Tidza Guisers
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The Tidza Guisers are a group of mummers who perform in the Peak District village of Tideswell in Derbyshire. They were formed in the late 1980s to revive the ancient tradition of guising (or "guisering"), in which people dressed up in elaborate costumes, blackened their faces, and went round the village asking for food and money.
During the Tideswell Wakes, a week-long local festivity held around St John's Day in midsummer, the Guizers perform a local mummers' play known as Tidza Saw Y'eds which tells of a farmer whose cow gets her head stuck in a gate. The farmer tries to solve the problem by sawing off the cow's head but then a doctor comes along, sews the animal's head back on and she is miraculously restored to life.[1] The Guizers also recite the local ballad known as The Drunken Butcher of Tideswell.[2]
