CHAPTER IX

CHRISTMAS EVE AND THE TWELVE DAYS

Christkind, Santa Klaus, and Knecht Ruprecht--Talking Animals and other Wonders of Christmas Eve--Scandinavian Beliefs about Trolls and the Return of the Dead--Traditional Christmas Songs in Eastern Europe--The Twelve Days, their Christian Origin and Pagan Superstitions--The Raging Host--Hints of Supernatural Visitors in England--The German _Frauen_--The Greek _Kallikantzaroi_.

[Illustration: CHRISTMAS EVE IN DEVONSHIRE--THE MUMMERS COMING IN]

CHRISTMAS EVE.

Christmas in the narrowest sense must be reckoned as beginning on the evening of December 24. Though Christmas Eve is not much observed in modern England, throughout the rest of Europe its importance so far as popular customs are concerned is far greater than that of the Day itself. Then in Germany the Christmas-tree is manifested in its glory; then, as in the England of the past, the Yule log is solemnly lighted in many lands; then often the most distinctive Christmas meal takes place.

We shall consider these and other institutions later; though they appear first on Christmas Eve, they belong more or less to the Twelve Days as a whole. Let us look first at the supernatural visitors, mimed by human beings, who delight the minds of children, especially in Germany, on the evening of December 24, and at the beliefs that hang around this most solemn night of the year.

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First of all, the activities of St. Nicholas are not confined to his own festival; he often appears on Christmas Eve. We have already seen how he is attended by various companions, including |230| Christ Himself, and how he comes now vested as a bishop, now as a masked and shaggy figure. The names and attributes of the Christmas and Advent visitors are rather confused, but on the whole it may be said that in Protestant north Germany the episcopal St. Nicholas and his Eve have been replaced by Christmas Eve and the Christ Child, while the name Klas has become attached to various unsaintly forms appearing at or shortly before Christmas.

We can trace a deliberate substitution of the Christ Child for St. Nicholas as the bringer of gifts. In the early seventeenth century a Protestant pastor is found complaining that parents put presents in their children's beds and tell them that St. Nicholas has brought them. "This," he says, "is a bad custom, because it points children to the saint, while yet we know that not St. Nicholas but the holy Christ Child gives us all good things for body and soul, and He alone it is whom we ought to call upon."{1}

The ways in which the figure, or at all events the name, of Christ Himself, is introduced into German Christmas customs, are often surprising. The Christ Child, "Christkind," so familiar to German children, has now become a sort of mythical figure, a product of sentiment and imagination working so freely as almost to forget the sacred character of the original. Christkind bears little resemblance to the Infant of Bethlehem; he is quite a tall child, and is often represented by a girl dressed in white, with long fair hair. He hovers, indeed, between the character of the Divine Infant and that of an angel, and is regarded more as a kind of good fairy than as anything else.

In Alsace the girl who represents Christkind has her face "made up" with flour, wears a crown of gold paper with lighted candles in it--a parallel to the headgear of the Swedish Lussi; in one hand she holds a silver bell, in the other, a basket of sweetmeats. She is followed by the terrible Hans Trapp, dressed in a bearskin, with blackened face, long beard, and threatening rod. He "goes for" the naughty children, who are only saved by the intercession of Christkind.{2}

In the Mittelmark the name of _de hêle_ (holy) _Christ_ is strangely |231| given to a skin- or straw-clad man, elsewhere called Knecht Ruprecht, Klas, or Joseph.{3} In the Ruppin district a man dresses up in white with ribbons, carries a large pouch, and is called _Christmann_ or _Christpuppe_. He is accompanied by a _Schimmelreiter_ and by other fellows who are attired as women, have blackened faces, and are named _Feien_ (we may see in them a likeness to the Kalends maskers condemned by the early Church). The procession goes round from house to house. The _Schimmelreiter_ as he enters has to jump over a chair; this done, the _Christpuppe_ is admitted. The girls present begin to sing, and the _Schimmelreiter_ dances with one of them. Meanwhile the _Christpuppe_ makes the children repeat some verse of Scripture or a hymn; if they know it well, he rewards them with gingerbreads from his wallet; if not, he beats them with a bundle filled with ashes. Then both he and the _Schimmelreiter_ dance and pass on. Only when they are gone are the _Feien_ allowed to enter; they jump wildly about and frighten the children.{4}

Knecht Ruprecht, to whom allusion has already been made, is a prominent figure in the German Christmas. On Christmas Eve in the north he goes about clad in skins or straw and examines children; if they can say their prayers perfectly he rewards them with apples, nuts and gingerbreads; if not, he punishes them. In the Mittelmark, as we have seen, a personage corresponding to him is sometimes called "the holy Christ"; in Mecklenburg he is "rû Klas" (rough Nicholas--note his identification with the saint); in Brunswick, Hanover, and Holstein "Klas," "Klawes," "Klas Bûr" and "Bullerklas"; and in Silesia "Joseph." Sometimes he wears bells and carries a long staff with a bag of ashes at the end--hence the name "Aschenklas" occasionally given to him.{5} An ingenious theory connects this aspect of him with the _polaznik_ of the Slavs, who on Christmas Day in Crivoscian farms goes to the hearth, takes up the ashes of the Yule log and dashes them against the cauldron-hook above so that sparks fly (see