The Story Archive

The Second Shepherds' Play

The Wakefield Master · c. 1475 CE · Play · English · Medieval

Three shepherds on a freezing Yorkshire hillside complain about the weather, their landlords and their wives, then bed down beside Mak, a neighbour with a reputation, and wake to find a sheep gone. The search takes them to Mak's cottage, where his wife is groaning in childbed over a suspiciously woolly infant swaddled in the cradle. Farce and Nativity occupy the same hour, and the anonymous Wakefield Master's comic timing has no equal in English before the professional theatres.

Open The Second Shepherds' Play in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.

Lineage

Attributes

Genre
Theme
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Plot structure
Symbol / motif
Conflict
Mode / tone
Culture / tradition

Closest analogues