This Jig, by London’s leading pageant poet Thomas Jordan (c1614–1685), is printed in his Royal Arbor of Loyal Poesie (1664) and was given at London’s Mansion House to ‘the Sheriffs of London’. We don’t know the date of performance but it probably did not long precede the date of publication since Jordan’s activities for the city (as Poet Laureate) began with the fall of the Commonwealth. Wat’s words are printed in a comic West Country accent: ‘z’ instead of ‘s’, ‘v’ for ‘f’, ‘ch’ for ‘I’ etc. No tune titles are given.

Characters
Nim and Filcher, thieves
Wat, a country bumpkin
Moll Medlar, a whore
Baby

Synopsis
Nim and Filch complain about hard times and are delighted to come across Wat, newly arrived in town. Distracting him with a glass prism, they pick his pockets but find nothing of value (he has wisely sewn his cash inside his shirt). Moll flirts with Wat and while they dance she tricks him into taking her basket and then disappears. Shocked to find it contains a baby, and keen to palm it off on the thieves, Wat puts the baby into a trunk and, knowing the thieves are listening, boasts it contains fine clothes. As he anticipates, the thieves pounce and steal the trunk. They fight over it, the baby is revealed and Moll declares Filch is the father. All three vow to turn over a new leaf. Wat has indeed cheated the cheaters.

from notes by Lucie Skeaping © 2009