'Firste when I this worlde hadde wroght' | Opening of the York Mystery Plays

The York Mystery Plays open tomorrow (Thursday 26th May), the feast of Corpus Christi - the day on which they were originally performed back in the Middle Ages.

This is a time-lapse video of the stage and seating being built inside York Minster:

Ego sum Alpha et O: vita, via, veritas, primus et novissimus.
I am gracious and great, God without beginning,
I am maker unmade, all might is in me;
I am life, and way unto wealth-winning,
I am foremost and first, as I bid shall it be.
My blessing of blee shall be blending,
And hielding, from harm to be hiding,
My body in bliss ay abiding,
Unending, without any ending.

Opening of The Fall of the Angels [the first pageant in the play cycle], from York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling, edited by Richard Beadle and Pamela King (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).