Part 3
"The savage Dane, At Iol, more deep the mead did drain; High on the beach his galleys drew, And feasted all his pirate-crew; Then, in his low and pine-built hall, Where shields and axes decked the wall, They gorged upon the half-dressed steer, Caroused in sea of sable beer,-- While round, in brutal jest, were thrown The half-gnawed rib and marrow-bone; Or listened all, in grim delight, While Scalds yelled out the joys of fight. Then forth in frenzy would they hie, While wildly loose their red locks fly, And, dancing round the blazing pile, They made such barbarous mirth the while, As best might to the mind recall The boisterous joys of Odin's hall."
Amongst other traces of the northern observances which have descended to our times, and of which we shall have occasion hereafter to speak, the name of the festival itself has come down, and is still retained by our Scottish brethren, as well as in some parts of England.
The Christian festival of the Nativity, with which these ancient celebrations have been incorporated, appears to have been appointed at a very early period after the establishment of the new religion. Its first positive footsteps are met with in the second century, during the reign of the Emperor Concordius; but the decretal epistles furnish us with traces of it more remote. At whatever period, however, its formal institution is to be placed, there can be no doubt that an event so striking in its manner and so important in itself would be annually commemorated amongst Christians from the days of the first apostles, who survived our Lord's resurrection. As to the actual year of the birth of Christ, as well as the _period_ of the year at which it took place, great uncertainty seems to exist, and many controversies have been maintained. One of the theories on the subject, held to be amongst the most probable, places that event upwards of five years earlier than the vulgar era, which latter, however, both as regards the year and _season_ of the year, was a tradition of the primitive Church. In the first ages of that Church, and up till the Council of Nice, the celebration of the Nativity and that of the Epiphany were united on the 25th of December, from a belief that the birth of Christ was simultaneous with the appearance of the star in the East which revealed it to the Gentiles. The time of the year at which the Nativity fell has been placed, by contending opinions, at the period of the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, at that of the Passover, and again at that of the Feast of the Expiation, whose date corresponds with the close of our September. Clemens Alexandrinus informs us that it was kept by many Christians in April, and by others in the Egyptian month Pachon, which answers to our May. Amongst the arguments which have been produced against the theory that places its occurrence in the depth of winter, one has been gathered from that passage in the sacred history of the event which states that "there were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night." It is an argument, however, which does not seem very conclusive in a pastoral country and Eastern climate. Besides the employment which this question has afforded to the learned, it has, in times of religious excitement, been debated with much Puritanical virulence and sectarian rancor. For the purposes of commemoration, however, it is unimportant whether the celebration shall fall or not at the precise anniversary period of the event commemorated; and the arrangement which assigns to it its place in our calendar fixes it at a season when men have leisure for a lengthened festivity, and when their minds are otherwise wholesomely acted upon by many touching thoughts and solemn considerations.
From the first introduction of Christianity into these islands, the period of the Nativity seems to have been kept as a season of festival, and its observance recognized as a matter of state. The Wittenagemots of our Saxon ancestors were held under the solemn sanctions and beneficent influences of the time; and the series of high festivities established by the Anglo-Saxon kings appear to have been continued, with yearly increasing splendor and multiplied ceremonies, under the monarchs of the Norman race. From the court the spirit of revelry descended by all its thousand arteries throughout the universal frame of society, visiting its furthest extremities and most obscure recesses, and everywhere exhibiting its action, as by so many pulses, upon the traditions and superstitions and customs which were common to all or peculiar to each. The pomp and ceremonial of the royal observance were imitated in the splendid establishments of the more wealthy nobles, and more faintly reflected from the diminished state of the petty baron. The revelries of the baronial castle found echoes in the hall of the old manor-house; and these were, again, repeated in the tapestried chamber of the country magistrate or from the sanded parlor of the village inn. Merriment was everywhere a matter of public concernment; and the spirit which assembles men in families now congregated them by districts then.
[Illustration: BARONIAL HALL.--_Page 42._]
Neither, however, were the feelings wanting which connected the superstitions of the season with the tutelage of the roof-tree, and mingled its ceremonies with the sanctities of home. Men might meet in crowds to feast beneath the banner of the baron, but the mistletoe hung over each man's own door. The black-jacks might go round in the hall of the lord of the manor; but they who could had a wassail-bowl of their own. The pageantries and high observances of the time might draw men to common centres or be performed on a common account, but the flame of the Yule-log roared up all the individual chimneys of the land. Old Father Christmas, at the head of his numerous and uproarious family, might ride his goat through the streets of the city and the lanes of the village, but he dismounted to sit for some few moments by each man's hearth; while some one or another of his merry sons would break away, to visit the remote farm-houses or show their laughing faces at many a poor man's door. For be it observed, this worthy old gentleman and his kind-hearted children were no respecters of persons. Though trained to courts, they had ever a taste for a country life. Though accustomed in those days to the tables of princes, they sat freely down at the poor man's board. Though welcomed by the peer, they showed no signs of superciliousness when they found themselves cheek-by-jowl with the pauper. Nay, they appear even to have preferred the less exalted society, and to have felt themselves more at ease in the country mansion of the private gentleman than in the halls of kings. Their reception in those high places was accompanied, as royal receptions are apt to be, by a degree of state repugnant to their frank natures; and they seem never to have been so happy as when they found themselves amongst a set of free and easy spirits,--whether in town or country,--unrestrained by the punctilios of etiquette, who had the privilege of laughing just when it struck them to do so, without inquiring wherefore, or caring how loud.
Then, what a festival they created! The land rang with their joyous voices, and the frosty air steamed with the incense of the good things provided for their entertainment. Everybody kept holiday but the cooks; and all sounds known to the human ear seemed mingled in the merry pæan, save the gobble of the turkeys. _There were no turkeys_,--at least they had lost their "most sweet voices." The turnspits had a hard time of it, too. That quaint little book which bears the warm and promising title of "Round about our Coal Fire" tells us that "by the time dinner was over they would look as black and as greasy as a Welsh porridge-pot." Indeed, the accounts of that time dwell with great and savory emphasis upon the prominent share which eating and drinking had in the festivities of the season. There must have been sad havoc made amongst the live-stock. That there are turkeys at all in our days is only to be accounted for upon the supposition of England having been occasionally replenished with that article from the East; and our present possession of geese must be explained by the well-known impossibility of extinguishing the race of the goose. It is difficult to imagine a consumption equal to the recorded provision. Men's gastronomic capacities appear to have been enlarged for the occasion, as the energies expand to meet great emergencies. "The tables," says the same racy authority above quoted, "were all spread from the first to the last; the sirloyns of beef, the minc'd-pies, the plumb-porridge, the capons, turkeys, geese, and plumb-puddings were all brought upon the board; and all those who had sharp stomachs and sharp knives eat heartily and were welcome, which gave rise to the proverb,--
"'Merry in the hall, when beards wag all!'"
Now, _all_ men in those days appear to have had good stomachs, and, we presume, took care to provide themselves with sharp knives. The only recorded instance in which we find a failure of the latter is that portentous one which occurred, many a long day since, in the court of King Arthur, when the Christmas mirth was so strangely disturbed by the mischievous interference of the Boy with the Mantle. Under the test introduced by that imp of discord and which appears to have "taken the shine out of" the monarch's own good sword Excalibur itself, there was found but one knight, of all the hungry knights who sat at that Round Table, whose weapon was sharp enough to carve the boar's head or hand steady enough to carry the cup to his lip without spilling the lamb's wool; and even he had a very narrow escape from the same incapacities. But then, as we have said, this was at court, and under the influence of a spell (with whose nature we take it for granted that our readers are acquainted,--and, if not, we refer them to the Percy Ballads); and it is probable that, in those early as in later days, tests of such extreme delicacy were of far more dangerous introduction in the courts of kings than amongst assemblies of more mirth and less pretension. We could by no means feel sure that the intrusion, in our own times, of a similar test into a similar scene might not spoil the revels.
[Illustration: ENJOYING CHRISTMAS.--_Page 46._]
But to return. The old ballads which relate to this period of the year are redolent of good things, and not to be read by a hungry man with any degree of equanimity. Of course they are _ex post facto_ ballads, and could only have been written under the inspiration of memory, at a time when men were at leisure to devote their hands to some other occupation than that of cooking or carving. But it is very difficult to understand how they ever found--as it appears they did--their mouths in a condition to sing them at the season itself. There is one amongst those ballads, of a comparatively modern date, printed in Evans's collection, which we advise no man to read fasting. It is directed to be sung to the tune of "The Delights of the Bottle," and contains in every verse a vision of good things, summed up by the perpetually recurring burthen of
"Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast beef."
Our readers had better take a biscuit and a glass of sherry before they venture upon the glimpses into those regions of banqueting which we are tempted to lay before them. The ballad opens like the ringing of a dinner-bell, and, we conceive, should be sung to some such accompaniment:--
"All you that to feasting and mirth are inclin'd, Come here is good news for to pleasure your mind,-- Old Christmas is come for to keep open house, _He scorns to be guilty of starving a mouse_: Then come, boys, and welcome for diet the chief, Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast beef."
"Diet _the chief_!"--by which we are to understand that this promising muster-roll merely includes the names of some of the principal viands,--the high-commissioned dishes of the feast,--leaving the subalterns, and the entire rank and file which complete the goodly array, unmentioned. It must have been a very ingenious or a very strong-minded mouse which could contrive to be starved under such circumstances. The ballad is long, and we can only afford to give our readers "tastings" of its good things. It is everywhere full of most gracious promise:--
"The cooks shall be busied, by day and by night, In roasting and boiling, for taste and delight, Their senses in liquor that's nappy they'll steep, Though they be afforded to have little sleep; They still are employed for to dress us, in brief, Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast beef.
"Although the cold weather doth hunger provoke, 'T is a comfort to see how the chimneys do smoke; Provision is making for beer, ale, and wine, For _all that are willing or ready to dine_: Then haste to the kitchen for diet the chief, Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast beef.
"All travellers, as they do pass on their way, At gentlemen's halls are invited to stay, Themselves to refresh and their horses to rest, Since that he must be old Christmas's guest; Nay, the poor shall not want, but have for relief Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast beef."
And so on, through a variety of joyous and substantial anticipations, from which the writer draws an inference, which we think is most satisfactorily made out:--
"Then _well may we welcome_ old Christmas to town, Who brings us good cheer, and good liquor so brown; To pass the cold winter away with delight, We feast it all day, and we frolick all night."
In Ellis's edition of Brand's "Popular Antiquities" an old Christmas song is quoted from "Poor Robin's Almanack" for 1695, which gives a similar enumeration of Christmas dainties, but throws them into a form calculated for more rapid enunciation, as if with a due regard to the value of those moments at which it was probably usual to sing it. The measure is not such a mouthful as that of the former one which we have quoted. It comes trippingly off the tongue; and it is not impossible that, in those days of skilful gastronomy, it might have been sung eating. We will quote a couple of the verses, though they include the same commissariat truths as that from which we have already extracted; and our readers will observe, from the ill-omened wish which concludes the second of these stanzas, in what horror the mere idea of _fasting_ had come to be held, since it is the heaviest curse which suggested itself to be launched against those who refused to do homage to the spirit of the times:--
"Now thrice welcome Christmas, Which brings us good cheer, Minc'd pies and plumb-porridge, Good ale and strong beer; With pig, goose, and capon, The best that may be, So well doth the weather And our stomachs agree.
"Observe how the chimneys Do smoak all about, The cooks are providing For dinner no doubt; But those on whose tables No victuals appear, _O may they keep Lent All the rest of the year_!"
The same author quotes, from a manuscript in the British Museum, an Anglo-Norman carol of the early date of the thirteenth century, and appends to it a translation by the late Mr. Douce, the following verse of which translation informs us (what, at any rate, might well be supposed, namely) that so much good eating on the part of the ancient gentleman, Christmas, would naturally suggest the propriety of good drinking, too:--
"Lordings, Christmas loves good drinking, Wines of Gascoigne, France, Anjou, English ale, that drives out thinking, Prince of liquors old or new. Every neighbor shares the bowl, Drinks of the spicy liquor deep, Drinks his fill without controul, Till he drowns his care in sleep."
In a "Christmas Carroll," printed at the end of Wither's "Juvenilia," a graphic account is given of some of the humors of Christmas, among which the labors of the kitchen are introduced in the _first_ verse, with a due regard to their right of precedency, and in words which, if few, are full of suggestion:--
"Lo, now is come our joyful'st feast! Let every man be jolly. Each roome with yvie leaves is drest, And every post with holly. Now, all our neighbour's chimneys smoke, And Christmas Blocks are burning; Their ovens they with bak't-meats choke, And all their spits are turning."
We must present our readers with another quotation from an old ballad, entitled "Time's Alteration; or, The Old Man's Rehearsal, what brave dayes he knew a great while agone, when his old cap was new," which appears to have been written after the times of the Commonwealth. And this extract we are induced to add to those which have gone before, because, though it deals with precisely the same subjects, it speaks of them as of things gone by, and is written in a tone of lamentation, in which it is one of the purposes of this chapter to call upon our readers to join. We are sorry we cannot give them directions as to the tune to which it should be sung,--further than that it is obviously unsuited to that of the "Delights of the Bottle," prescribed for the joyous ballad from which we first quoted on this subject; and that, whatever may be the _tune_, we are clear that the direction as to _time_ should be the same as that which Mr. Hood prefixes to his song of the Guildhall Giants; namely, "Dinner-time and mournful":--
"A man might then behold, At Christmas in each hall, Good fires to curb the cold, And meat for great and small; The neighbours were friendly bidden, And all had welcome true, The poor from the gates were not chidden, When this old cap was new.
"Black-jacks to every man Were fill'd with wine and beer; No pewter pot nor can In those days did appear; Good cheer in a nobleman's house Was counted a seemly shew; We wanted no brawn nor souse, When this old cap was new."
Can our readers bear, after this sad ditty, to listen to the enumeration of good things described by Whistlecraft to have been served up at King Arthur's table on Christmas day? If the list be authentic, there is the less reason to wonder at the feats of courage and strength performed by the Knights of the Round Table.
"They served up salmon, venison, and wild boars, By hundreds, and by dozens, and by scores.
"Hogsheads of honey, kilderkins of mustard, Muttons, and fatted beeves, and bacon swine; Herons and bitterns, peacocks, swan, and bustard, Teal, mallard, pigeons, widgeons, and, in fine, Plum-puddings, pancakes, apple-pies, and custard. And therewithal they drank good Gascon wine, With mead, and ale, and cider of our own; For porter, punch, and negus were not known."
But we cannot pursue this matter further. It is not to be treated with any degree of calmness before dinner, and we have not dined. We must proceed to less trying parts of our subject.
Of the earnest manner in which our ancestors set about the celebration of this festival, the mock ceremonial with which they illustrated it, the quaint humors which they let loose under its inspiration, and the spirit of fellowship which brought all classes of men within the range of its beneficent provisions, we have a large body of scattered evidence, to be gleaned out of almost every species of existing record, from the early days of the Norman dynasty down to the times of the Commonwealth. The tales of chroniclers, the olden ballads, the rolls of courts, and the statute-book of the land, all contribute to furnish the materials from which a revival of the old pageantry must be derived, if men should ever again find time to be as merry as their fathers were.
The numberless _local_ customs of which the still remaining tradition is almost the sole record, and which added each its small contingent to the aggregate of commemoration, would certainly render it a somewhat difficult matter to restore the festival in its integrity; and, to be very candid with our readers, we believe we may as well confess, at the onset, what will be very apparent to them before we have done, that many of the Christmas observances (whether general or local) are to be recommended to their notice rather as curious pictures of ancient manners than as being at all worthy of imitation by us who "are wiser in our generation." Sooth to say, we dare not let our zeal for our subject lead us into an unqualified approbation of all the doings which it will be our business to record in these pages, though they seem to have made all ranks of people very happy in other days;--and that is no mean test of the value of any institution. Really earnest as we are in the wish that the _sentiment_ of the season could be restored in its amplitude, we fear that many of the fooleries by which it exhibited itself could not be gravely proposed as worthy amusements for a nation of philosophers.