Chapter XII
., a Christmas cake with a hole in its centre is likewise put upon the horn of the chief ox. The wassailing of the animals is found there also. On Christmas Day, Sir Arthur |347| Evans relates, the house-mother "entered the stall set apart for the goats, and having first sprinkled them with corn, took the wine-cup in her hand and said, 'Good morning, little mother! The Peace of God be on thee! Christ is born; of a truth He is born. May'st thou be healthy. I drink to thee in wine; I give thee a pomegranate; may'st thou meet with all good luck!' She then lifted the cup to her lips, took a sup, tossed the pomegranate among the herd, and throwing her arms round the she-goat, whose health she had already drunk, gave it the 'Peace of God'--kissed it, that is, over and over again." The same ceremony was then performed for the benefit of the sheep and cows, and all the animals were beaten with a leafy olive-branch.{44}
As for the fires, an Irish custom to some extent supplies a parallel. On Epiphany Eve a sieve of oats was set up, "and in it a dozen of candles set round, and in the centre one larger, all lighted." This was said to be in memory of the Saviour and His apostles, lights of the world.{45} Here is an account of a similar custom practised in Co. Leitrim:--
"A piece of board is covered with cow-dung, and twelve rushlights are stuck therein. These are sprinkled with ash at the top, to make them light easily, and then set alight, each being named by some one present, and as each dies so will the life of its owner. A ball is then made of the dung, and it is placed over the door of the cowhouse for an increase of cattle. Sometimes mud is used, and the ball placed over the door of the dwelling-house."{46}
There remains to be considered under Epiphany usages an ancient and very remarkable game played annually on January 6 at Haxey in Lincolnshire. It is known traditionally as "Haxey Hood," and its centre is a struggle between the men of two villages for the possession of a roll of sacking or leather called the "hood." Over it preside the "boggans" or "bullocks" of Plough Monday (see p. 352), headed by a figure known as "My Lord," who is attended by a fool. The proceedings are opened on the village green by a mysterious speech from the fool:--
"Now, good folks, this is Haxa' Hood. We've killed two |348| bullocks and a half, but the other half we had to leave running about field: we can fetch it if it's wanted. Remember it's--
'Hoose agin hoose, toon agin toon, And if you meet a man knock him doon.'"
Then, in an open field, the hoods--there are six of them, one apparently for each of the chief hamlets round--are thrown up and struggled for. "The object is to carry them off the field away from the boggans. If any of these can get hold of them, or even touch them, they have to be given up, and carried back to My Lord. For every one carried off the field the boggans forfeit half-a-crown, which is spent in beer, doubtless by the men of the particular hamlet who have carried off the hood." The great event of the day is the struggle for the last hood--made of leather--between the men of Haxey and the men of Westwoodside--"that is to say really between the customers of the public-houses there--each party trying to get it to his favourite 'house.' The publican at the successful house stands beer."{47}
Mr. Chambers regards the fool's strange speech as preserving the tradition that the hood is the half of a bullock--the head of a sacrificial victim, and he explains both the Haxey game and also the familiar games of hockey and football as originating in a struggle between the people of two villages to get such a head, with all its fertilizing properties, over their own boundary.{48} At Hornchurch in Essex, if we may trust a note given by Hone, an actual boar's head was wrestled for on Christmas Day, and afterwards feasted upon at one of the public-houses by the victor and his friends.{49}
One more feature of the Haxey celebration must be mentioned (it points apparently to a human sacrifice): the fool, the morning after the game, used to be "smoked" over a straw fire. "He was suspended above the fire and swung backwards and forwards over it until almost suffocated; then allowed to drop into the smouldering straw, which was well wetted, and to scramble out as he could."{50}
Returning to the subject of football, I may here condense an |349| account of a Welsh Christmas custom quoted by Sir Laurence Gomme, in his book "The Village Community," from the _Oswestry Observer_ of March 2, 1887:--"In South Cardiganshire it seems that about eighty years ago the population, rich and poor, male and female, of opposing parishes, turned out on Christmas Day and indulged in the game of football with such vigour that it became little short of a serious fight." Both in north and south Wales the custom was found. At one place, Llanwenog near Lampeter, there was a struggle between two parties with different traditions of race. The Bros, supposed to be descendants from Irish people, occupied the high ground of the parish; the Blaenaus, presumably pure-bred Brythons, occupied the lowlands. After morning service on Christmas Day, "the whole of the Bros and Blaenaus, rich and poor, male and female, assembled on the turnpike road which divided the highlands from the lowlands." The ball was thrown high in the air, "and when it fell Bros and Blaenaus scrambled for its possession.... If the Bros, by hook or by crook, could succeed in taking the ball up the mountain to their hamlet of Rhyddlan they won the day, while the Blaenaus were successful if they got the ball to their end of the parish at New Court." Many severe kicks were given, and the whole thing was taken so keenly "that a Bro or a Blaenau would as soon lose a cow from his cowhouse as the football from his portion of the parish." There is plainly more than a mere pastime here; the thing appears to have been originally a struggle between two clans.{51}
* * * * *
Anciently the Carnival, with its merrymaking before the austerities of Lent, was held to begin at the Epiphany. This was the case in Tyrol even in the nineteenth century.{52} As a rule, however, the Carnival in Roman Catholic countries is restricted to the last three days before Ash Wednesday. The pagan origin of its mummeries and licence is evident, but it is a spring rather than a winter festival, and hardly calls for treatment here.
The Epiphany is in many places the end of Christmas. In Calvados, Normandy, it is marked by bonfires; red flames mount |350| skywards, and the peasants join hands, dance, and leap through blinding smoke and cinders, shouting these rude lines:--
"Àdieu les Rois Jusqu'à douze mois, Douze mois passés Les bougelées."{53}
Another French Epiphany _chanson_, translated by the Rev. R. L. Gales, is a charming farewell to Christmas:--
"Noël is leaving us, Sad 'tis to tell, But he will come again, Adieu, Noël.
His wife and his children Weep as they go: On a grey horse They ride thro' the snow.
* * * * *
The Kings ride away In the snow and the rain, After twelve months We shall see them again."{54}
POST-EPIPHANY FESTIVALS.
Though with Twelfth Day the high festival of Christmas generally ends, later dates have sometimes been assigned as the close of the season. At the old English court, for instance, the merrymaking was sometimes carried on until Candlemas, while in some English country places it was customary, even in the late nineteenth century, to leave Christmas decorations up, in houses and churches, till that day.{55} The whole time between Christmas and the Presentation in the Temple was thus treated as sacred to the Babyhood of Christ; the withered evergreens would keep alive memories of Christmas joys, even, sometimes, after Septuagesima had struck the note of penitence.
Before we pass on to a short notice of Candlemas, we may |351| glance at a few last sparks, so to speak, of the Christmas blaze, and then at the English festivals which marked the resumption of work after the holidays.
In Sweden Yule is considered to close with the Octave of the Epiphany, January 13, "St. Knut's Day," the twentieth after Christmas.
"Twentieth day Knut Driveth Yule out"
sing the old folks as the young people dance in a ring round the festive Yule board, which is afterwards robbed of the viands that remain on it, including the Yule boar. On this day a sort of mimic fight used to take place, the master and servants of the house pretending to drive away the guests with axe, broom, knife, spoon, and other implements.{56} The name, "St. Knut's Day," is apparently due to the fact that in the laws of Canute the Great (1017-36) it is commanded that there is to be no fasting from Christmas to the Octave of the Epiphany.{57}
In England the day after the Epiphany was called St. Distaff's or Rock Day (the word Rock is evidently the same as the German _Rocken_ = distaff). It was the day when the women resumed their spinning after the rest and gaiety of Christmas. From a poem of Herrick's it appears that the men in jest tried to burn the women's flax, and the women in return poured water on the men:--
"Partly work, and partly play You must on St. Distaff's day: From the plough soon free your team, Then come home and fother them; If the maids a-spinning go, Burn the flax and fire the tow.
* * * * *
Bring in pails of water then, Let the maids bewash the men; Give St. Distaff all the right, Then bid Christmas sport good night; And next morrow, every one To his own vocation."{58}
|352| A more notable occasion was Plough Monday, the first after Twelfth Day. Men's labour then began again after the holidays.{59} We have already seen that it is sometimes associated with the mummers' plays. Often, however, its ritual is not developed into actual drama, and the following account from Derbyshire gives a fairly typical description of its customs:--
"On Plough Monday the 'Plough bullocks' are occasionally seen; they consist of a number of young men from various farmhouses, who are dressed up in ribbons.... These young men yoke themselves to a plough, which they draw about, preceded by a band of music, from house to house, collecting money. They are accompanied by the Fool and Bessy; the fool being dressed in the skin of a calf, with the tail hanging down behind, and Bessy generally a young man in female attire. The fool carries an inflated bladder tied to the end of a long stick, by way of whip, which he does not fail to apply pretty soundly to the heads and shoulders of his team. When anything is given a cry of 'Largess!' is raised, and a dance performed round the plough. If a refusal to their application for money is made they not unfrequently plough up the pathway, door-stone, or any other portion of the premises they happen to be near."{60}
By Plough Monday we have passed, it seems probable, from New Year festivals to one that originally celebrated the beginning of spring. Such a feast, apparently, was kept in mid-February when ploughing began at that season; later the advance of agriculture made it possible to shift it forward to early January.{61}
CANDLEMAS.
Nearer to the original date of the spring feast is Candlemas, February 2; though connected with Christmas by its ecclesiastical meaning, it is something of a vernal festival.{62}
The feast of the Purification of the Virgin or Presentation of Christ in the Temple was probably instituted by Pope Liberius at Rome in the fourth century. The ceremonial to which it owes its popular name, Candlemas, is the blessing of candles in church and the procession of the faithful, carrying them lighted in their hands. During the blessing the "Nunc dimittis" is chanted, |353| with the antiphon "Lumen ad revelationem gentium et gloriam plebis tuae Israel," the ceremony being thus brought into connection with the "light to lighten the Gentiles" hymned by Symeon. Usener has however shown reason for thinking that the Candlemas procession was not of spontaneous Christian growth, but was inspired by a desire to Christianize a Roman rite, the _Amburbale_, which took place at the same season and consisted of a procession round the city with lighted candles.{63}
The Candlemas customs of the sixteenth century are thus described by Naogeorgus:
"Then numbers great of Tapers large, both men and women beare To Church, being halowed there with pomp, and dreadful words to heare. This done, eche man his Candell lightes, where chiefest seemeth hee, Whose taper greatest may be seene, and fortunate to bee, Whose Candell burneth cleare and brighte; a wondrous force and might Doth in these Candells lie, which if at any time they light, They sure beleve that neyther storme or tempest dare abide, Nor thunder in the skies be heard, nor any devils spide, Nor fearefull sprites that walke by night, nor hurts of frost or haile."{64}
Still, in many Roman Catholic regions, the candles blessed in church at the Purification are believed to have marvellous powers. In Brittany, Franche-Comté, and elsewhere, they are preserved and lighted in time of storm or sickness.{65} In Tyrol they are lighted on important family occasions such as christenings and funerals, as well as on the approach of a storm{66}; in Sicily in time of earthquake or when somebody is dying.{67}
In England some use of candles on this festival continued long after the Reformation. In 1628 the Bishop of Durham gave serious offence by sticking up wax candles in his cathedral at the Purification; "the number of all the candles burnt that evening was two hundred and twenty, besides sixteen torches; sixty of |354| those burning tapers and torches standing upon and near the high Altar."{68} Ripon Cathedral, as late as the eighteenth century, was brilliantly illuminated with candles on the Sunday before the festival.{69} And, to come to domestic customs, at Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire the person who bought the wood-ashes of a family used to send a present of a large candle at Candlemas. It was lighted at night, and round it there was festive drinking until its going out gave the signal for retirement to rest.{70}
There are other British Candlemas customs connected with fire. In the western isles of Scotland, says an early eighteenth-century writer, "as Candlemas Day comes round, the mistress and servants of each family taking a sheaf of oats, dress it up in woman's apparel, and after putting it in a large basket, beside which a wooden club is placed, they cry three times, 'Briid is come! Briid is welcome!' This they do just before going to bed, and as soon as they rise in the morning, they look among the ashes, expecting to see the impression of Briid's club there, which if they do, they reckon it a true presage of a good crop and prosperous year, and the contrary they take as an ill-omen."{71} Sir Laurence Gomme regards this as an illustration of belief in a house-spirit whose residence is the hearth and whose element is the ever-burning sacred flame. He also considers the Lyme Regis custom mentioned above to be a modernized relic of the sacred hearth-fire.{72}
Again, the feast of the Purification was the time to kindle a "brand" preserved from the Christmas log. Herrick's Candlemas lines may be recalled:--
"Kindle the Christmas brand, and then Till sunne-set let it burne; Which quencht, then lay it up agen, Till Christmas next returne.
## Part must be kept wherewith to teend
The Christmas Log next yeare; And where 'tis safely kept, the Fiend Can do no mischiefe there."{73}
|355| Candlemas Eve was the moment for the last farewells to Christmas; Herrick sings:--
"End now the White Loafe and the Pye, And let all sports with Christmas dye,"
and
"Down with the Rosemary and Bayes, Down with the Misleto; Instead of Holly, now up-raise The greener Box for show.
The Holly hitherto did sway; Let Box now domineere Until the dancing Easter Day, Or Easter's Eve appeare."{74}
An old Shropshire servant, Miss Burne tells us, was wont, when she took down the holly and ivy on Candlemas Eve, to put snow-drops in their place.{75} We may see in this replacing of the winter evergreens by the delicate white flowers a hint that by Candlemas the worst of the winter is over and gone; Earth has begun to deck herself with blossoms, and spring, however feebly, has begun. With Candlemas we, like the older English countryfolk, may take our leave of Christmas.
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CONCLUSION
The reader who has had patience to persevere will by now have gained some idea of the manner in which Christmas is, and has been, kept throughout Europe. We have traced the evolution of the festival, seen it take its rise soon after the victory of the Catholic doctrine of Christ's person at Nicea, and spread from Rome to every quarter of the Empire, not as a folk-festival but as an ecclesiastical holy-day. We have seen the Church condemn with horror the relics of pagan feasts which clung round the same season of the year; then, as time went on, we have found the two elements, pagan and Christian, mingling in some degree, the pagan losing most of its serious meaning, and continuing mainly as ritual performed for the sake of use and wont or as a jovial tradition, the Christian becoming humanized, the skeleton of dogma clothed with warm flesh and blood.
We have considered, as represented in poetry and liturgy, the strictly ecclesiastical festival, the commemoration of the Nativity as the beginning of man's redemption. We have seen how in the carols, the cult of the _presepio_, and the religious drama, the Birth of the King of Glory in the stable at midwinter has presented itself in concrete form to the popular mind, calling up a host of human emotions, a crowd of quaint and beautiful fancies. Lastly we have noted the survival, in the most varied degrees of transformation, of things which are alien to Christianity and in some cases seem to go back to very primitive stages of thought and feeling. An antique reverence for the plant-world may lie, as we have seen, beneath the familiar institution of the Christmas-tree, some sort of animal-worship may be at the bottom of the |358| beast-masks common at winter festivals, survivals of sacrifice may linger in Christmas feasting, and in the family gatherings round the hearth may be preserved a dim memory of ancient domestic rites.
Christmas, indeed, regarded in all its aspects, is a microcosm of European religion. It reflects almost every phase of thought and feeling from crude magic and superstition to the speculative mysticism of Eckhart, from mere delight in physical indulgence to the exquisite spirituality and tenderness of St. Francis. Ascetic and _bon-vivant_, mystic and materialist, learned and simple, noble and peasant, all have found something in it of which to lay hold. It is a river into which have flowed tributaries from every side, from Oriental religion, from Greek and Roman civilization, from Celtic, Teutonic, Slav, and probably pre-Aryan, society, mingling their waters so that it is often hard to discover the far-away springs.
We have seen how the Reformation broke up the great mediaeval synthesis of paganism and Christianity, how the extremer forms of Protestantism aimed at completely destroying Christmas, and how the general tendency of modern civilization, with its scientific spirit, its popular education, its railways, its concentration of the people in great cities, has been to root out traditional beliefs and customs both Christian and pagan, so that if we would seek for relics of the old things we must go to the regions of Europe that are least industrially and intellectually "advanced." Yet amongst the most sceptical and "enlightened" of moderns there is generally a large residuum of tradition. "Emotionally," it has been said, "we are hundreds of thousands of years old; rationally we are embryos"{1}; and many people who deem themselves "emancipated" are willing for once in the year to plunge into the stream of tradition, merge themselves in inherited social custom, and give way to sentiments and impressions which in their more reflective moments they spurn. Most men are ready at Christmas to put themselves into an instinctive rather than a rational attitude, to drink of the springs of wonder, and return in some degree to earlier, less intellectual stages of human development--to become in fact children again.
|359| Many elements enter into the modern Christmas. There is the delight of its warmth and brightness and comfort against the bleak midwinter. A peculiar charm of the northern Christmas lies in the thought of the cold barred out, the home made a warm, gay place in contrast with the cheerless world outside. There is the physical pleasure of "good cheer," of plentiful eating and drinking, joined to, and partly resulting in, a sense of goodwill and expansive kindliness towards the world at large, a temporary feeling of the brotherhood of man, a desire that the poor may for once in the year "have a good time." Here perhaps we may trace the influence of the _Saturnalia_, with its dreams of the age of gold, its exaltation of them of low degree. Mixed with a little sentimental Christianity this is the Christmas of Dickens--the Christmas which he largely helped to perpetuate in England.
Each nation, naturally, has fashioned its own Christmas. The English have made it a season of solid material comfort, of good-fellowship and "charity," with a slight flavour of soothing religion. The modern French, sceptical and pagan, make little of Christmas, and concentrate upon the secular celebration of the _jour de l'an_. For the Scandinavians Christmas is above all a time of sport, recreation, good living, and social gaiety in the midst of a season when little outdoor work can be done and night almost swallows up day. The Germans, sentimental and childlike, have produced a Christmas that is a very Paradise for children and at which the old delight to play at being young again around the Tree. For the Italians Christmas is centred upon the cult of the _Bambino_, so fitted to their dramatic instincts, their love of display, their strong parental affection. (How much of the sentiment that surrounds the _presepio_ is, though religiously heightened, akin to the delight of a child in its doll!) If the Germans may be called the good, industrious, sentimental children of Europe, making the most of simple things, the Italians are the lively, passionate, impulsive children, loving gay clothes and finery; and the contrast shows in their keeping of Christmas.
The modern Christmas is above all things a children's feast, and the elders who join in it put themselves upon their children's |360| level. We have noted how ritual acts, once performed with serious purpose, tend to become games for youngsters, and have seen many an example of this process in the sports and mummeries kept up by the elder folk for the benefit of the children. We have seen too how the radiant figure of the Christ Child has become a gift-bringer for the little ones. At no time in the world's history has so much been made of children as to-day, and because Christmas is their feast its lustre continues unabated in an age upon which dogmatic Christianity has largely lost its hold, which laughs at the pagan superstitions of its forefathers. Christmas is the feast of beginnings, of instinctive, happy childhood; the Christian idea of the Immortal Babe renewing weary, stained humanity, blends with the thought of the New Year, with its hope and promise, laid in the cradle of Time.
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NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
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