Chapter VI

., St. Boniface alluded to this superstition among the people or Rome.

In Shropshire the idea is extended even to ashes, which must not be thrown out of the house on Christmas Day, "for fear of throwing them in Our Saviour's face." Perhaps such superstitions may originally have had to do with dread that the "luck" of the family, the household spirit, might be carried away with the gift of fire from the hearth.{23}

When Miss Burne wrote in the eighties there were still many West Shropshire people who could remember seeing the "Christmas Brand" drawn by horses to the farmhouse door, and placed at the back of the wide open hearth, where the flame was made up in front of it. "The embers," says one informant, "were raked up to it every night, and it was carefully tended that it might not go out during the whole season, during which time no light might either be struck, given, or borrowed." At Cleobury Mortimer in the south-east of the county the silence of the curfew bell during "the Christmas" points to a time when fires might not be extinguished during that season.{24}

The place of the Yule log in Devonshire is taken by the "ashen [sometimes "ashton"] faggot," still burnt in many a farm on Christmas Eve. The sticks of ash are fastened together by ashen bands, and the traditional custom is for a quart of cider to be called for and served to the merrymaking company, as each band bursts in the flames.{25}

In England the Yule log was often supplemented or replaced |259| by a great candle. At Ripon in the eighteenth century the chandlers sent their customers large candles on Christmas Eve, and the coopers, logs of wood.{26} Hampson, writing in 1841, says:--

"In some places candles are made of a particular kind, because the candle that is lighted on Christmas Day must be so large as to burn from the time of its ignition to the close of the day, otherwise it will portend evil to the family for the ensuing year. The poor were wont to present the rich with wax tapers, and yule candles are still in the north of Scotland given by merchants to their customers. At one time children at the village schools in Lancashire were required to bring each a mould candle before the _parting_ or separation for the Christmas holidays."[101]{27}

In the Scandinavian countries the Yule candle is, or was, very prominent indeed. In West Jutland (Denmark) two great tallow candles stood on the festive board. No one dared to touch or extinguish them, and if by any mischance one went out it was a portent of death. They stood for the husband and wife, and that one of the wedded pair whose candle burnt the longer would outlive the other.{28}

In Norway also two lights were placed on the table.{29} All over the Scandinavian lands the Yule candle had to burn throughout the night; it was not to be extinguished till the sun rose or--as was said elsewhere--till the beginning of service on Christmas Day. Sometimes the putting-out had to be done by the oldest member of the family or the father of the household. In Norway the candle was lighted every evening until New Year's Day. While it foreshadowed death if it went out, so long as it duly burned it shed a blessing with its light, and, in order to secure abundance of good things, money, clothes, food, and drink were spread out that its rays might fall upon them. The remains of the candle were used in various ways to benefit man and beast. Sometimes a cross was branded with them upon the animals on Christmas morning; in Sweden the plough was smeared with |260| the tallow, when used for the first time in spring. Or again the tallow was given to the fowls; and, lastly, in Denmark the ends were preserved and burnt in thundery weather to protect the house from lightning.{30} There is an analogy here with the use of the Christmas log, and also of the candles of the Purification (see

## Chapter XVI .).

|261| |262| |263|

##