Thank you for the music: Eternity in an hour

Silly, I know, but one of the things that hits me occasionally, is the awful brevity of human life. I mentioned it to my director a few days ago and bless her, she did her best to reassure me; the people I have met mostly lived very full lives, and died at a ripe old age, but still, when I get back from an excursion, suddenly people I had spoken with, sometimes only minutes before, are gone forever. And have been, often for centuries! It's hard not to like some of them, and the realization that they are gone can be quite hard to take sometimes, particularly given that I can never visit the same time and place twice.
Anyway, I can tell by the look on your face that you're wondering what are we doing this early in the morning, in Coventry, on Wednesday June 12th, 1392? And by the way, I like your chaperon, very stylish!
Well, we're here before sunrise because today is the festival of Corpus Christi. And more importantly, we're here to observe community theater at the height of its development before the theater became a profession in its own right. Today, several of the major craft guilds of the city will be presenting dramatic tableaux based on the holy scriptures. Shortly after sunrise, members of the stonemasons guild will present "The Creation of the World in Six Days" by the Greyfriars gate.

As the day wears on, the other guilds will be presenting The Fall of Adam (the weavers and fullers), The Annunciation (the carpenters), The Birth of Our Lord (the goldsmiths), The Massacre of the Innocents (the tailors and shearmen), The Last Supper (the bakers), The Harrowing of Hell (the smiths and farriers), and The Last Judgment (the apothecaries) in St.Michael's Churchyard shortly after sunset.
The ingenuity of these little dramas demands to be admired, even by people like us, for whom technology is a commonplace. The simple illusions by which trees are made to spring forth from the wagon-stage, and birds and small animals released as if the Creator had just fashioned them delights me just as much as any of the audience here!
It's not too surprising that the guilds have seized the opportunity of the attractions to boost commerce, there are stalls everywhere offering everything from hot food or drinks to small commemorative items, and I've heard quite a few accents which clearly aren't local, so my guess is that anyone who knew of the event, and could make the trip, has done so. And although I don't know of any shrines in the area, I also saw one sturdy fellow with the cockleshell fastened to his hat, denoting a pilgrim.
But for me, the simple treasure of the event was a performance of this carol, by the Tailors and Shearmen, the three anxious sisters in dark robes performing a simple weaving dance to an instrumental interlude between verses.

As the sun sets, in St.Michael's Church Yard on a stage constructed of several wagons, a magnificent judgment throne has been set up, and towards the end of the performance, as the stars begin to appear while a small handful of the faithful are borne away by winged angels, the damned are driven by gleefully capering demons towards a gaping hellmouth, and a breathtaking display of pyrotechnics announces the end of the days festivities (and not, I sincerely hope, the wagons!)