête. The second version, from
Lincolnshire, is very similar[741]. But there are no farm-servants, and
instead of Beelzebub is a personage called ‘old Esem Esquesem,’
who carries a broom. It is he, not an old woman, who is killed and
brought to life. There are several dancers, besides the performers;
and these include ‘Bessy,’ a man dressed as a woman, with a cow’s
tail.
The distinction between a popular and a literary or heroic type of
personification which was noticeable in the sword-dances persists in
the folk-plays founded upon them. Both in the Revesby play and in
the Plough Monday plays, the drama is carried on by personages
resembling the ‘grotesques’ of the sword-and morris-dances[742].
There are no heroic characters. The death is of the nature of an
accident or an execution. On the other hand, in the ‘mummers’ play’
of St. George, the heroes take once more the leading part, and the
death, or at least one of the deaths, is caused by a fight amongst
them. This play is far more widely spread than its rivals. It is found in
all parts of England, in Wales, and in Ireland; in Scotland it occurs
also, but here some other hero is generally substituted as
protagonist for St. George[743]. The following account is based on
the twenty-nine versions, drawn from chap-books or from oral
tradition, enumerated in the bibliographical note. The list might,
doubtless, be almost indefinitely extended. As will soon be seen, the
local variations of the play are numerous. In order to make them
intelligible, I have given in full in an appendix a version from
Lutterworth in Leicestershire. This is chosen, not as a particularly
interesting variant, for that it is not, but on the contrary as being
comparatively colourless. It shows very clearly and briefly the normal
structure of the play, and may be regarded as the type from which
the other versions diverge[744].
The whole performance may be divided, for convenience of
analysis, into three parts, the Presentation, the Drama, the Quête. In
the first somebody speaks a prologue, claiming a welcome from the
spectators[745], and then the leading characters are in turn
introduced. The second consists of a fight followed by the
intervention of a doctor to revive the slain. In the third some
supernumerary characters enter, and there is a collection. It is the
dramatic nucleus that first requires consideration. The leading fighter
is generally St. George, who alone appears in all the versions.
Instead of ‘St. George,’ he is sometimes called ‘Sir George,’ and
more often ‘Prince George’ or ‘King George,’ modifications which
one may reasonably suppose to be no older than the present
Hanoverian dynasty. At Whitehaven and at Falkirk he is ‘Prince
George of Ville.’ George’s chief opponent is usually one of two
personages, who are not absolutely distinct from each other[746].
One is the ‘Turkish Knight,’ of whom a variant appears to be the
‘Prince of Paradine’ (Manchester), or ‘Paradise’ (Newport,
Eccleshall), perhaps originally ‘Palestine.’ He is sometimes
represented with a blackened face[747]. The other is variously called
‘Slasher,’ ‘Captain Slasher,’ ‘Bold Slasher,’ or, by an obvious
corruption, ‘Beau Slasher.’ Rarer names for him are ‘Bold
Slaughterer’ (Bampton), ‘Captain Bluster’ (Dorset [A]), and ‘Swiff,
Swash, and Swagger’ (Chiswick). His names fairly express his
vaunting disposition, which, however, is largely shared by the other
characters in the play. In the place of, or as minor fighters by the side
of George, the Turkish Knight and Bold Slasher, there appear, in one
version or another, a bewildering variety of personages, of whom
only a rough classification can be attempted. Some belong to the
heroic cycles. Such are ‘Alexander’ (Newcastle, Whitehaven),
‘Hector’ (Manchester), ‘St. Guy’ (Newport), ‘St. Giles’ (Eccleshall)
[748], ‘St. Patrick’ (Dorset [A], Wexford), ‘King Alfred’ and ‘King Cole’
(Brill), ‘Giant Blunderbore’ (Brill), ‘Giant Turpin’ (Cornwall). Others
again are moderns who have caught the popular imagination: ‘Bold
Bonaparte’ (Leigh)[749], and ‘King of Prussia’ (Bampton, Oxford)[750],
‘King William’ (Brill), the ‘Duke of Cumberland’ (Oxford) and the
‘Duke of Northumberland’ (Islip), ‘Lord Nelson’ (Stoke Gabriel,
Devon)[751], ‘Wolfe’ and ‘Wellington’ (Cornwall)[752], even the ‘Prince
Imperial’ (Wilts)[753], all have been pressed into the service. In some
cases characters have lost their personal names, if they ever had
any, and figure merely as ‘Knight,’ ‘Soldier,’ ‘Valiant Soldier,’ ‘Noble
Captain,’ ‘Bold Prince,’ ‘Gracious King.’ Others bear names which
defy explanation, ‘Alonso’ (Chiswick), ‘Hy Gwyer’ (Hollington),
‘Marshalee’ and ‘Cutting Star’ (Dorset [B]). The significance of
‘General Valentine’ and ‘Colonel Spring’ (Dorset [A]) will be
considered presently; and ‘Room’ (Dorset [B]), ‘Little Jack,’ the
‘Bride’ and the ‘Fool’ (Brill), and the ‘King of Egypt’ (Newcastle,
Whitehaven) have strayed in amongst the fighters from the
presenters. The fighting generally takes the form of a duel, or a
succession of duels. In the latter case, George may fight all comers,
or he may intervene to subdue a previously successful champion.
But an important point is that he is not always victorious. On the
contrary, the versions in which he slays and those in which he is
slain are about equal in number. In two versions (Brill, Steyning) the
fighting is not a duel or a series of duels, but a mêlée. The Brill play,
in particular, is quite unlike the usual type. A prominent part is taken
by the Dragon, with whom fight, all at once, St. George and a
heterogeneous company made up of King Alfred and his Bride, King
Cole, King William, Giant Blunderbore, Little Jack and a morris-
dance Fool.
Whatever the nature of the fight, the result is always the same.
One or more of the champions falls, and then appears upon the
scene a Doctor, who brings the dead to life again. The Doctor is a
comic character. He enters, boasting his universal skill, and works
his cure by exhibiting a bolus, or by drawing out a tooth with a mighty
pair of pliers. At Newbold he is ‘Dr. Brown,’ at Islip ‘Dr. Good’ (also
called ‘Jack Spinney’), at Brill ‘Dr. Ball’; in Dorsetshire (A) he is an
Irishman, ‘Mr. Martin’ (perhaps originally ‘Martyr’) ‘Dennis.’ More
often he is nameless. Frequently the revival scene is duplicated;
either the Doctor is called in twice, or one cure is left to him, and
another is effected by some other performer, such as St. George
(Dorset [B]), ‘Father Christmas’ (Newbold, Steyning), or the Fool
(Bampton).
The central action of the play consists, then, in these two
episodes of the fight and the resurrection; and the protagonists, so to
speak, are the heroes—a ragged troop of heroes, certainly—and the
Doctor. But just as in the sword-dances, so in the plays, we find
introduced, besides the protagonists, a number of supernumerary
figures. The nature of these, and the part they take, must now be
considered. Some of them are by this time familiar. They are none
other than the grotesques that have haunted this discussion of the
village festivals from the very beginning, and that I have attempted to
trace to their origin in magical or sacrificial custom. There are the
woman, or lad dressed in woman’s clothes, the hobby-horse, the
fool, and the black-faced man. The woman and the hobby-horse are
unmistakable; the other two are a little more Protean in their modern
appearance. The ‘Fool’ is so called only at Manchester and at Brill,
where he brings his morris-dance with him. At Lutterworth he is the
‘Clown’; in Cornwall, ‘Old Squire’; at Newbold, ‘Big Head and Little
Wits.’ But I think that we may also recognize him in the very
commonly occurring figure ‘Beelzebub,’ also known in Cornwall as
‘Hub Bub’ and at Chiswick as ‘Lord Grubb.’ The key to this
identification is the fact that in several cases Beelzebub uses the
description ‘big head and little wit’ to announce himself on his arrival.
Occasionally, however, the personality of the Fool has been
duplicated. At Lutterworth Beelzebub and the Clown, at Newbold
Beelzebub and Big Head and Little Wits appear in the same
play[754]. The black-faced man has in some cases lost his black
face, but he keeps it at Bampton, where he is ‘Tom the Tinker,’ at
Rugby, where he is ‘Little Johnny Sweep,’ and in a Sussex version,
where he is also a sweep[755]. The analogy of the May-day chimney-
sweeps is an obvious one. A black face was a feature in the
mediaeval representation of devils, and the sweep of some plays is
probably in origin identical with the devil, black-faced or not, of
others. This is all the more so, as the devil, like the sweep, usually
carries a besom[756]. One would expect his name, and not the
Fool’s, to be Beelzebub. He is, however, ‘Little Devil Dout’ or ‘Doubt,’
‘Little Jack Doubt’ or ‘Jack Devil Doubt.’ At Leigh Little Devil Doubt
also calls himself ‘Jack,’
‘With my wife and family on my back’;

and perhaps we may therefore trace a further avatar of this same


personage in the ‘John’ or ‘Johnny Jack’ who at Salisbury gives a
name to the whole performance[757]. He is also ‘Little Jack’ (Brill, St.
Mary Bourne), ‘Fat Jack’ (Islip), ‘Happy Jack’ (Berkshire, Hollington),
‘Humpty Jack’ (Newbold). He generally makes the remark about his
wife and family. What he does carry upon his back is sometimes a
hump, sometimes a number of rag-dolls. I take it that the hump came
first, and that the dolls arose out of Jack’s jocular explanation of his
own deformity. But why the hump? Was it originally a bag of soot? Or
the saccus with which the German Knechte Ruperte wander in the
Twelve nights?[758] At Hollington and in a Hampshire version Jack
has been somewhat incongruously turned into a press-gang. In this
capacity he gets at Hollington the additional name of ‘Tommy Twing-
twang.’
Having got these grotesques, traditional accompaniments of the
play, to dispose of somehow, what do the playwrights do with them?
The simplest and most primitive method is just to bring them in, to
show them to the spectators when the fighting is over. Thus
Beelzebub, like the Fool at one point in the Revesby play, often
comes in with

‘Here come I; ain’t been yit,


Big head and little wit.’

‘Ain’t been yit!’ Could a more naïve explanation of the presence


of a ‘stock’ character on the stage be imagined? Similarly in Cornwall
the woman is worked in by making ‘Sabra,’ a persona muta, come
forward to join St. George[759]. In the play printed in Sharpe’s
London Magazine the ‘Hobby-horse’ is led in. Obviously personages
other than the traditional four can be introduced in the same way, at
the bidding of the rustic fancy. Thus at Bampton ‘Robin Hood’ and
‘Little John’ briefly appear, in both the Irish plays and at Tenby ‘Oliver
Cromwell,’ at Belfast ‘St. Patrick,’ at Steyning the ‘Prince of Peace.’
Secondly, the supernumeraries may be utilized, either as
presenters of the main characters or for the purposes of the quête at
the end. Thus at Leigh the performance is begun by Little Devil
Doubt, who enters with his broom and sweeps a ‘room’ or ‘hall’ for
the actors, just as in the sword-dances a preliminary circle is made
with a sword upon the ground[760]. In the Midlands this is the task of
the woman, called at Islip and in Berkshire ‘Molly,’ and at Bright-
Walton ‘Queen Mary[761].’ Elsewhere the business with the broom is
omitted; but there is nearly always a short prologue in which an
appeal is made to the spectators for ‘room.’ This prologue may be
spoken, as at Manchester by the Fool, or as at Lutterworth by one of
the fighters. The commonest presenter, however, is a personification
of the festal season at which the plays are usually performed, ‘Old
Father Christmas.’

‘Here comes I, Father Christmas, welcome or welcome not,


I hope Old Father Christmas will never be forgot.’

At St. Mary Bourne Christmas is accompanied by ‘Mince-Pie,’


and in both the Dorset versions, instead of calling for ‘room,’ he
introduces ‘Room’ as an actual personage. Similarly, at Newport and
Eccleshall, the prologue speaker receives the curious soubriquet of
‘Open-the-Door.’ After the prologue, the fighters are introduced. They
stand in a clump outside the circle, and in turns step forward and
strut round it[762]. Each is announced, by himself or by his
predecessor or by the presenter, with a set of rhymes closely parallel
to those used in the sword-dances. With the fighters generally
comes the ‘King of Egypt’ (occasionally corrupted into the ‘King of
England’), and the description of St. George often contains an
allusion to his fight with the dragon and the rescue of Sabra, the King
of Egypt’s daughter. In one or two of the northern versions
(Newcastle, Whitehaven) the King of Egypt is a fighter; generally he
stands by. In one of the Dorset versions (A) he is called ‘Anthony.’
Sabra appears only in Cornwall, and keeps silence. The Dragon
fights with St. George in Cornwall, and also, as we have seen, in the
curious Brill mêlée.
The performance, naturally, ends with a quête. This takes various
forms. Sometimes the presenter, or the whole body of actors, comes
forward, and wishes prosperity to the household. Beelzebub, with his
frying-pan or ladle, goes round to gather in the contributions. In the
version preserved in Sharpe’s London Magazine, this is the function
of a special personage, ‘Boxholder.’ In a considerable number of
cases, however, the quête is preceded by a singular action on the
part of Little Devil Dout. He enters with his broom, and threatens to
sweep the whole party out, or ‘into their graves,’ if money is not
given. In Shropshire and Staffordshire he sweeps up the hearth, and
the custom is probably connected with the superstition that it is
unlucky to remove fire or ashes from the house on Christmas Day.
‘Dout’ appears to be a corruption of ‘Do out[763].’
Another way of working in the grotesques and other
supernumeraries is to give them minor parts in the drama itself.
Father Christmas or the King of Egypt is utilized as a sort of chorus,
to cheer on the fighters, lament the vanquished, and summon the
Doctor. At Newbold the woman, called ‘Moll Finney,’ plays a similar
part, as mother of the Turkish Knight. At Stoke Gabriel, Devon, the
woman is the Doctor’s wife[764]. Finally, in three cases, a complete
subordinate dramatic episode is introduced for their sake. At Islip,
after the main drama is concluded, the presenter Molly suddenly
becomes King George’s wife ‘Susannah.’ She falls ill, and the
Doctor’s services are requisitioned to cure her. The Doctor rides in,
not on a hobby-horse, but on one of the disengaged characters who
plays the part of a horse. In Dorsetshire the secondary drama is
quite elaborate. In the ‘A’ version ‘Old Bet’ calls herself ‘Dame
Dorothy,’ and is the wife of Father Christmas, named, for the nonce,
‘Jan.’ They quarrel about a Jack hare, which he wants fried and she
wants roasted. He kills her, and at the happy moment the Doctor is
passing by, and brings her to life again. Version ‘B’ is very similar,
except that the performance closes by Old Bet bringing in the hobby-
horse for Father Christmas to mount.
I do not think that I need further labour the affiliation of the St.
George plays to the sword-dances. Placed in a series, as I have
placed them in these chapters, the two sets of performances show a
sufficiently obvious continuity. They are held together by the use of
the swords, by their common grotesques, and by the episode of the
Doctor, which connects them also with the German Shrovetide and
Whitsun folk-ceremonies. They are properly called folk-drama,
because they are derived, with the minimum of literary intervention,
from the dramatic tendencies latent in folk-festivals of a very
primitive type. They are the outcome of the instinct of play,
manipulating for its own purposes the mock sacrifice and other
débris of extinct ritual. Their central incident symbolizes the
renouveau, the annual death of the year or the fertilization spirit and
its annual resurrection in spring[765]. To this have become attached
some of those heroic cantilenae which, as the early mediaeval
chroniclers tell us, existed in the mouths of the chori iuvenum side by
side with the cantilenae of the minstrels. The symbolism of the
renouveau is preserved unmistakably enough in the episode of the
Doctor, but the cantilenae have been to some extent modified by the
comparatively late literary element, due perhaps to that universal go-
between of literature and the folk, the village school-master. The
genuine national heroes, a Stercatherus or a Galgacus, have given
way to the ‘worthies’ and the ‘champions of Christendom,’ dear to
Holophernes. The literary tradition has also perhaps contributed to
the transformation of the chorus or semi-dramatic dance into drama
pure and simple. In the St. George plays dancing holds a very
subordinate place, far more so than in the ‘Plow-boys’ play of
Revesby. Dances and songs are occasionally introduced before the
quête, but rarely during the main performance. In the eccentric Brill
version, however, a complete morris-dance appears. And of course it
must be borne in mind that the fighting itself, with its gestures and
pacings round the circle and clashing of swords, has much more the
effect of a sword-dance than of a regular fight. So far as it is a fight,
the question arises whether we ought to see in it, besides the heroic
element introduced by the cantilenae, any trace of the mimic contest
between winter and summer, which is found here and there,
alternating with the resurrection drama, as a symbolical
representation of the renouveau. The fight does not, of course, in
itself stand in any need of such an explanation; but it is suggested by
a singular passage which in several versions is put in the mouth of
one or other of the heroes. St. George, or the Slasher, or the Turkish
Knight, is made to boast something as follows:

‘My arms are made of iron, my body’s made of steel,


My head is made of beaten brass, no man can make me feel.’

It does not much matter who speaks these words in the versions
of Holophernes, but there are those who think that they originally
belonged to the representative of winter, and contained an allusion to
the hardness of the frost-bound earth[766]. Personally I do not see
why they should refer to anything but the armour which a champion
might reasonably be supposed to wear.
A curious thing about the St. George play is the width of its
range. All the versions, with the possible exception of that found at
Brill, seem to be derived from a common type. They are spread over
England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and only in the eastern
counties do they give way to the partly, though not wholly,
independent Plough Monday type. Unfortunately, the degeneracy of
the texts is such that any closer investigation into their inter-relations
or into the origin and transmission of the archetype would probably
be futile. Something, however, must be said as to the prominence, at
any rate outside Scotland, of the character of St. George. As far as I
can see, the play owes nothing at all to John Kirke’s stage-play of
The Seven Champions of Christendom, printed in 1638[767]. It is
possible, however, that it may be a development of a sword-dance in
which, as in the Shetland dance, the ‘seven champions’ had usurped
the place of more primitive heroes. If so the six champions, other
than St. George, have singularly vanished[768]. In any case, there
can have been no ‘seven champions,’ either in sword-dance or
mummers’ play, before Richard Johnson brought together the
scattered legends of the national heroes in his History of the Seven
Champions in 1596[769]. This fact presents no difficulty, for the
archetype of our texts need certainly not be earlier than the
seventeenth century[770]. By this time the literary dramatic tradition
was fully established, even in the provinces, and it may well have

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