Cakes and pies, partly or wholly of vegetable origin, are, of course, as conspicuous at the English Christmas as animal food. The peculiar "luckiness" attached to some of them (as when mince-pies, eaten in different houses during the Twelve Days, bring a happy month each) makes one suspect some more serious original purpose than mere gratification of the appetite. A sacrificial or sacramental origin is probable, at least in certain cases; a cake made of flour, for instance, may well have been regarded as embodying the spirit immanent in the corn.{4} Whether any mystic significance ever belonged to the plum-pudding it is hard to say, though the sprig of holly stuck into its 285 top recalls the lucky green boughs we have so often come across, and a resemblance to the libations upon the Christmas log might be seen in the burning brandy.

A dish once prominent at Christmas was "frumenty" or "furmety" (variously spelt, and derived from the Latin frumentum, corn). It was made of hulled wheat boiled in milk and seasoned with cinnamon, sugar, &c.{5} This too may have been a cereal sacrament. In Yorkshire it was the first thing eaten on Christmas morning, just as ale posset was the last thing drunk on Christmas Eve. Ale posset was a mixture of beer and milk, and each member of the family in turn had to take a "sup," as also a piece of a large apple-pie.{6}

In the Highlands of Scotland, among those who observed Christmas, a characteristic dish was new sowens (the husks and siftings of oatmeal), given to the family early on Christmas Day in their beds. They were boiled into the consistence of molasses and were poured into as many bickers as there were people to partake of them. Everyone on despatching his bicker jumped out of bed.{7} Here, as in the case of the Yorkshire frumenty, the eating has a distinctly ceremonial character.

In the East Riding of Yorkshire a special Yule cake was eaten on Christmas Eve, "made of flour, barm, large cooking raisins, currants, lemon-peel, and nutmeg," and about as large as a dinner-plate.{8} In Shropshire "wigs" or caraway buns dipped in ale were eaten on Christmas Eve.{9} Again elsewhere there were Yule Doughs or Dows, little images of paste, presented by bakers to their customers.{10} We shall see plenty of parallels to these on the Continent. When they are in animal or even human form they may in some cases have taken the place of actual sacrificial victims.{11}

In Nottinghamshire the Christmas cake was associated with the wassail-bowl in a manner which may be compared with the Macedonian custom described later; it was broken up and put into the bowl, hot ale was poured over it, and so it was eaten.{12}

The wassail-bowl one cannot leave the subject of English Yuletide feasting without a few words upon this beloved beaker of hot spiced ale and toasted apples ("lambswool"). Wassail is 286 derived from the Anglo-Saxon wes hal = be whole, and wassailing is in its essence the wishing of a person's very good health. The origin of drinking healths is not obvious; perhaps it may be sacramental: the draught may have been at first a means of communion with some divinity, and then its consumption may have come to be regarded not only as benefiting the partaker, but as a rite that could be performed for the welfare of another person. Apart from such speculations, we may note the frequent mention of wassailing in old English carols of the less ecclesiastical type; the singers carried with them a bowl or cup which they expected their wealthier neighbours to fill with drink.{13} Sometimes the bowl was adorned with ribbons and had a golden apple at the top,{14} and it is a noteworthy fact that the box with the Christmas images, mentioned in Chapter IV. (p. 118), is sometimes called "the Vessel [Wassail] Cup."{15}

The various Christmas dishes of Europe would form an interesting subject for exhaustive study. To suggest a religious origin for each would be going too far, for merely economic considerations must have had much to do with the matter, but it is very probable that in some cases they are relics of sacrifices or sacraments.

The pig is a favourite food animal at Christmas in other countries than our own, a fact probably connected with sacrificial customs. In Denmark and Sweden a pig's head was one of the principal articles of the great Christmas Eve repast.{16} In Germany it is a fairly widespread custom to kill a pig shortly before Christmas and partake of it on Christmas Day; its entrails and bones and the straw which has been in contact with it are supposed to have fertilizing powers.{17} In Roumania a pig is the Christmas animal par excellence,{18} in Russia pigs' trotters are a favourite dish at the New Year,{19} and in every Servian house roast pig is the principal Christmas dish.{20}

In Upper Bavaria there is a custom which almost certainly has at its root a sacrifice: a number of poor people club together at Christmas-time and buy a cow to be killed and eaten at a common feast.{21}

More doubtful is the sacrificial origin of the dishes of certain 287 special kinds of fish on Christmas Eve. In Saxony and Thuringia herring salad is eaten he who bakes it will have money all the year and in many parts of Germany and also in Styria carp is then consumed.{22} Round Erce in Brittany the family dish is cod.{23} In Italy the cenone or great supper held on Christmas Eve has fish for its animal basis, and stewed eels are particularly popular. It is to be remembered that in Catholic countries the Vigil of the Nativity is a fast, and meat is not allowed upon it; this alone would account for the prominence of fish on Christmas Eve.

We have already come across peculiar cakes eaten at various pre-Christmas festivals; at Christmas itself special kinds of bread, pastry, and cakes abound on the Continent, and in some cases at least may have a religious origin.

In France various sorts of cakes and loaves are known at the season of Noel. In Berry on Christmas morning loaves called cornaboeux, made in the shape of horns or a crescent, are distributed to the poor. In Lorraine people give one another cognes or cogneux, a kind of pastry in the shape of two crescents back to back, or else long and narrow in form and with a crescent at either end. In some parts of France the cornaboeux are known as holais, and ploughmen give to the poor as many of these loaves as they possess oxen and horses.{24} These horns may be substitutes for a sacrifice of oxen.

Sometimes the French Christmas cakes have the form of complete oxen or horses—such were the thin unleavened cakes sold in the early nineteenth century at La Chatre (Indre). In the neighbourhood of Chartres there are cochenilles and coquelins in animal and human shapes. Little cakes called naulets are sold by French bakers, and actually represent the Holy Child. With them may be compared the coignoles of French Flanders, cakes of oblong form adorned with the figure of the infant Jesus in sugar.{25} Sometimes the Christmas loaf or cake in France has healing properties; a certain kind of cake in Berry and Limousin is kept all through the year, and a piece eaten in sickness has marvellous powers.{26}

Cortet gives an extraordinary account of a French custom 288 connected with eating and drinking. At Mouthe (Doubs) there used to be brought to the church at Christmas pies, cakes, and other eatables, and wine of the best. They were called the "De fructu," and when at Vespers the verse "De fructu ventris tui ponam super sedem tuam" was reached, all the congregation made a rush for these refreshments, contended for them, and carried them off with singing and shouting.{27}

The most remarkable of Christmas cakes or loaves is the Swedish and Danish "Yule Boar," a loaf in the form of a boar-pig, which stands on the table throughout the festal season. It is often made from the corn of the last sheaf of the harvest, and in it Dr. Frazer finds a clear expression of the idea of the corn-spirit as embodied in pig form. "Often it is kept till sowing-time in spring, when part of it is mixed with the seed corn and part given to the ploughman and plough-horses or plough-oxen to eat, in the expectation of a good harvest." In some parts of the Esthonian island of Oesel the cake has not the form of a boar, but bears the same name, and on New Year's Day is given to the cattle. In other parts of the island the "Yule Boar" is actually a little pig, roasted on Christmas Eve and set up on the table.{28}

In Germany, besides stollen—a sort of plum-loaf—biscuits, often of animal or human shape, are very conspicuous on Christmas Eve. Any one who has witnessed a German Christmas will remember the extraordinary variety of them, lebkuchen, pfeffernuesse, printen, spekulatius biscuits, &c. In Berlin a great pile of biscuits heaped up on your plate is an important part of the Christmas Eve supper. These of course are nowadays mere luxuries, but they may well have had some sort of sacrificial origin. An admirable and exhaustive study of Teutonic Christmas cakes and biscuits has been made, with infinite pains, by an Austrian professor, Dr. Hoefler, who reproduces some curious old biscuits, stamped with highly artistic patterns, preserved in museums.{29}

Among unsophisticated German peasants there is a belief in magical powers possessed by bread baked at Christmas, particularly when moistened by Christmas dew. (This dew is held to be peculiarly sacred, perhaps on account of the words "Rorate, coeli, 289 desuper" used at the Advent Masses.) In Franconia such bread, thrown into a dangerous fire, stills the flames; in the north of Germany, if put during the Twelve Days into the fodder of the cattle, it makes them prolific and healthy throughout the year.{30}

It is pleasant to note that animals are often specially cared for at Christmas. Up till the early nineteenth century the cattle in Shropshire were always better fed at Christmas than at other times, and Miss Burne tells of an old gentleman in Cheshire who used then to give his poultry a double portion of grain, for, he said, "all creation should rejoice at Christmas, and the dumb creatures had no other manner of doing so."{31} The saying reminds one of that lover of Christmas and the animals, St. Francis of Assisi. It will be remembered how he wished that oxen and asses should have extra corn and hay at Christmas, "for reverence of the Son of God, whom on such a night the most Blessed Virgin Mary did lay down in the stall betwixt the ox and the ass."{32} It was a gracious thought, and no doubt with St. Francis, as with the old Cheshireman, it was a purely Christian one; very possibly, however, the original object of such attention to the dumb creatures was to bring to the animals, by means of the corn, the influence of the spirit of fertility.

In Silesia on Christmas night all the beasts are given wheat to make them thrive, and it is believed that if wheat be kept in the pocket during the Christmas service and then given to fowls, it will make them grow fat and lay many eggs.{33} In Sweden on Christmas Eve the cattle are given the best forage the house can afford, and afterwards a mess of all the viands of which their masters have partaken; the horses are given the choicest hay and, later on, ale; and the other animals are treated to good things.{34}

At Loblang in Hungary the last sheaf at harvest is kept, and given on New Year's morning to the wild birds.{35} In southern Germany corn is put on the roof for them on Christmas Eve, or,{36} as also in Sweden,{37} an unthreshed sheaf is set on a pole. In these cases it is possible that the food was originally an offering to ancestral or other spirits.

Revenons a nos gateaux. In Rome and elsewhere in Italy an important article of Christmas food is the panettone, a currant loaf. 290 Such loaves are sent as presents to friends. In eastern Europe, too, Christmas loaves or cakes are very conspicuous. The chesnitza and kolatch cakes among the southern Slavs are flat and wheel-like, with a circular hole in the middle and a number of lines radiating from it. In the central hole is sometimes placed a lighted taper or a small Christmas-tree hung with ribbons, tinsel, and sweetmeats. These cakes, made with elaborate ceremonial early in the morning, are solemnly broken by the house-father on Christmas Day, and a small piece is eaten by each member of the family. In some places one is fixed on the horn of the "eldest ox," and if he throws it off it is a good sign.{38} The last practice may be compared with a Herefordshire custom which we shall meet with on Twelfth Night (p. 346).

In southern Greece a special kind of flat loaves with a cross on the top is made on Christmas Eve. The name given is "Christ's Loaves." "The cloth is not removed from the table; but everything is left as it is in the belief that 'Christ will come and eat' during the night."{39} Probably Christ has here taken the place of ancestral spirits.

In Tyrol peasants eat at Christmastide the so-called zelten, a kind of pie filled with dried pear-slices, nuts, figs, raisins, and the like. It is baked on the Eve of St. Thomas, and its filling is as important an event for the whole family as was the plum-pudding and mincemeat making in old-fashioned English households. When the zelten is filled the sign of the cross is made upon it and it is sprinkled with holy water and put in the oven. When baked and cooled, it is laid in the family stock of rye and is not eaten until St. Stephen's Day or Epiphany. Its cutting by the father of the family is a matter of considerable solemnity. Smaller pies are made at the same time for the maid-servants, and a curious custom is connected with them. It is usual for the maids to visit their relations during the Christmas holidays and share with them their zelten. A young man who wishes to be engaged to a maid should offer to carry her pie for her. This is his declaration of love, and if she accepts the offer she signifies her approval of him. To him falls the duty or privilege of cutting the zelten.{40}

291 Other cake customs are associated with the Epiphany, and will be considered in connection with that festival. We may here in conclusion notice a few further articles of Christmas good cheer.

In Italy and Spain{41} a sort of nougat known as torrone or turron is eaten at Christmas. You may buy it even in London in the Italian quarter; in Eyre Street Hill it is sold on Christmas Eve on little gaily-decked street stalls. Its use may well be a survival of the Roman custom of giving sweet things at the Kalends in order that the year might be full of sweetness.

Some Little Russian feasting customs are probably pagan in origin, but have received a curious Christian interpretation. All Little Russians sit down to honey and porridge on Christmas Eve. They call it koutia, and cherish the custom as something that distinguishes them from Great and White Russians. Each dish is said to represent the Holy Crib. First porridge is put in, which is like putting straw in the manger; then each person helps himself to honey and fruit, and that symbolizes the Babe. A place is made in the porridge, and then the honey and fruit are poured in; the fruit stands for the body, the honey for the spirit or the blood.{42}

Something like this is the special dish eaten in every Roumanian peasant household on Christmas Eve—the turte. It is made up of a pile of thin dry leaves of dough, with melted sugar or honey, or powdered walnut, or the juice of the hemp-seed. The turte are traditionally said to represent the swaddling clothes of the Holy Child.{43}

In Poland a few weeks before Christmas monks bring round small packages of wafers made of flour and water, blessed by a priest, and with figures stamped upon them. No Polish family is without these oplatki; they are sent in letters to relations and friends, as we send Christmas cards. When the first star appears on Christmas Eve the whole family, beginning with the eldest member, break one of these wafers between themselves, at the same time exchanging good wishes. Afterwards the master and mistress go to the servants' quarters to divide the wafer there.{44}

292

RELICS OF SACRIFICE.

We have noted a connection, partial at least, between Christmas good cheer and sacrifice; let us now glance at a few customs of a different character but seemingly of sacrificial origin.

Traces of sacrifices of cats and dogs are to be found in Germany and Bohemia. In Lauenburg and Mecklenburg on Christmas morning, before the cattle are watered, a dog is thrown into their drinking water, in order that they may not suffer from the mange. In the Uckermark a cat may be substituted for the dog. In Bohemia a black cat is caught, boiled, and buried by night under a tree, to keep evil spirits from injuring the fields.{45}

A strange Christmas custom is the "hunting of the wren," once widespread in England and France and still practised in Ireland. In the Isle of Man very early on Christmas morning, when the church bells had rung out midnight, servants went out to hunt the wren. They killed the bird, fastened it to the top of a long pole, and carried it in procession to every house, chanting these words:—

"We hunted the wren for Robin the Bobbin, We hunted the wren for Jack of the Can, We hunted the wren for Robin the Bobbin, We hunted the wren for every one."

At each house they sought to collect money. At last, when all had been visited, they laid the wren on a bier, carried it to the churchyard, and buried it with the utmost solemnity, singing Manx dirges. Another account, from the mid-nineteenth century, describes how on St. Stephen's Day Manx boys went from door to door with a wren suspended by the legs in the centre of two hoops crossing one another at right angles and decorated with evergreens and ribbons. In exchange for a small coin they would give a feather of the wren, which was carefully kept as a preservative against shipwreck during the year.[110]{46} 293 There are also traces of a Manx custom of boiling and eating the bird.{48}

The wren is popularly called "the king of birds," and it is supposed to be highly unlucky to kill one at ordinary times. Probably it was once regarded as sacred, and the Christmas "hunting" is the survival of an annual custom of slaying the divine animal, such as is found among primitive peoples.{49} The carrying of its body from door to door is apparently intended to convey to each house a portion of its virtues, while the actual eating of the bird would be a sort of communion feast. Perhaps the custom, in a Cornish village, of eating blackbird pie on Twelfth Day should be explained in the same way.{50}

I can here hardly do more than allude to the many games{51} that were traditional in England at Christmas—hoodman-blind, shoe the wild mare, hot cockles, steal the white loaf, snap-dragon, and the rest. To attempt to describe and explain them would lead me too far, but it is highly probable that some at least might be traced to an origin in sacrificial ritual. The degeneration of religious rites into mere play is, indeed, as we have seen, a process illustrated by the whole history of Christmas.

Only two British Christmas games can be discussed in this book: blindman's buff and football. An account of a remarkable Christmas football match will be found in the chapter on Epiphany customs, where it is brought into connection with that closely related game, the "Haxey hood."

As for blindman's buff, it is distinctly a Christmas sport, and it is known nearly all over Europe by names derived from animals, e.g., "blind cow" and "blind mouse." Mr. N. W. Thomas has suggested that "the explanation of these names is that the players originally wore masks; the game is known in some cases as the 'blinde Mumm,' or blind mask.... The player who is 'it' seems to be the sacrificer; he bears the same name as the victim, just as in agricultural customs the reaper of the last corn bears the same name as the last sheaf."{52}

The Scandinavian countries are very rich in Christmas games and dances,{53} of which it would be interesting to attempt explanations if space allowed. One Swedish song and dance game it 294 may be related to the sword-dance (see Chapter XIII.) is obviously sacrificial. Several youths, with blackened faces and persons disguised, are the performers. One of them is put to death with a knife by a woman in hideous attire. Afterwards, with gross gestures, she dances with the victim.{54} According to another account, from Gothland, the victim sits clad in a skin, holding in his mouth a wisp of straw cut sharp at the ends and standing out. It has been conjectured that this is meant to resemble a swine's bristles, and that the man represents a hog sacrificed to Frey.{55}

Lastly a Russian game may be mentioned, though it has no sacrificial suggestion. During the Christmas season girls play at what is called "the Burial of the Gold." They form a circle, with one girl standing in the centre, and pass from hand to hand a gold ring, which the maiden inside tries to detect. Meanwhile a song is sung, "Gold I bury, gold I bury." Some imaginative mythologists interpret the ring as representing the sun, buried by the clouds of winter.{56}

295 296 297



CHAPTER XIII

MASKING, THE MUMMERS' PLAY, THE FEAST OF FOOLS, AND THE BOY BISHOP

English Court Masking—"The Lord of Misrule"—The Mummers' Play, the Sword-Dance, and the Morris Dance—Origin of St. George and other Characters—Mumming in Eastern Europe—The Feast of Fools, its History and Suppression—The Boy Bishop, his Functions and Sermons—Modern Survivals of the Boy Bishop.



We have already seen a good deal of masking in connection with St. Nicholas, Knecht Ruprecht, and other figures of the German Christmas; we may next give some attention to English customs of the same sort during the Twelve Days, and then pass on to the strange burlesque ceremonies of the Feast of Fools and the Boy Bishop, ceremonies which show an intrusion of pagan mummery into the sanctuary itself.

CHRISTMAS MASKING.

The custom of Christmas masking, "mumming," or "disguising" can be traced at the English court as early as the reign of Edward III. It is in all probability connected with that wearing of beasts' heads and skins of which we have already noted various examples—its origin in folk-custom seems to have been the coming of a band of worshippers clad in this uncouth but auspicious garb to bring good luck to a house.{1} The most direct English survival is found in the village mummers who still call themselves "guisers" or "geese-dancers" and claim the right to enter every house. These will be dealt with shortly, after a consideration of more courtly customs of the same kind.

298 In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the English court masque reached its greatest developments; the fundamental idea was then generally overlaid with splendid trappings, the dresses and the arrangements were often extremely elaborate, and the introduction of dialogued speech made these "disguises" regular dramatic performances. A notable example is Ben Jonson's "Masque of Christmas."{2} Shakespeare, however, gives us in "Henry VIII."{3} an example of a simpler impromptu form: the king and a party dressed up as shepherds break in upon a banquet of Wolsey's.

In this volume we are more concerned with the popular Christmas than with the festivities of kings and courts and grandees. Mention must, however, be made of a personage who played an important part in the Christmas of the Tudor court and appeared also in colleges, Inns of Court, and the houses of the nobility—the "Lord of Misrule."{4} He was annually elected to preside over the revels, had a retinue of courtiers, and was surrounded by elaborate ceremonial. He seems to be the equivalent and was probably the direct descendant of the "Abbot" or "Bishop" of the Feast of Fools, who will be noticed later in this chapter. Sometimes indeed he is actually called "Abbot of Misrule." A parallel to him is the Twelfth Night "king," and he appears to be a courtly example of the temporary monarch of folk-custom, though his name is sometimes extended to "kings" of quite vulgar origin elected not by court or gentry but by the common people. The "Lord of Misrule" was among the relics of paganism most violently attacked by Puritan writers like Stubbes and Prynne, and the Great Rebellion seems to have been the death of him.

MUMMERS' PLAYS AND MORRIS DANCES.

Let us turn now to the rustic Christmas mummers, to-day fast disappearing, but common enough in the mid-nineteenth century. Their goings-on are really far more interesting, because more traditional, than the elaborate shows and dressings-up of the court. Their names vary: "mummers" and "guisers" are the commonest; in Sussex they are "tipteerers," perhaps because of 299 the perquisites they collect, in Cornwall "geese-dancers" ("geese" no doubt comes from "disguise"), in Shropshire "morris" or "merry" "dancers."{5} It is to be noted that they are unbidden guests, and enter your house as of right.{6} Sometimes they merely dance, sing, and feast, but commonly they perform a rude drama.{7}

The plays acted by the mummers{8} vary so much that it is difficult to describe them in general terms. There is no reason to suppose that the words are of great antiquity—the earliest form may perhaps date from the seventeenth century; they appear to be the result of a crude dramatic and literary instinct working upon the remains of traditional ritual, and manipulating it for purposes of entertainment. The central figure is St. George (occasionally he is called Sir, King, or Prince George), and the main dramatic substance, after a prologue and introduction of the characters, is a fight and the arrival of a doctor to bring back the slain to life. At the close comes a quete for money. The name George is found in all the Christmas plays, but the other characters have a bewildering variety of names ranging from Hector and Alexander to Bonaparte and Nelson.

Mr. Chambers in two very interesting and elaborately documented chapters has traced a connection between these St. George players and the sword-dancers found at Christmas or other festivals in Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Sweden, and Great Britain. The sword-dance in its simplest form is described by Tacitus in his "Germania": "they have," he says of the Germans, "but one kind of public show: in every gathering it is the same. Naked youths, who profess this sport, fling themselves in dance among swords and levelled lances."{9} In certain forms of the dance there are figures in which the swords are brought together on the heads of performers, or a pretence is made to cut at heads and feet, or the swords are put in a ring round a person's neck. This strongly suggests that an execution, probably a sacrifice, lies at the bottom of the dances. In several cases, moreover, they are accompanied by sets of verses containing the incident of a quarrel and the violent death of one of the performers. The likeness to the central feature of the 300 St. George play the slaying will be noticed. In one of the dances, too, there is even a doctor who revives the victim.

In England the sword-dance is found chiefly in the north, but with it appear to be identical the morris-dances—characterized by the wearing of jingling bells—which are commoner in the southern counties. Blackened faces are common in both, and both have the same grotesque figures, a man and a woman, often called Tommy and Bessy in the sword-dance and "the fool" and Maid Marian in the morris. Moreover the morris-dancers in England sometimes use swords, and in one case the performers of an undoubted sword-dance were called "morrice" dancers in the eighteenth century. Bells too, so characteristic of the morris, are mentioned in some Continental accounts of the sword-dance.[111]

Intermediate between these dances and the fully developed St. George dramas are the plays performed on Plough Monday in Lincolnshire and the East Midlands. They all contain a good deal of dancing, a violent death and a revival, and grotesques found both in the dances and in the Christmas plays.

The sword-dance thus passes by a gradual transition, the dancing diminishing, the dramatic elements increasing, into the mummers' plays of St. George. The central motive, death and revival, Mr. Chambers regards as a symbol of the resurrection of the year or the spirit of vegetation,[112] like the Thuringian custom of executing a "wild man" covered with leaves, whom a doctor brings to life again by bleeding. This piece of ritual has apparently been attracted to Christmas from an early feast of spring, and Plough Monday, when the East Midland plays take place, is just such an early spring feast. Again, in some places the 301 St. George play is performed at Easter, a date alluded to in the title, "Pace-eggers'" or "Pasque-eggers'" play.{13}

Two grotesque figures appear with varying degrees of clearness and with various names in the dances and in the plays—the "fool" (Tommy) who wears the skin and tail of a fox or other animal, and a man dressed in woman's clothes (Bessy). In these we may recognize the skin-clad mummer and the man aping a woman whom we meet in the old Kalends denunciations. Sometimes the two are combined, while a hobby-horse also not unfrequently appears.{14}

How exactly St. George came to be the central figure of the Christmas plays is uncertain; possibly they may be a development of a dance in which appeared the "Seven Champions," the English national heroes—of whom Richard Johnson wrote a history in 1596—with St. George at their head. It is more probable, however, that the saint came in from the mediaeval pageants held on his day in many English towns.{15}

* * * * *

Can it be that the German St. Nicholas plays are more Christianized and sophisticated forms of folk-dramas like in origin to those we have been discussing? They certainly resemble the English plays in the manner in which one actor calls in another by name; while the grotesque figures introduced have some likeness to the "fool" of the morris.

Christmas mumming, it may be added, is found in eastern as well as western Europe. In Greece, where ecclesiastical condemnations of such things can be traced with remarkable clearness from early times to the twelfth century, it takes sundry forms. "At Pharsala," writes Mr. J. C. Lawson, "there is a sort of play at the Epiphany, in which the mummers represent bride, bridegroom, and 'Arab'; the Arab tries to carry off the bride, and the bridegroom defends her.... Formerly also at 'Kozane and in many other parts of Greece,' according to a Greek writer in the early part of the nineteenth century, throughout the Twelve Days boys carrying bells used to go round the houses, singing songs and having 'one or more of their company dressed up with masks and bells and foxes' brushes and other such things to give them a weird and monstrous look.'"{16}

302 In Russia, too, mummers used to go about at Christmastide, visiting houses, dancing, and performing all kinds of antics. "Prominent parts were always played by human representatives of a goat and a bear. Some of the party would be disguised as 'Lazaruses,' that is, as blind beggars." A certain number of the mummers were generally supposed to play the part of thieves anxious to break in.{17} Readers of Tolstoy's "War and Peace" may remember a description of some such maskings in the year 1810.

THE FEAST OF FOOLS.

So far, in this Second Part, we have been considering customs practised chiefly in houses, streets, and fields. We must now turn to certain festivities following hard upon Christmas Day, which, though pagan in origin and sometimes even blasphemous, found their way in the Middle Ages within the walls of the church.

Shortly after Christmas a group of tripudia or revels was held by the various inferior clergy and ministrants of cathedrals and other churches. These festivals, of which the best known are the Feast of Fools and the Boy Bishop ceremonies, have been so fully described by other writers, and my space here is so limited, that I need but treat them in outline, and for detail refer the reader to such admirable accounts as are to be found in Chapters XIII., XIV., and XV. of Mr. Chamber's "The Mediaeval Stage."{18}

Johannes Belethus, Rector of Theology at Paris towards the end of the twelfth century, speaks of four tripudia held after Christmas: those of the deacons on St. Stephen's Day, the priests on St. John's, the choir-boys on Holy Innocents', and the subdeacons on the Circumcision, the Epiphany, or the Octave of the Epiphany. The feast of subdeacons, says Belethus, "we call that of fools." It is this feast which, though not apparently the earliest in origin of the four, was the most riotous and disorderly, and shows most clearly its pagan character. Belethus' mention of it is the first clear notice, though disorderly revels of the same kind seem to have existed at Constantinople as early as the ninth century. At first confined to the subdeacons, the Feast of Fools became in its later developments a festival not only of that order but of the 303 inferior clergy in general, of the vicars choral, the chaplains, and the choir-clerks, as distinguished from the canons. For this rabble of poor and low-class clergy it was no doubt a welcome relaxation, and one can hardly wonder that they let themselves go in burlesquing the sacred but often wearisome rites at which it was their business to be present through many long hours, or that they delighted to usurp for once in a way the functions ordinarily performed by their superiors. The putting down of the mighty from their seat and the exalting of them of low degree was the keynote of the festival. While "Deposuit potentes de sede: et exaltavit humiles" was being sung at the "Magnificat," it would appear that the precentor's baculus or staff was handed over to the clerk who was to be "lord of the feast" for the year, and throughout the services of the day the inferior clergy predominated, under the leadership of this chosen "lord." He was usually given some title of ecclesiastical dignity, "bishop," "prelate," "archbishop," "cardinal," or even "pope," was vested in full pontificals, and in some cases sat on the real bishop's throne, gave benedictions, and issued indulgences.

These lower clergy, it must be remembered, belonged to the peasant or small bourgeois class and were probably for the most part but ill-educated. They were likely to bring with them into the Church the superstitions floating about among the people, and the Feast of Fools may be regarded as a recoil of paganism upon Christianity in its very sanctuary. "An ebullition of the natural lout beneath the cassock" it has been called by Mr. Chambers, and many of its usages may be explained by the reaction of coarse natures freed for once from restraint. It brought to light, however, not merely personal vulgarity, but a whole range of traditional customs, derived probably from a fusion of the Roman feast of the Kalends of January with Teutonic or Celtic heathen festivities.

A general account of its usages is given in a letter addressed in 1445 by the Paris Faculty of Theology to the bishops and chapters of France:—

"Priests and clerks may be seen wearing masks and monstrous visages at the hours of office. They dance in the choir dressed as 304 women, panders or minstrels. They sing wanton songs. They eat black puddings at the horn of the altar while the celebrant is saying Mass. They play at dice there. They cense with stinking smoke from the soles of old shoes. They run and leap through the church, without a blush at their own shame. Finally they drive about the town and its theatres in shabby traps and carts, and rouse the laughter of their fellows and the bystanders in infamous performances, with indecent gesture and verses scurrilous and unchaste."{19}

The letter also speaks of "bishops" or "archbishops" of Fools, who wore mitres and held pastoral staffs. We here see clearly, besides mere irreverence, an outcrop of pagan practices. Topsy-turvydom, the temporary exaltation of inferiors, was itself a characteristic of the Kalends celebrations, and a still more remarkable feature of them was, as we have seen, the wearing of beast-masks and the dressing up of men in women's clothes. And what is the "bishop" or "archbishop" but a parallel to, and, we may well believe, an example of, the mock king whom Dr. Frazer has traced in so many a folk-festival, and who is found at the Saturnalia?

One more feature of the Feast of Fools must be considered, the Ass who gave to it the not uncommon title of asinaria festa. At Bourges, Sens, and Beauvais, a curious half-comic hymn was sung in church, the so-called "Prose of the Ass." It begins as follows:—

"Orientis partibus Adventavit Asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus, Sarcinis aptissimus. Hez, Sir Asnes, car chantez, Belle bouche rechignez, Vous aurez du foin assez Et de l'avoine a plantez."

And after eight verses in praise of the beast, with some mention of his connection with Bethlehem and the Wise Men, it closes thus:—

"Amen dicas, Asine, Iam satur de gramine, 305 Amen, Amen, itera, Aspernare vetera. Hez va, hez va! hez va, hez! Bialx Sire Asnes, car allez: Belle bouche, car chantez."{20}

An ass, it would seem, was actually brought into church, at Beauvais at all events, during the singing of this song on the feast of the Circumcision. On January 14 an extraordinary ceremony took place there. A girl with a child in her arms rode upon an ass into St. Stephen's church, to represent the Flight into Egypt. The Introit, "Kyrie," "Gloria," and "Credo" at Mass ended in a bray, and at the close of the service the priest instead of saying "Ite, missa est," had to bray three times, and the people to respond in like manner. Mr. Chambers's theory is that the ass was a descendant of the cervulus or hobby-buck who figures so largely in ecclesiastical condemnations of Kalends customs.

The country par excellence of the Feast of the Fools was France. It can also be traced in Germany and Bohemia, while in England too there are notices of it, though far fewer than in France. Its abuses were the subject of frequent denunciations by Church reformers from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. The feast was prohibited at various times, and notably by the Council of Basle in 1435, but it was too popular to be quickly suppressed, and it took a century and a half to die out after this condemnation by a general council of the Church. In one cathedral, Amiens, it even lingered until 1721.

When in the fifteenth century and later the Feast of Fools was expelled from the churches of France, associations of laymen sprang up to carry on its traditions outside. It was indeed a form of entertainment which the townsfolk as well as the lower clergy thoroughly appreciated, and they were by no means willing to let it die. A Prince des Sots took the place of the "bishop," and was chosen by societes joyeuses organized by the youth of the cities for New Year merrymaking. Gradually their activities grew, and their celebrations came to take place at other festive times beside the Christmas season. The sots had a distinctive dress, its 306 most characteristic feature being a hood with asses' ears, probably a relic of the primitive days when the heads of sacrificed animals were worn by festal worshippers.{21}

THE BOY BISHOP.

Of older standing than the Feast of Fools were the Christmas revels of the deacons, the priests, and the choir-boys. They can be traced back to the early tenth century, and may have originated at the great song-school of St. Gall near Constance. The most important of the three feasts was that of the boys on Holy Innocents' Day, a theoretically appropriate date. Corresponding to the "lord" of the Feast of Fools was the famous "Boy Bishop," a choir-boy chosen by the lads themselves, who was vested in cope and mitre, held a pastoral staff, and gave the benediction. Other boys too usurped the dignities of their elders, and were attired as dean, archdeacons, and canons. Offices for the festival, in which the Boy Bishop figures largely, are to be found in English, French, and German service-books, the best known in this country being those in the Sarum Processional and Breviary. In England these ceremonies were far more popular and lasting than the Feast of Fools, and, unlike it, they were recognized and approved by authority, probably because boys were more amenable to discipline than men, and objectionable features could be pruned away with comparative ease. The festivities must have formed a delightful break in the year of the mediaeval schoolboy, for whom holidays, as distinguished from holy-days for church-going, scarcely existed. The feast, as we shall see, was by no means confined within the church walls; there was plenty of merrymaking and money-making outside.

Minute details have been preserved of the Boy Bishop customs at St. Paul's Cathedral in the thirteenth century. It had apparently been usual for the "bishop" to make the cathedral dignitaries act as taper- and incense-bearers, thus reversing matters so that the great performed the functions of the lowly. In 1263 this was forbidden, and only clerks of lower rank might be chosen for these offices. But the "bishop" had the right to demand 307 after Compline on the Eve of the Innocents a supper for himself and his train from the Dean or one of his canons. The number of his following must, however, be limited; if he went to the Dean's he might take with him a train of fifteen: two chaplains, two taper-bearers, five clerks, two vergers, and four residentiary canons; if to a lesser dignitary his attendants were to be fewer.

On Innocents' Day he was given a dinner, after which came a cavalcade through the city, that the "bishop" might bless the people. He had also to preach a sermon—no doubt written for him.

Examples of such discourses are still extant,{22} and are not without quaint touches. For instance the bidding prayer before one of them alludes to "the ryghte reverende fader and worshypfull lorde my broder Bysshopp of London, your dyoceasan," and "my worshypfull broder [the] Deane of this cathedrall chirche,"{23} while in another the preacher remarks, speaking of the choristers and children of the song-school, "Yt is not so long sens I was one of them myself."{24}

In some places it appears, though this is by no means certain, that the boy actually sang Mass. The "bishop's" office was a very desirable one not merely because of the feasting, but because he had usually the right to levy contributions on the faithful, and the amounts collected were often very large. At York, for instance, in 1396 the "bishop" pocketed about L77, all expenses paid.

The general parallelism of the Boy Bishop customs and the Feast of Fools is obvious, and no doubt they had much the same folk-origin. One point, already mentioned, should specially be noticed: the election of the Boy Bishop generally took place on December 5, the Eve of St. Nicholas, patron of children; he was often called "Nicholas bishop"; and sometimes, as at Eton and Mayence, he exercised episcopal functions at divine service on the eve and the feast itself. It is possible, as Mr. Chambers suggests, that St. Nicholas's Day was an older date for the boys' festival than Holy Innocents', and that from the connection with St. Nicholas, the bishop saint par excellence (he was said to have been consecrated by divine command when still a mere layman), sprang 308 the custom of giving the title "bishop" to the "lord" first of the boys' feast and later of the Feast of Fools.

In the late Middle Ages the Boy Bishop was found not merely in cathedral, monastic, and collegiate churches but in many parish churches throughout England and Scotland. Various inventories of the vestments and ornaments provided for him still exist. With the beginnings of the Reformation came his suppression: a proclamation of Henry VIII., dated July 22, 1541, commands "that from henceforth all suche superstitions be loste and clyerlye extinguisshed throughowte all this his realmes and dominions, forasmoche as the same doo resemble rather the unlawfull superstition of gentilitie [paganism], than the pure and sincere religion of Christe."{25} In Mary's reign the Boy Bishop reappeared, along with other "Popish" usages, but after Elizabeth's accession he naturally fell into oblivion. A few traces of him lingered in the seventeenth century. "The Schoole-boies in the west," says Aubrey, "still religiously observe St. Nicholas day (Decemb. 6th), he was the Patron of the Schoole-boies. At Curry-Yeovill in Somersetshire, where there is a Howschole (or schole) in the Church, they have annually at that time a Barrell of good Ale brought into the church; and that night they have the priviledge to breake open their Masters Cellar-dore."{26}

In France he seems to have gradually vanished, as, after the Reformation, the Catholic Church grew more and more "respectable," but traces of him are to be found in the eighteenth century at Lyons and Rheims; and at Sens, even in the nineteenth, the choir-boys used to play at being bishops on Innocents' Day and call their "archbishop" ane—a memory this of the old asinaria festa.{27} In Denmark a vague trace of him was retained in the nineteenth century in a children's game. A boy was dressed up in a white shirt, and seated on a chair, and the children sang a verse beginning, "Here we consecrate a Yule-bishop," and offered him nuts and apples.{28}

309 310 311



CHAPTER XIV

ST. STEPHEN'S, ST. JOHN'S, AND HOLY INNOCENTS' DAYS

Horse Customs of St. Stephen's Day—The Swedish St. Stephen—St. John's Wine—Childermas and its Beatings.

The three saints' days immediately following Christmas—St. Stephen's (December 26), St. John the Evangelist's (December 27), and the Holy Innocents' (December 28)—have still various folk-customs associated with them, in some cases purely secular, in others hallowed by the Church.

ST. STEPHEN'S DAY.

In Tyrolese churches early in the morning of St. Stephen's Day there takes place a consecration of water and of salt brought by the people. The water is used by the peasants to sprinkle food, barns, and fields in order to avert the influence of witches and evil spirits, and bread soaked in it is given to the cattle when they are driven out to pasture on Whit Monday. The salt, too, is given to the beasts, and the peasants themselves partake of it before any important journey like a pilgrimage. Moreover when a storm is threatening some is thrown into the fire as a protection against hail.{1}

The most striking thing about St. Stephen's Day, however, is its connection with horses. St. Stephen is their patron; in England in former times they were bled on his festival in the belief that it would benefit them,{2} and the custom is still continued in some parts of Austria.{3} In Tyrol it is the custom not only to 312 bleed horses on St. Stephen's Day, but also to give them consecrated salt and bread or oats and barley.{4}

In some of the Carinthian valleys where horse-breeding is specially carried on, the young men ride into the village on their unsaddled steeds, and a race is run four or five times round the church, while the priest blesses the animals, sprinkling them with holy water and exorcizing them.{5}

Similar customs are or were found in various parts of Germany. In Munich, formerly, during the services on St. Stephen's Day more than two hundred men on horseback used to ride three times round the interior of a church. The horses were decorated with many-coloured ribbons, and the practice was not abolished till 1876.{6} At Backnang in Swabia horses were ridden out, as fast as possible, to protect them from the influence of witches, and in the Hohenlohe region men-servants were permitted by their masters to ride in companies to neighbouring places, where much drinking went on.{7} In Holstein the lads on Stephen's Eve used to visit their neighbours in a company, groom the horses, and ride about in the farmyards, making a great noise until the people woke up and treated them to beer and spirits.{8} At the village of Wallsbuell near Flensburg the peasant youths in the early morning held a race, and the winner was called Steffen and entertained at the inn. At Vioel near Bredstadt the child who got up last on December 26 received the name of Steffen and had to ride to a neighbour's house on a hay-fork. In other German districts the festival was called "the great horse-day," consecrated food was given to the animals, they were driven round and round the fields until they sweated violently, and at last were ridden to the blacksmith's and bled, to keep them healthy through the year. The blood was preserved as a remedy for various illnesses.{9}

It is, however, in Sweden that the "horsy" aspect of the festival is most obvious.{10} Formerly there was a custom, at one o'clock on St. Stephen's morning, for horses to be ridden to water that flowed northward; they would then drink "the cream of the water" and flourish during the year. There was a violent race to the water, and the servant who got there first was rewarded by a drink of something stronger. Again, early that morning one 313 peasant would clean out another's stable, often at some distance from his home, feed, water, and rub down the horses, and then be entertained to breakfast. In olden times after service on St. Stephen's Day there was a race home on horseback, and it was supposed that he who arrived first would be the first to get his harvest in. But the most remarkable custom is the early morning jaunt of the so-called "Stephen's men," companies of peasant youths, who long before daybreak ride in a kind of race from village to village and awaken the inhabitants with a folk-song called Staffansvisa, expecting to be treated to ale or spirits in return.

The cavalcade is supposed to represent St. Stephen and his followers, yet the saint is not, as might be expected, the first martyr of the New Testament, but a dauntless missionary who, according to old legends, was one of the first preachers of the Gospel in Sweden, and was murdered by the heathen in a dark forest. A special trait, his love of horses, connects him with the customs just described. He had, the legends tell, five steeds: two red, two white, one dappled; when one was weary he mounted another, making every week a great round to preach the Word. After his death his body was fastened to the back of an unbroken colt, which halted not till it came near Norrala, his home. There he was buried, and a church built over his grave became a place of pilgrimage to which sick animals, especially horses, were brought for healing.

Mannhardt and Feilberg hold that this Swedish St. Stephen is not a historical personage but a mythical figure, like many other saints, and that his legend, so bound up with horses, was an attempt to account for the folk-customs practised on the day dedicated to St. Stephen the first martyr. It is interesting to note that legendary tradition has played about a good deal with the New Testament Stephen; for instance an old English carol makes him a servant in King Herod's hall at the time of Christ's birth:—

"Stephen out of kitchen came, With boares head on hand, He saw a star was fair and bright Over Bethlehem stand."

314 Thereupon he forsook King Herod for the Child Jesus, and was stoned to death.{11}

To return, however, to the horse customs of the day after Christmas, it is pretty plain that they are of non-Christian origin. Mannhardt has suggested that the race which is their most prominent feature once formed the prelude to a ceremony of lustration of houses and fields with a sacred tree. Somewhat similar "ridings" are found in various parts of Europe in spring, and are connected with a procession that appears to be an ecclesiastical adaptation of a pre-Christian lustration-rite.{12} The great name of Mannhardt lends weight to this theory, but it seems a somewhat roundabout way of accounting for the facts. Perhaps an explanation of the "horsiness" of the day might be sought in some pre-Christian sacrifice of steeds.

* * * * *

We have already noted that St. Stephen's Day is often the date for the "hunting of the wren" in the British Isles; it was also in England generally devoted to hunting and shooting, it being held that the game laws were not in force on that day.{13} This may be only an instance of Christmas licence, but it is just possible that there is here a survival of some tradition of sacrificial slaughter.

ST. JOHN'S DAY.

An ecclesiastical adaptation of a pagan practice may be seen in the Johannissegen customary on St. John's Day in many parts of Catholic Germany and Austria. A quantity of wine is brought to church to be blessed by the priest after Mass, and is taken away by the people to be drunk at home. There are many popular beliefs about the magical powers of this wine, beliefs which can be traced back through at least four centuries. In Tyrol and Bavaria it is supposed to protect its drinker from being struck by lightning, in the Rhenish Palatinate it is drunk in order that the other wine a man possesses may be kept from injury, or that next year's harvest may be good. In Nassau, Carinthia, and other regions some is poured into the wine-casks to preserve the precious drink from harm, while in Bavaria some is kept for use as medicine in sickness. 315 In Syria St. John's wine is said to keep the body sound and healthy, and on his day even babes in the cradle are made to join in the family drinking.{14}

It appears that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there was a great drinking on St. John's Day of ordinary, as well as consecrated, wine, often to excess, and scholars of that time seriously believed that Weihnacht, the German name for Christmas, should properly be spelt Weinnacht.{15} The Johannissegen, or Johannisminne as it was sometimes called, seems, all things considered, to be a survival of an old wine sacrifice like the Martinsminne. That it does not owe its origin to the legend about the cup of poison drunk by St. John is shown by the fact that a similar custom was in old times practised in Germany and Sweden on St. Stephen's Day.{16}

HOLY INNOCENTS' DAY.

Holy Innocents' Day or Childermas, whether or not because of Herod's massacre, was formerly peculiarly unlucky; it was a day upon which no one, if he could possibly avoid it, should begin any piece of work. It is said of that superstitious monarch, Louis XI. of France, that he would never do any business on that day, and of our own Edward IV. that his coronation was postponed, because the date originally fixed was Childermas. In Cornwall no housewife would scour or scrub on Childermas, and in Northamptonshire it was considered very unlucky to begin any undertaking or even to do washing throughout the year on the day of the week on which the feast fell. Childermas was there called Dyzemas and a saying ran: "What is begun on Dyzemas Day will never be finished." In Ireland it was called "the cross day of the year," and it was said that anything then begun must have an unlucky ending.{17}

In folk-ritual the day is remarkable for its association with whipping customs. The seventeenth-century writer Gregorie mentions a custom of whipping up children on Innocents' Day in the morning, and explains its purpose as being that the memory of Herod's "murther might stick the closer; and, in a moderate proportion, to act over the crueltie again in kind."{18}

316 This explanation will hardly hold water; the many and various examples of the practice of whipping at Christmas collected by Mannhardt{19} show that it is not confined either to Innocents' Day or to children. Moreover it is often regarded not as a cruel infliction, but as a service for which return must be made in good things to eat.

In central and southern Germany the custom is called "peppering" (pfeffern) and also by other names. In the Orlagau the girls on St. Stephen's, and the boys on St. John's Day beat their parents and godparents with green fir-branches, while the menservants beat their masters with rosemary sticks, saying:

"Fresh green! Long life! Give me a bright thaler [or nuts, &c.]."

They are entertained with plum-loaf or gingerbreads and brandy. In the Saxon Erzgebirge the young fellows whip the women and girls on St. Stephen's Day, if possible while they are still in bed, with birch-rods, singing the while:

"Fresh green, fair and fine, Gingerbread and brandy-wine";

and on St. John's Day the women pay the men back. At several places in the Thuringian Forest children on Innocents' Day beat passers-by with birch-boughs, and get in return apples, nuts, and other dainties. Various other German examples of the same class of practice are given by Mannhardt.{20}

In France children who let themselves be caught in bed on the morning of Holy Innocents' came in for a whipping from their parents; while in one province, Normandy, the early risers among the young people themselves gave the sluggards a beating. The practice even gave birth to a verb—innocenter.{21}

There can be little doubt that the Innocents' Day beating is a survival of a pre-Christian custom. Similar ritual scourging is found in many countries at various seasons of the year, and is by no means confined to Europe.{22} As now practised, it has 317 often a harsh appearance, or has become a kind of teasing, as when in Bohemia at Easter young men whip girls until they give them something. Its original purpose, however, as we have seen in connection with St. Martin's rod, seems to have been altogether kindly. The whipping was not meant as a punishment or expiation or to harden people to pain, but either to expel harmful influences and drive out evil spirits or to convey by contact the virtues of some sacred tree.

318 319 320 321



CHAPTER XV

NEW YEAR'S DAY

Principle of New Year Customs—The New Year in France, Germany, the United States, and Eastern Europe—"First-footing" in Great Britain—Scottish New Year Practices—Highland Fumigation and "Breast-strip" Customs—Hogmanay and Aguillanneuf—New Year Processions in Macedonia, Roumania, Greece, and Rome—Methods of Augury—Sundry New Year Charms.

Coming to January 1, the modern and the Roman New Year's Day, we shall find that most of its customs have been anticipated at earlier festivals; the Roman Kalends practices have often been shifted to Christmas, while old Celtic and Teutonic New Year practices have frequently been transferred to the Roman date.[113]

The observances of New Year's Day mainly rest, as was said in Chapter VI., on the principle that "a good beginning makes a good ending," that as the first day is so will the rest be. If you would have plenty to eat during the year, dine lavishly on New Year's Day, if you would be rich see that your pockets are not empty at this critical season, if you would be lucky avoid like poison at this of all times everything of ill omen.

"On the Borders," says Mr. W. Henderson, "care is taken that no one enters a house empty-handed on New Year's Day. A visitor must bring in his hand some eatable; he will be doubly welcome if he carries in a hot stoup or 'plotie.' Everybody 322 should wear a new dress on New Year's Day, and if its pockets contain money of every description they will be certain not to be empty throughout the year."{2}

The laying of stress on what happens on New Year's Day is by no means peculiarly European. Hindus, for instance, as Mr. Edgar Thurston tells us, "are very particular about catching sight of some auspicious object on the morning of New Year's Day, as the effects of omens seen on that occasion are believed to last throughout the year." It is thought that a man's whole prosperity depends upon the things that he then happens to fix his eyes upon.{3}

Charms, omens, and good wishes are naturally the most prominent customs of January 1 and its Eve. The New Year in England can hardly be called a popular festival; there is no public holiday and the occasion is more associated with penitential Watch Night services and good resolutions than with rejoicing. But let the reader, if he be in London, pay a visit to Soho at this time, and he will get some idea of what the New Year means to the foreigner. The little restaurants are decorated with gay festoons of all colours and thronged with merrymakers, the shop-windows are crowded with all manner of recherche delicacies; it is the gala season of the year.

In France January 1 is a far more festal day than Christmas; it is then that presents are given, family gatherings held, and calls paid. In the morning children find their stockings filled with gifts, and then rush off to offer good wishes to their parents. In the afternoon the younger people call upon their older relations, and in the evening all meet for dinner at the home of the head of the family.{4}

In Germany the New Year is a time of great importance. Cards are far more numerous than at Christmas, and "New Year boxes" are given to the tradespeople, while on the Eve (Sylvesterabend) there are dances or parties, the custom of forecasting the future by lead-pouring is practised, and at the stroke of midnight there is a general cry of "Prosit Neu Jahr!", a drinking of healths, and a shaking of hands.{5}

New Year wishes and "compliments of the season" are 323 familiar to us all, but in England we have not that custom of paying formal calls which in France is so characteristic of January 1, when not only relations and personal friends, but people whose connection is purely official are expected to visit one another. In devout Brittany the wish exchanged takes a beautiful religious form "I wish you a good year and Paradise at the end of your days."{6}

New Year calling is by no means confined to France. In the United States it is one of the few traces left by the early Dutch settlers on American manners. The custom is now rapidly falling into disuse,{7} but in New York up to the middle of the nineteenth century "New Year's Day was devoted to the universal interchange of visits. Every door was thrown wide open. It was a breach of etiquette to omit any acquaintance in these annual calls, when old friendships were renewed and family differences amicably settled. A hearty welcome was extended even to strangers of presentable appearance." At that time the day was marked by tremendous eating and drinking, and its visiting customs sometimes developed into wild riot. Young men in barouches would rattle from one house to another all day long. "The ceremony of calling was a burlesque. There was a noisy and hilarious greeting, a glass of wine was swallowed hurriedly, everybody shook hands all round, and the callers dashed out and rushed into the carriage and were driven rapidly to the next house."{8}

The New Year calling to offer good wishes resembles in some respects the widespread custom of "first-footing," based on the belief that the character of the first visitor on New Year's Day affects the welfare of the household during the year. We have already met with a "first-foot" in the polaznik of the southern Slavs on Christmas Day. It is to be borne in mind that for them, or at all events for the Crivoscian highlanders whose customs are described by Sir Arthur Evans, Christmas is essentially the festival of the New Year: New Year's Day is not spoken of at all, its name and ceremonies being completely absorbed by the feasts of "Great" and "Little" Christmas.{9}

The "first-foot" superstition is found in countries as far apart as 324 Scotland and Macedonia. Let us begin with some English examples of it. In Shropshire the most important principle is that if luck is to rest on a house the "first-foot" must not be a woman. To provide against such an unlucky accident as that a woman should call first, people often engage a friendly man or boy to pay them an early visit. It is particularly interesting to find a Shropshire parallel to the polaznik's action in going straight to the hearth and striking sparks from the Christmas log,[114] when Miss Burne tells us that one old man who used to "let the New Year in" "always entered without knocking or speaking, and silently stirred the fire before he offered any greeting to the family."{10}

In the villages of the Teme valley, Worcestershire and Herefordshire, "in the old climbing-boy days, chimneys used to be swept on New Year's morning, that one of the right sex should be the first to enter; and the young urchins of the neighbourhood went the round of the houses before daylight singing songs, when one of their number would be admitted into the kitchen 'for good luck all the year.'" In 1875 this custom was still practised; and at some of the farmhouses, if washing-day chanced to fall on the first day of the year, it was either put off, or to make sure, before the women could come, the waggoner's lad was called up early that he might be let out and let in again.{11}

The idea of the unluckiness of a woman's being the "first-foot" is extraordinarily widespread; the present writer has met with it in an ordinary London restaurant, where great stress was laid upon a man's opening the place on New Year's morning before the waitresses arrived. A similar belief is found even in far-away China: it is there unlucky on New Year's Day to meet a woman on first going out.{12} Can the belief be connected with such ideas about dangerous influences proceeding from women as have been described by Dr. Frazer in Vol. III. of "The Golden Bough,"{13} or does it rest merely on a view of woman as the inferior sex? The unluckiness of first meeting a woman is, we may note, not confined to, but merely intensified on New Year's Day; in Shropshire{14} and in Germany{15} it belongs to any ordinary day.

325 As to the general attitude towards woman suggested by these superstitions I may quote a striking passage from Miss Jane Harrison's "Themis." "Woman to primitive man is a thing at once weak and magical, to be oppressed, yet feared. She is charged with powers of child-bearing denied to man, powers only half understood, forces of attraction, but also of danger and repulsion, forces that all over the world seem to fill him with dim terror. The attitude of man to woman, and, though perhaps in a less degree, of woman to man, is still to-day essentially magical."{16}

"First-foot" superstitions flourish in the north of England and in Scotland. In the northern counties a man is often specially retained as "first-foot" or "lucky bird"; in some parts he must be a bachelor, and he is often expected to bring a present with him—a shovelful of coals, or some eatable, or whisky.{17} In the East Riding of Yorkshire a boy called the "lucky bird" used to come at dawn on Christmas morning as well as on New Year's Day, and bring a sprig of evergreens{18}—an offering by now thoroughly familiar to us. In Scotland, especially in Edinburgh, it is customary for domestic servants to invite their sweethearts to be their "first-foots." The old Scotch families who preserve ancient customs encourage their servants to "first-foot" them, and grandparents like their grandchildren to perform for them the same service.{19} In Aberdeenshire it is considered most important that the "first-foot" should not come empty-handed. Formerly he carried spiced ale; now he brings a whisky-bottle. Shortbread, oat-cakes, "sweeties," or sowens, were also sometimes brought by the "first-foot," and occasionally the sowens were sprinkled on the doors and windows of the houses visited—a custom strongly suggesting a sacramental significance of some sort.{20}

Before we leave the subject of British "first-footing" we may notice one or two things that have possibly a racial significance. Not only must the "first-foot" be a man or boy, he is often required to be dark-haired; it is unlucky for a fair- or red-haired person to "let in" the New Year.{21} It has been suggested by Sir John Rhys that this idea rested in the first instance upon 326 racial antipathy the natural antagonism of an indigenous dark-haired people to a race of blonde invaders.{22} Another curious requirement in the Isle of Man and Northumberland is that the "first-foot" shall not be flat-footed: he should be a person with a high-arched instep, a foot that "water runs under." Sir John Rhys is inclined to connect this also with some racial contrast. He remarks, by way of illustration, that English shoes do not as a rule fit Welsh feet, being made too low in the instep.{23}

Some reference has already been made to Scottish New Year customs. In Scotland, the most Protestant region of Europe, the country in which Puritanism abolished altogether the celebration of Christmas, New Year's Day is a great occasion, and is marked by various interesting usages, its importance being no doubt largely due to the fact that it has not to compete with the Church feast of the Nativity. Nowadays, indeed, the example of Anglicanism is affecting the country to a considerable extent, and Christmas Day is becoming observed in the churches. The New Year, however, is still the national holiday, and January 1 a great day for visiting and feasting, the chief, in fact, of all festivals.{24} New Year's Day and its Eve are often called the "Daft Days"; cakes and pastry of all kinds are eaten, healths are drunk, and calls are paid.{25}

In Edinburgh there are striking scenes on New Year's Eve. "Towards evening," writes an observer, "the thoroughfares become thronged with the youth of the city.... As the midnight hour approaches, drinking of healths becomes frequent, and some are already intoxicated.... The eyes of the immense crowd are ever being turned towards the lighted clock-face of 'Auld and Faithful'' Tron [Church], the hour approaches, the hands seem to stand still, but in one second more the hurrahing, the cheering, the hand-shaking, the health-drinking, is all kept up as long as the clock continues to ring out the much-longed-for midnight hour.... The crowds slowly disperse, the much-intoxicated and helpless ones being hustled about a good deal, the police urging them on out of harm's way. The first-footers are off and away, flying in every direction through the city, singing, cheering, and shaking hands with all and sundry."{26}

327 One need hardly allude to the gathering of London Scots around St. Paul's to hear the midnight chime and welcome the New Year with the strains of "Auld Lang Syne," except to say that times have changed and Scotsmen are now lost in the swelling multitude of roysterers of all nationalities.

Drinking is and was a great feature of the Scottish New Year's Eve. "On the approach of twelve o'clock, a hot pint was prepared—that is, a kettle or flagon full of warm, spiced, and sweetened ale, with an infusion of spirits. When the clock had struck the knell of the departed year, each member of the family drank of this mixture 'A good health and a happy New Year and many of them' to all the rest, with a general hand-shaking." The elders of the family would then sally out to visit their neighbours, and exchange greetings.{27}

At Biggar in Lanarkshire it was customary to "burn out the old year" with bonfires, while at Burghead in Morayshire a tar-barrel called the "Clavie" was set on fire and carried about the village and the fishing boats. Its embers were scrambled for by the people and carefully kept as charms against witchcraft.{28} These fire-customs may be compared with those on Hallowe'en, which, as we have seen, is probably an old New Year's Eve.

Stewart in his "Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland" tells how on the last night of the year the Strathdown Highlanders used to bring home great loads of juniper, which on New Year's Day was kindled in the different rooms, all apertures being closed so that the smoke might produce a thorough fumigation. Not only human beings had to stand this, but horses and other animals were treated in the same way to preserve them from harm throughout the year. Moreover, first thing on New Year's morning, everybody, while still in bed, was asperged with a large brush.{29} There is a great resemblance here to the Catholic use of incense and holy water in southern Germany and Austria on the Rauchnaechte (see also Chapter VIII.). In Tyrol these nights are Christmas, New Year's, and Epiphany Eves. When night falls the Tyrolese peasant goes with all his household through each room and outhouse, his wife bearing the holy water vessel and the censer. Every corner of the buildings, every animal, 328 every human being is purified with the sacred smoke and the holy sprinkling, and even the Christmas pie must be hallowed in this way. In Orthodox Greek countries something of the same kind takes place, as we shall see, at the Epiphany. To drive away evil spirits is no doubt the object of all these rites.{30}

The most interesting of Scottish New Year customs, considered as religious survivals, is a practice found in the Highlands on New Year's Eve, and evidently of sacrificial origin. It has been described by several writers, and has various forms. According to one account the hide of the mart or winter cow was wrapped round the head of one of a company of men, who all made off belabouring the hide with switches. The disorderly procession went three times deiseal (according to the course of the sun) round each house in the village, striking the walls and shouting on coming to a door a rhyme demanding admission. On entering, each member of the party was offered refreshments, and their leader gave to the goodman of the house the "breast-stripe" of a sheep, deer, or goat, wrapped round the point of a shinty stick.{31}

We have here another survival of that oft-noted custom of skin-wearing, which, as has been seen, originated apparently in a desire for contact with the sanctity of the sacrificed victim. Further, the "breast-stripe" given to the goodman of each house is evidently meant to convey the hallowed influences to each family. It is an oval strip, and no knife may be used in removing it from the flesh. The head of the house sets fire to it, and it is given to each person in turn to smell. The inhaling of its fumes is a talisman against fairies, witches, and demons. In the island of South Uist, according to a quite recent account, each person seizes hold of it as it burns, making the sign of the cross, if he be a Catholic, in the name of the Trinity, and it is put thrice sun-wise about the heads of those present. If it should be extinguished it is a bad omen for the New Year.{32}

The writer of the last account speaks of the "breast-strip" as the "Hogmanay," and it is just possible that the well-known Hogmanay processions of children on New Year's Eve (in Scotland and elsewhere) may have some connection with the ritual above described. It is customary for the poorer children to 329 swaddle themselves in a great sheet, doubled up in front so as to form a vast pocket, and then go along the streets in little bands, calling out "Hogmanay" at the doors of the wealthier classes, and expecting a dole of oaten bread. Each child gets a quadrant of oat-cake (sometimes with cheese), and this is called the "Hogmanay." Here is one of the rhymes they sing:

"Get up, goodwife, and shake your feathers, And dinna think that we are beggars; For we are bairns come out to play, Get up and gie's our hogmanay!"{33}

The word Hogmanay—it is found in various forms in the northern English counties as well as in Scotland—has been a puzzle to etymologists. It is used both for the last day of the year and for the gift of the oaten cake or the like; and, as we have seen, it is shouted by the children in their quest. Exactly corresponding to it in sense and use is the French word aguillanneuf, from which it appears to be derived. Although the phonetic difference between this and the Scottish word is great, the Norman form hoguinane is much closer. There is, moreover, a Spanish word aguinaldo (formerly aguilando) = Christmas-box. The popular explanation of the French term as au-guy-l'an-neuf (to the mistletoe the New Year) is now rejected by scholars, and it seems likely that the word is a corruption of the Latin Kalendae.{34}

A few instances of aguillanneuf customs may be given. Here are specimens of rhymes sung by the New Year queteurs:—

"Si vous veniez a la depense, A la depense de chez nous, Vous mangeriez de bons choux, On vous servirait du rost. Hoguinano.

Donnez-moi mes hoguignettes Dans un panier que voicy. Je l'achetai samedy D'un bon homme de dehors; Mais il est encore a payer. Hoguinano."{35}

330 Formerly at Matignon and Ploubalay in Brittany on Christmas Eve the boys used to get together, carry big sticks and wallets, and knock at farmhouse doors. When the inmates called out, "Who's there?" they would answer, "The hoguihanneu," and after singing something they were given a piece of lard. This was put on a pointed stick carried by one of the boys, and was kept for a feast called the bouriho.{36} Elsewhere in Brittany poor children went round crying "au guyane," and were given pieces of lard or salt beef, which they stuck on a long spit.{37} In Guernsey the children's quest at the New Year was called oguinane. They chanted the following rhyme:

"Oguinani! Oguinano! Ouvre ta pouque, et pis la recclios."[115]{38}

Similar processions are common in eastern Europe at the New Year. In some parts of Macedonia on New Year's Eve men or boys go about making a noise with bells. In other districts, early on New Year's morning, lads run about with sticks or clubs, knock people up, cry out good wishes, and expect to be rewarded with something to eat. Elsewhere again they carry green olive- or cornel-boughs, and touch with them everyone they meet.{39} We have already considered various similar customs, the noise and knocking being apparently intended to drive away evil spirits, and the green boughs to bring folks into contact with the spirit of growth therein immanent.

In Roumania on New Year's Eve there is a custom known as the "little plough." Boys and men go about after dark from house to house, with long greetings, ringing of bells, and cracking of whips. On New Year's morning Roumanians throw handfuls of corn at one another with some appropriate greeting, such as:—

"May you live, May you flourish Like apple-trees, 331 Like pear-trees In springtime, Like wealthy autumn, Of all things plentiful."

Generally this greeting is from the young to the old or from the poor to the rich, and a present in return is expected.{40}

In Athens models of war-ships are carried round by waits, who make a collection of money in them. "St. Basil's ships" they are called, and they are supposed to represent the vessel on which St. Basil, whose feast is kept on January 1, sailed from Caesarea.{41} It is probable that this is but a Christian gloss on a pagan custom. Possibly there may be here a survival of an old Greek practice of bearing a ship in procession in honour of Dionysus,{42} but it is to be noted that similar observances are found at various seasons in countries like Germany and Belgium where no Greek influence can be traced. The custom is widespread, and it has been suggested by Mannhardt that it was originally intended either to promote the success of navigation or to carry evil spirits out to sea.{43}

It is interesting, lastly, to read a mediaeval account of a New Year quete in Rome. "The following," says the writer, "are common Roman sports at the Kalends of January. On the Eve of the Kalends at a late hour boys arise and carry a shield. One of them wears a mask; they whistle and beat a drum, they go round to the houses, they surround the shield, the drum sounds, and the masked figure whistles. This playing ended, they receive a present from the master of the house, whatever he thinks fit to give. So they do at every house. On that day they eat all kinds of vegetables. And in the morning two of the boys arise, take olive-branches and salt, enter into the houses, and salute the master with the words, 'Joy and gladness be in the house, so many sons, so many little pigs, so many lambs,' and they wish him all good things. And before the sun rises they eat either a piece of honeycomb or something sweet, that the whole year may pass sweetly, without strife and great trouble."{44}

* * * * *

Various methods of peering into the future, more or less like 332 those described at earlier festivals, are practised at the New Year. Especially popular at German New Year's Eve parties is the custom of bleigiessen. "This ceremony consists of boiling specially prepared pieces of lead in a spoon over a candle; each guest takes his spoonful and throws it quickly into the basin of water which is held ready. According to the form which the lead takes so will his future be in the coming year ... ships (which indicate a journey), or hearts (which have, of course, only one meaning), or some other equally significant shape is usually discerned."{45}

In Macedonia St. Basil's Eve (December 31) is a common time for divination: a favourite method is to lay on the hot cinders a pair of wild-olive-leaves to represent a youth and a maid. If the leaves crumple up and draw near each other, it is concluded that the young people love one another dearly, but if they recoil apart the opposite is the case. If they flare up and burn, it is a sign of excessive passion.{46}

In Lithuania on New Year's Eve nine sorts of things—money, cradle, bread, ring, death's head, old man, old woman, ladder, and key—are baked of dough, and laid under nine plates, and every one has three grabs at them. What he gets will fall to his lot during the year.{47}

Lastly, in Brittany it is supposed that the wind which prevails on the first twelve days of the year will blow during each of the twelve months, the first day corresponding to January, the second to February, and so on.{48} Similar ideas of the prophetic character of Christmastide weather are common in our own and other countries.

* * * * *

Practically all the customs discussed in this chapter have been of the nature of charms; one or two more, practised on New Year's Day or Eve, may be mentioned in conclusion.

There are curious superstitions about New Year water. At Bromyard in Herefordshire it was the custom, at midnight on New Year's Eve, to rush to the nearest spring to snatch the "cream of the well" the first pitcherful of water and with it the prospect of the best luck.{49} A Highland practice was to send 333 some one on the last night of the year to draw a pitcherful of water in silence, and without the vessel touching the ground. The water was drunk on New Year's morning as a charm against witchcraft and the evil eye.{50} A similar belief about the luckiness of "new water" exists at Canzano Peligno in the Abruzzi. "On New Year's Eve, the fountain is decked with leaves and bits of coloured stuff, and fires are kindled round it. As soon as it is light, the girls come as usual with their copper pots on their head; but the youths are on this morning guardians of the well, and sell the 'new water' for nuts and fruits and other sweet things."{51}

In some of the Aegean islands when the family return from church on New Year's Day, the father picks up a stone and leaves it in the yard, with the wish that the New Year may bring with it "as much gold as is the weight of the stone."{52} Finally, in Little Russia "corn sheaves are piled upon a table, and in the midst of them is set a large pie. The father of the family takes his seat behind them, and asks his children if they can see him. 'We cannot see you,' they reply. On which he proceeds to express what seems to be a hope that the corn will grow so high in his fields that he may be invisible to his children when he walks there at harvest-time."{53}

With a curious and beautiful old carol from South Wales I must bring this chapter to a close. It was formerly sung before dawn on New Year's Day by poor children who carried about a jug of water drawn that morning from the well. With a sprig of box or other evergreen they would sprinkle those they met, wishing them the compliments of the season. To pay their respects to those not abroad at so early an hour, they would serenade them with the following lines, which, while connected with the "new water" tradition, contain much that is of doubtful interpretation, and are a fascinating puzzle for folk-lorists:—

"Here we bring new water From the well so clear, For to worship God with, This happy New Year. 334 Sing levy-dew, sing levy-dew, The water and the wine; The seven bright gold wires And the bugles they do shine.

Sing reign of Fair Maid, With gold upon her toe,— Open you the West Door, And turn the Old Year go: Sing reign of Fair Maid, With gold upon her chin,— Open you the East Door, And let the New Year in."{54}

335 336 337



CHAPTER XVI

EPIPHANY TO CANDLEMAS

The Twelfth Cake and the "King of the Bean"—French Twelfth Night Customs—St. Basil's Cake in Macedonia—Epiphany and the Expulsion of Evils—The Befana in Italy—The Magi as Present-bringers—Greek Epiphany Customs—Wassailing Fruit-trees—Herefordshire and Irish Twelfth Night Practices—The "Haxey Hood" and Christmas Football—St. Knut's Day in Sweden—Rock Day—Plough Monday—Candlemas, its Ecclesiastical and Folk Ceremonies—Farewells to Christmas.



THE EPIPHANY.

Though the Epiphany has ceased to be a popular festival in England, it was once a very high day indeed, and in many parts of Europe it is still attended by folk-customs of great interest.[116] For the peasant of Tyrol, indeed, it is New Year's Day, the first of January being kept only by the townsfolk and modernized people.{1}

To Englishmen perhaps the best known feature of the secular festival is the Twelfth Cake. Some words of Leigh Hunt's will show what an important place this held in the mid-nineteenth century:—

"Christmas goes out in fine style, with Twelfth Night. It is a finish worthy of the time. Christmas Day was the morning of the season; New Year's Day the middle of it, or noon; Twelfth Night is the night, brilliant with innumerable planets of Twelfth-cakes. The whole island keeps court; nay, all Christendom. All the world are 338 kings and queens. Everybody is somebody else, and learns at once to laugh at, and to tolerate, characters different from his own, by enacting them. Cakes, characters, forfeits, lights, theatres, merry rooms, little holiday-faces, and, last not least, the painted sugar on the cakes, so bad to eat but so fine to look at, useful because it is perfectly useless except for a sight and a moral all conspire to throw a giddy splendour over the last night of the season, and to send it to bed in pomp and colours, like a Prince."{2}

* * * * *

For seventeenth-century banqueting customs and the connection of the cake with the "King of the Bean" Herrick may be quoted:—

"Now, now the mirth comes With the cake full of plums, Where bean's the king of the sport here; Besides we must know, The pea also Must revel as queen in the court here.

Begin then to choose This night as ye use, Who shall for the present delight here Be a king by the lot, And who shall not Be Twelfth-day queen for the night here

Which known, let us make Joy-sops with the cake; And let not a man then be seen here, Who unurg'd will not drink, To the base from the brink, A health to the king and the queen here."{3}

There are many English references to the custom of electing a Twelfth Day monarch by means of a bean or pea, and this "king" is mentioned in royal accounts as early as the reign of Edward II.{4} He appears, however, to have been even more popular in France than in England.