Christian and Pagan

by Clement A. Miles

Christmas in Ritual and Tradition is a comparative study of how the Christian feast of the Nativity absorbed, transformed, and stood alongside the pre-Christian midwinter festivals of Europe. Miles divides the book in two: Part I follows Christmas as a Christian feast, through its Latin and vernacular poetry, its liturgy and popular devotion, and its medieval drama; Part II turns to "Pagan Survivals," a season-by-season folklore survey running from All Hallows through the Yule log, the Christmas tree, mumming and the boy bishop, to Epiphany and Candlemas, gathering folk custom from England, Germany, Scandinavia, and elsewhere. The book carries an unusually elaborate scholarly apparatus for its kind: continuous, book-wide footnotes and a separate chapter-by-chapter bibliography of sources, both preserved intact in this edition.

Clement A. Miles was an English writer on comparative religion and folklore. This edition follows the first edition, published in London by T. Fisher Unwin in 1912, digitized by the sacred-texts.com archive and drawn here from the library's local mirror of that digitization. Miles's Preface, his sixteen numbered chapters organized under two parts, his Postscript and Conclusion, his continuous footnotes, and his "Notes and Bibliography" are all preserved; only the source edition's own back-of-book subject index, which points to print page numbers this edition does not carry, is not reproduced.

Contents

• Preface
• Chapter I — Introduction
• Part I — The Christian Feast
  • Chapter II — Christmas Poetry (I)
  • Chapter III — Christmas Poetry (II)
  • Chapter IV — Christmas in Liturgy and Popular Devotion
  • Chapter V — Christmas Drama
  • Postscript
• Part II — Pagan Survivals
  • Chapter VI — Pre-Christian Winter Festivals
  • Chapter VII — All Hallow Tide to Martinmas
  • Chapter VIII — St. Clement to St. Thomas
  • Chapter IX — Christmas Eve and the Twelve Days
  • Chapter X — The Yule Log
  • Chapter XI — The Christmas-Tree, Decorations, and Gifts
  • Chapter XII — Christmas Feasting and Sacrificial Survivals
  • Chapter XIII — Masking, the Mummers' Play, the Feast of Fools, and the Boy Bishop
  • Chapter XIV — St. Stephen's, St. John's, and Holy Innocents' Days
  • Chapter XV — New Year's Day
  • Chapter XVI — Epiphany to Candlemas
  • Conclusion
• Notes and Bibliography
• Footnotes

Preface

In this volume I have tried to show how Christmas is or has been kept in
various lands and ages, and to trace as far as possible the origin of the pagan
elements that have mingled with the Church's feast of the Nativity.

In Part I. I have dealt with the festival on its distinctively Christian
side. The book has, however, been so planned that readers not interested in this
aspect of Christmas may pass over  II, and proceed at once from the Introduction to  II, which treats of pagan survivals.

The book has been written primarily for the general reader, but I venture to
hope that, with all its imperfections, it may be of some use to the more serious
student, as a rough outline map of the field of Christmas customs, and as
bringing together materials hitherto scattered through a multitude of volumes in
various languages. There is certainly room for a comprehensive English book on
Christmas, taking account of the results of modern historical and folk-lore
research.

The writer of a work of this kind necessarily owes an immense debt to the
labours of others. In my bibliographical notes I have done my best to
acknowledge the sources from which I have drawn. It is only right that I should
express here my special obligation, both for information and for suggestions, to
Mr. E. K. Chambers's “The Mediaeval Stage,” an invaluable storehouse of fact,
theory, and bibliographical references. I also owe much to the important
monographs of Dr. A. Tille, “Die Geschichte der deutschen Weihnacht” and “Yule
and Christmas”; to Dr. Feilberg's Danish work, “Jul,” the fullest account of
Christmas  customs yet written; and of course, like every student of
folk-lore, to Dr. Frazer's “The Golden Bough.”

References to authorities will be found at the end of the volume, and are
indicated by small numerals in the text; notes requiring to be read in close
conjunction with the text are printed at the foot of the pages to which they
relate, and are indicated by asterisks, &c.

[Transcriber's Note: The 'small numerals' are represented in this ebook by
numbers in. The footnotes appear at the end of the ebook and
are indicated by numbers in [square brackets].]

I have to thank Mr. Frank Sidgwick for most kindly reading my proofs and
portions of my MS., and for some valuable suggestions.

C. A. M.

Chapter I — Introduction

The Origin and Purpose of Festivals—Ideas suggested by Christmas—Pagan
and Christian Elements—The Names of the Festival—Foundation of the Feast of
the Nativity—Its Relation to the Epiphany—December 25 and the
Natalis Invicti—The Kalends of January—Yule and Teutonic
Festivals—The Church and Pagan Survivals—Two Conflicting Types of
Festival—Their Interaction—Plan of the Book.

It has been an instinct in nearly all peoples, savage or civilized, to set
aside certain days for special ceremonial observances, attended by outward
rejoicing. This tendency to concentrate on special times answers to man's need
to lift himself above the commonplace and the everyday, to escape from the
leaden weight of monotony that oppresses him. “We tend to tire of the most
eternal splendours, and a mark on our calendar, or a crash of bells at midnight
maybe, reminds us that we have only recently been created.” [1] [1-1] That they wake people up is the great justification of
festivals, and both man's religious sense and his joy in life have generally
tended to rise “into peaks and towers and turrets, into superhuman exceptions
which really prove the rule.” [1-2] It is difficult to be religious, impossible to be
merry, at every moment of life, and festivals are as sunlit peaks, testifying,
above dark valleys, to the eternal radiance. This is one view of the purpose and
value of festivals, and their function of cheering people and giving them larger
perspectives has no doubt been an important reason for their maintenance in the
past. If we could trace the custom of festival-keeping back to its origins in
primitive society  we should find the same principle of specialization involved,
though it is probable that the practice came into being not for the sake of its
moral or emotional effect, but from man's desire to lay up, so to speak, a stock
of sanctity, magical not ethical, for ordinary days.

The first holy-day-makers were probably more concerned with such material
goods as food than with spiritual ideals, when they marked with sacred days the
rhythm of the seasons. [1-3] As man's consciousness developed, the subjective aspect
of the matter would come increasingly into prominence, until in the festivals of
the Christian Church the main object is to quicken the devotion of the believer
by contemplation of the mysteries of the faith. Yet attached, as we shall see,
to many Christian festivals, are old notions of magical sanctity, probably quite
as potent in the minds of the common people as the more spiritual ideas
suggested by the Church's feasts.

In modern England we have almost lost the festival habit, but if there is one
feast that survives among us as a universal tradition it is Christmas. We have
indeed our Bank Holidays, but they are mere days of rest and amusement, and for
the mass of the people Easter and Whitsuntide have small religious
significance—Christmas alone has the character of sanctity which marks the true
festival. The celebration of Christmas has often little or nothing to do with
orthodox dogma, yet somehow the sense of obligation to keep the feast is very
strong, and there are few English people, however unconventional, who escape
altogether the spell of tradition in this matter.

Christmas—how many images the word calls up: we think of
carol-singers and holly-decked churches where people hymn in time-honoured
strains the Birth of the Divine Child; of frost and snow, and, in contrast, of
warm hearths and homes bright with light and colour, very fortresses against the
cold; of feasting and revelry, of greetings and gifts exchanged; and lastly of
vaguely superstitious customs, relics of long ago, performed perhaps out of
respect for use and wont, or merely in jest, or with a deliberate attempt to
throw ourselves back into the past, to re-enter for a moment the mental
childhood of the race. These are a few of  the pictures that rise pell-mell in the minds of English folk
at the mention of Christmas; how many other scenes would come before us if we
could realize what the festival means to men of other nations. Yet even these
will suggest what hardly needs saying, that Christmas is something far more
complex than a Church holy-day alone, that the celebration of the Birth of
Jesus, deep and touching as is its appeal to those who hold the faith of the
Incarnation, is but one of many elements that have entered into the great winter
festival.

In the following pages I shall try to present a picture, sketchy and
inadequate though it must be, of what Christmas is and has been to the peoples
of Europe, and to show as far as possible the various elements that have gone
into its make-up. Most people have a vague impression that these are largely
pagan, but comparatively few have any idea of the process by which the heathen
elements have become mingled with that which is obviously Christian, and equal
obscurity prevails as to the nature and meaning of the non-Christian customs.
The subject is vast, and has not been thoroughly explored as yet, but the
labours of historians and folk-lorists have made certain conclusions probable,
and have produced hypotheses of great interest and fascination.

I have spoken of “Christian” [2] and “pagan” elements. The distinction is blurred to some
extent by the clothing of heathen customs in a superficial Christianity, but on
the whole it is clear enough to justify the division of this book into two
parts, one dealing with the Church's feast of the Holy Birth, the other with
those remains of pagan winter festivals which extend from November to January,
but cluster especially round Christmas and the Twelve Days.

Before we pass to the various aspects of the Church's
Christmas, we must briefly consider its origins and its relation to certain  pagan festivals, the customs of which will be dealt with in
detail in Part II.

The names given to the feast by different European peoples throw a certain
amount of light on its history. Let us take five of them—Christmas,
Weihnacht, Noël, Calendas, and Yule—and see what
they suggest.

I. The English Christmas and its Dutch equivalent Kerstmisse,
plainly point to the ecclesiastical side of the festival; the German
Weihnacht [1-4] (sacred night) is vaguer, and might well be either
pagan or Christian; in point of fact it seems to be Christian, since it does not
appear till the year 1000, when the Faith was well established in Germany. [1-5] Christmas and Weihnacht, then, may stand
for the distinctively Christian festival, the history of which we may now
briefly study.

When and where did the keeping of Christmas begin? Many details of its early
history remain in uncertainty, but it is fairly clear that the earliest
celebration of the Birth of Christ on December 25 took place at Rome about
the middle of the fourth century, and that the observance of the day spread from
the western to the eastern Church, which had before been wont to keep
January 6 as a joint commemoration of the Nativity and the Baptism of the
Redeemer. [3]

The first mention of a Nativity feast on December 25 is found in a Roman
document known as the Philocalian Calendar, dating from the year 354, but
embodying an older document evidently belonging to the year 336. It is uncertain
to which date the Nativity reference belongs; [4] but further back than 336 at all events the festival
cannot be traced.

From Rome, Christmas spread throughout the West, with the  conversion of the barbarians. Whether it came to England
through the Celtic Church is uncertain, but St. Augustine certainly brought it
with him, and Christmas Day, 598, witnessed a great event, the baptism of more
than ten thousand English converts. [1-9] In 567 the Council of Tours had declared the Twelve
Days, from Christmas to Epiphany, a festal tide; [1-10] the laws of Ethelred (991-1016) ordained it to be a
time of peace and concord among Christian men, when all strife must cease. [1-11] In Germany Christmas was established by the Synod of
Mainz in 813; [1-12] in Norway by King Hakon the Good about the middle of
the tenth century. [1-13]

In the East, as has been seen, the Birth of the Redeemer was at first
celebrated not on December 25, but on January 6, the feast of the
Epiphany or manifestation of Christ's glory. The Epiphany can be traced as far
back as the second century, among the Basilidian heretics, from whom it may have
spread to the Catholic Church. It was with them certainly a feast of the
Baptism, and possibly also of the Nativity, of Christ. The origins of the
Epiphany festival [1-14] are very obscure, nor can we say with certainty what
was its meaning at first. It may be that it took the place of a heathen rite
celebrating the birth of the World or Æon from the Virgin on January 6. [5] At all events one of its objects was to commemorate the
Baptism, the appearance of the Holy Dove, and the Voice from heaven, “Thou art
my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased” (or, as other MSS. read, “This day
have I begotten thee”).

In some circles of early Christianity the Baptism appears to
have been looked upon as the true Birth of Christ, the moment when, filled by
the Spirit, He became Son of God; and the carnal Birth was regarded as of
comparatively little significance. Hence the Baptism festival may have arisen
first, and the celebration of the Birth at Bethlehem may have been later
attached to the same day, partly perhaps because a passage in St. Luke's Gospel
was supposed to imply that Jesus was baptized on His thirtieth birthday. As
however the orthodox belief became more sharply defined, increasing stress was
laid on the Incarnation of God in Christ in the Virgin's womb, and it may have
been felt that the celebration of the Birth and the Baptism on the same day
encouraged heretical views. Hence very likely the introduction of Christmas on
December 25 as a festival of the Birth alone. In the East the
concelebration of the two events continued for some time after Rome had
instituted the separate feast of Christmas. Gradually, however, the Roman use
spread: at Constantinople it was introduced about 380 by the great theologian,
Gregory Nazianzen; at Antioch it appeared in 388, at Alexandria in 432. The
Church of Jerusalem long stood out, refusing to adopt the new feast till the
seventh century, it would seem. [1-18] One important Church, the Armenian, knows nothing of
December 25, and still celebrates the Nativity with the Epiphany on
January 6. [1-19] Epiphany in the eastern Orthodox Church has lost its
connection with the Nativity and is now chiefly a celebration of the Baptism of
Christ, while in the West, as every one knows, it is primarily a celebration of
the Adoration by the Magi, an event commemorated by the Greeks on Christmas Day.
Epiphany is, however, as we shall see, a greater festival in the Greek Church
than Christmas.

Such in bare outline is the story of the spread of Christmas as an
independent festival. Its establishment fitly followed the triumph of the
Catholic doctrine of the perfect Godhead or Christ at the Council of Nicea in
325.

II. The French Noël is a name concerning whose origin there has been
considerable dispute; there can, however, be little doubt that it is the same
word as the Provençal Nadau or Nadal,  the Italian Natale, and the Welsh Nadolig, all
obviously derived from the Latin natalis, and meaning “birthday.” One
naturally takes this as referring to the Birth of Christ, but it may at any rate
remind us of another birthday celebrated on the same date by the Romans of the
Empire, that of the unconquered Sun, who on December 25, the winter
solstice according to the Julian calendar, began to rise to new vigour after his
autumnal decline.

Why, we may ask, did the Church choose December 25 for the celebration
of her Founder's Birth? No one now imagines that the date is supported by a
reliable tradition; it is only one of various guesses of early Christian
writers. As a learned eighteenth-century Jesuit [1-20] has pointed out, there is not a single month in the
year to which the Nativity has not been assigned by some writer or other. The
real reason for the choice of the day most probably was, that upon it fell the
pagan festival just mentioned.

The Dies Natalis Invicti was probably first celebrated in Rome by
order of the Emperor Aurelian (270-5), an ardent worshipper of the Syrian
sun-god Baal. [1-21] With the Sol Invictus was identified the
figure of Mithra, that strange eastern god whose cult resembled in so many ways
the worship of Jesus, and who was at one time a serious rival of the Christ in
the minds of thoughtful men. [6] [1-22] It was the sun-god, poetically and philosophically
conceived, whom the Emperor Julian made the centre of his ill-fated revival of
paganism, and there is extant a fine prayer of his to “King Sun.” [1-23]

What more natural than that the Church should choose this day to celebrate
the rising of her Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings, that she
should strive thus to draw away to His worship some adorers of the god whose
symbol and representative was the earthly sun! There is no direct evidence of
deliberate substitution, but at all events ecclesiastical writers soon after the
foundation of Christmas made good use of the idea  that the birthday of the Saviour had replaced the birthday of
the sun. [7]

Little is known of the manner in which the Natalis Invicti was kept;
it was not a folk-festival, and was probably observed by the classes rather than
the masses. [1-24] Its direct influence on Christmas customs has
probably been little or nothing. It fell, however, just before a Roman festival
that had immense popularity, is of great importance for our subject, and is
recalled by another name for Christmas that must now be considered.

III. The Provençal Calendas or Calenos, the Polish
Kolenda, the Russian Kolyáda, the Czech Koleda and the
Lithuanian Kalledos, not to speak of the Welsh Calenig for
Christmas-box, and the Gaelic Calluinn for New Year's Eve, are all
derived from the Latin Kalendae, and suggest the connection of Christmas
with the Roman New Year's Day, the Kalends or the first day of January, a time
celebrated with many festive customs. What these were, and how they have
affected Christmas we shall see in some detail in Part II.; suffice it to say
here that the festival, which lasted for at least three days, was one of riotous
life, of banqueting and games and licence. It was preceded, moreover, by the
Saturnalia (December 17 to 23) which had many like features, and
must have formed practically one festive season with it. The word
Saturnalia has become so familiar in modern usage as to suggest
sufficiently the character of the festival for which it stands.

Into the midst of this season of revelry and licence the
Church introduced her celebration of the beginning of man's redemption from the
bondage of sin. Who can wonder that Christmas contains incongruous elements, for
old things, loved by the people, cannot easily be uprooted.

IV. One more name yet remains to be considered, Yule (Danish
Jul), the ordinary word for Christmas in the Scandinavian languages, and
not extinct among ourselves. Its derivation has been widely discussed, but so
far no satisfactory explanation of it has been found. Professor Skeat in the
last edition of his Etymological Dictionary (1910) has to admit that its origin
is unknown. Whatever its source may be, it is clearly the name of a Germanic
season—probably a two-month tide covering the second half of November, the
whole of December, and the first half of January. [1-26] It may well suggest to us the element added to
Christmas by the barbarian peoples who began to learn Christianity about the
time when the festival was founded. Modern research has tended to disprove the
idea that the old Germans held a Yule feast at the winter solstice, and it is
probable, as we shall see, that the specifically Teutonic Christmas customs come
from a New Year and beginning-of-winter festival kept about the middle of
November. These customs transferred to Christmas are to a great extent religious
or magical rites intended to secure prosperity during the coming year, and there
is also the familiar Christmas feasting, apparently derived in part from the
sacrificial banquets that marked the beginning of winter.

We have now taken a general glance at the elements which
have combined in Christmas. The heathen folk-festivals absorbed by the Nativity
feast were essentially life-affirming, they expressed the mind of men who said
“yes” to this life, who valued earthly good things. On the other hand
Christianity, at all events in its intensest form, the religion of the monks,
was at bottom pessimistic as regards this earth, and valued it only as a place
of discipline for the life to come; it was essentially a religion of
renunciation that said “no” to the world. The  Christian had here no continuing city, but sought one to
come. How could the Church make a feast of the secular New Year; what mattered
to her the world of time? her eye was fixed upon the eternal realities—the
great drama of Redemption. Not upon the course of the temporal sun through the
zodiac, but upon the mystical progress of the eternal Sun of Righteousness must
she base her calendar. Christmas and New Year's Day—the two festivals stood
originally for the most opposed of principles.

Naturally the Church fought bitterly against the observance of the Kalends;
she condemned repeatedly the unseemly doings of Christians in joining in
heathenish customs at that season; she tried to make the first of January a
solemn fast; and from the ascetic point of view she was profoundly right, for
the old festivals were bound up with a lusty attitude towards the world, a
seeking for earthly joy and well-being.

The struggle between the ascetic principle of self-mortification,
world-renunciation, absorption in a transcendent ideal, and the natural human
striving towards earthly joy and well-being, is, perhaps, the most interesting
aspect of the history of Christianity; it is certainly shown in an absorbingly
interesting way in the development of the Christian feast of the Nativity. The
conflict is keen at first; the Church authorities fight tooth and nail against
these relics of heathenism, these devilish rites; but mankind's instinctive
paganism is insuppressible, the practices continue as ritual, though losing much
of their meaning, and the Church, weary of denouncing, comes to wink at them,
while the pagan joy in earthly life begins to colour her own festival.

The Church's Christmas, as the Middle Ages pass on, becomes increasingly
“merry”—warm and homely, suited to the instincts of ordinary humanity, filled
with a joy that is of this earth, and not only a mystical rapture at a
transcendental Redemption. The Incarnate God becomes a real child to be fondled
and rocked, a child who is the loveliest of infants, whose birthday is the
supreme type of all human birthdays, and may be kept with feasting and dance and
song. Such is the Christmas of popular tradition, the Nativity as it is
reflected in the carols, the cradle-rocking, the mystery plays of the later
Middle Ages. This  Christmas, which still lingers, though maimed, in some
Catholic regions, is strongly life-affirming; the value and delight of earthly,
material things is keenly felt; sometimes, even, it passes into coarseness and
riot. Yet a certain mysticism usually penetrates it, with hints that this dear
life, this fair world, are not all, for the soul has immortal longings in her.
Nearly always there is the spirit of reverence, of bowing down before the Infant
God, a visitor from the supernatural world, though bone of man's bone, flesh of
his flesh. Heaven and earth have met together; the rough stable is become the
palace of the Great King.

This we might well call the “Catholic” Christmas, the Christmas of the age
when the Church most nearly answered to the needs of the whole man, spiritual
and sensuous. The Reformation in England and Germany did not totally destroy it;
in England the carol-singers kept up for a while the old spirit; in Lutheran
Germany a highly coloured and surprisingly sensuous celebration of the Nativity
lingered on into the eighteenth century. In the countries that remained Roman
Catholic much of the old Christmas continued, though the spirit of the
Counter-Reformation, faced by the challenge of Protestantism, made for greater
“respectability,” and often robbed the Catholic Christmas of its humour, its
homeliness, its truly popular stamp, substituting pretentiousness for
simplicity, sugary sentiment for naïve and genuine poetry.

Apart from the transformation of the Church's Christmas from something
austere and metaphysical into something joyous and human, warm and kindly, we
shall note in our Second Part the survival of much that is purely pagan,
continuing alongside of the celebration of the Nativity, and often little
touched by its influence. But first we must consider the side of the festival
suggested by the English and French names: Christmas will stand for the
liturgical rites commemorating the wonder of the Incarnation—God in man made
manifest—Noël or “the Birthday,” for the ways in which men have striven
to realize the human aspect of the great Coming.

How can we reach the inner meaning of the Nativity feast, its significance
for the faithful? Better, perhaps, by the way of  poetry than by the way of ritual, for it is poetry that
reveals the emotions at the back of the outward observances, and we shall
understand these better when the singers of Christmas have laid bare to us their
hearts. We may therefore first give attention to the Christmas poetry of sundry
ages and peoples, and then go on to consider the liturgical and popular ritual
in which the Church has striven to express her joy at the Redeemer's birth.
Ceremonial, of course, has always mimetic tendencies, and in a further chapter
we shall see how these issued in genuine drama; how, in the miracle plays, the
Christmas story was represented by the forms and voices of living men.

Part I — The Christian Feast

Chapter II — Christmas Poetry (I) [8] [2-1]

Ancient Latin Hymns, their Dogmatic, Theological Character—Humanizing
Influence of Franciscanism—Jacopone da Todi's Vernacular Verse—German
Catholic Poetry—Mediaeval English Carols.

Christmas, as we have seen, had its beginning at the middle of the fourth
century in Rome. The new feast was not long in finding a hymn-writer to embody
in immortal Latin the emotions called forth by the memory of the Nativity.
“Veni, redemptor gentium” is one of the earliest of Latin hymns—one of the few
that have come down to us from the father of Church song, Ambrose, Archbishop of
Milan (d. 397). Great as theologian and statesman, Ambrose was great also as a
poet and systematizer of Church music. “Veni, redemptor gentium” is above all
things stately and severe, in harmony with the austere character of the zealous
foe of the Arian heretics, the champion of monasticism. It is the theological
aspect alone of Christmas, the redemption of sinful man by the mystery of the
Incarnation and the miracle of the Virgin Birth, that we find in St. Ambrose's
terse and pregnant Latin; there is no feeling for the human pathos and poetry of
the scene at Bethlehem—

“Veni, redemptor gentium,
Ostende partum virginis;
Miretur omne
saeculum:
Talis decet partus Deum.
Non ex virili
semine,
Sed mystico spiramine,
Verbum Dei factum caro,
Fructusque ventris
floruit.”
[9]

[2-2]

Another fine hymn often heard in English churches is of a slightly later
date. “Corde natus ex Parentis” (“Of the Father's love begotten”) is a cento
from a larger hymn by the Spanish poet Prudentius (c. 348-413).
Prudentius did not write for liturgical purposes, and it was several centuries
before “Corde natus” was adopted into the cycle of Latin hymns. Its elaborate
rhetoric is very unlike the severity of “Veni, redemptor gentium,” but again the
note is purely theological; the Incarnation as a world-event is its theme. It
sings the Birth of Him who is

“Corde natus ex Parentis
Ante mundi exordium,
Alpha et O
cognominatus,
Ipse fons et clausula
Omnium quae sunt, fuerunt,
Quaeque post futura
sunt
Saeculorum saeculis.”
[10]

[2-3]

Other early hymns are “A solis ortus cardine” (“From east to west, from shore
to shore”), by a certain Coelius Sedulius (d. c. 450), still sung by the
Roman Church at Lauds on Christmas Day, and “Jesu, redemptor omnium” (sixth
century), the office hymn at Christmas Vespers. Like the poems of Ambrose and
Prudentius, they are in classical metres, unrhymed, and based upon quantity, not
accent, and they have the same general character, doctrinal rather than humanly
tender.

In the ninth and tenth centuries arose a new form of hymnody, the Prose or
Sequence sung after the Gradual (the anthem between the Epistle and Gospel at
Mass). The earliest writer of sequences was Notker, a monk of the abbey of St.
Gall, near  the Lake of Constance. Among those that are probably his work
is the Christmas “Natus ante saecula Dei filius.” The most famous Nativity
sequence, however, is the “Laetabundus, exsultet fidelis chorus” of St. Bernard
of Clairvaux (d. 1153), once sung all over Europe, and especially popular in
England and France. Here are its opening verses:—

“Laetabundus,
Exsultet fidelis chorus;
Alleluia!
Regem regum
Intactae profudit thorus;
Res
miranda!
Angelus consilii
Natus
est de Virgine,
Sol de stella!
Sol occasum nesciens,
Stella semper
rutilans,
Semper clara.”
[11]

[2-4]

The “Laetabundus” is in rhymed stanzas; in this it differs from most early
proses. The writing of rhymed sequences, however, became common through the
example of the Parisian monk, Adam of St. Victor, in the second half of the
twelfth century. He adopted an entirely new style of versification and music,
derived from popular songs; and he and his successors in  the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries wrote various proses
for the Christmas festival.

If we consider the Latin Christmas hymns from the fourth century to the
thirteenth, we shall find that however much they differ in form, they have one
common characteristic: they are essentially theological—dwelling on the
Incarnation and the Nativity as part of the process of man's redemption—rather
than realistic. There is little attempt to imagine the scene in the stable at
Bethlehem, little interest in the Child as a child, little sense of the human
pathos of the Nativity. The explanation is, I think, very simple, and it lights
up the whole observance of Christmas as a Church festival in the centuries we
are considering: this poetry is the poetry of monks, or of men imbued with
the monastic spirit.

The two centuries following the institution of Christmas saw the break-up of
the Roman Empire in the west, and the incursions of barbarians threatening the
very existence of the Christian civilization that had conquered classic
paganism. It was by her army of monks that the Church tamed and Christianized
the barbarians, and both religion and culture till the middle of the twelfth
century were predominantly monastic. “In writing of any eminently religious man
of this period” [the eleventh century], says Dean Church, “it must be taken
almost as a matter of course that he was a monk.” [2-5] And a monastery was not the place for human feeling
about Christmas; the monk was—at any rate in ideal—cut off from the world; not
for him were the joys of parenthood or tender feelings for a new-born child. To
the monk the world was, at least in theory, the vale of misery; birth and
generation were, one may almost say, tolerated as necessary evils among lay folk
unable to rise to the heights of abstinence and renunciation; one can hardly
imagine a true early Benedictine filled with “joy that a man is born into the
world.” The Nativity was an infinitely important event, to be celebrated with a
chastened, unearthly joy, but not, as it became for the later Middle Ages and
the Renaissance, a matter upon which human affection might lavish itself, which
imagination might deck with vivid concrete detail. In the later Christmas  the pagan and the Christian spirit, or delight in earthly
things and joy in the invisible, seem to meet and mingle; to the true monk of
the Dark and Early Middle Ages they were incompatible.

What of the people, the great world outside the monasteries? Can we imagine
that Christmas, on its Christian side, had a deep meaning for them? For the
first ten centuries, to quote Dean Church again, Christianity “can hardly be
said to have leavened society at all.... It acted upon it doubtless with
enormous power; but it was as an extraneous and foreign agent, which destroys
and shapes, but does not mingle or renew.... Society was a long time unlearning
heathenism; it has not done so yet; but it had hardly begun, at any rate it was
only just beginning, to imagine the possibility of such a thing in the eleventh
century.” [2-6]

“The practical religion of the illiterate,” says another ecclesiastical
historian, Dr. W. R. W. Stephens, “was in many respects merely a survival of the
old paganism thinly disguised. There was a prevalent belief in witchcraft,
magic, sortilegy, spells, charms, talismans, which mixed itself up in strange
ways with Christian ideas and Christian worship.... Fear, the note of
superstition, rather than love, which is the characteristic of a rational faith,
was conspicuous in much of the popular religion. The world was haunted by
demons, hobgoblins, malignant spirits of divers kinds, whose baneful influence
must be averted by charms or offerings.” [2-7]

The writings of ecclesiastics, the decrees of councils and synods, from the
fourth century to the eleventh, abound in condemnations of pagan practices at
the turn of the year. It is in these customs, and in secular mirth and revelry,
not in Christian poetry, that we must seek for the expression of early lay
feeling about Christmas. It was a feast of material good things, a time for the
fulfilment of traditional heathen usages, rather than a joyous celebration of
the Saviour's birth. No doubt it was observed by due attendance at church, but
the services in a tongue not understanded of the people cannot have been very
full of meaning to them, and we can imagine  their Christmas church-going as rather a duty inspired by
fear than an expression of devout rejoicing. It is noteworthy that the earliest
of vernacular Christmas carols known to us, the early thirteenth-century
Anglo-Norman “Seignors, ore entendez à nus,” is a song not of religion but of
revelry. Its last verse is typical:

“Seignors, jo vus di par Noël,
E par li sires de cest hostel,
Car bevez
ben;
E jo primes beverai le men,
E pois aprèz chescon le soen,
Par mon
conseil;
Si jo vus di trestoz,
‘Wesseyl!’
Dehaiz eit qui ne dirra, ‘Drincheyl!’”
[12]

[2-8]

Not till the close of the thirteenth century do we meet with any vernacular
Christmas poetry of importance. The verses of the troubadours and
trouvères of twelfth-century France had little to do with Christianity;
their songs were mostly of earthly and illicit love. The German Minnesingers of
the thirteenth century were indeed pious, but their devout lays were addressed
to the Virgin as Queen of Heaven, the ideal of womanhood, holding in glory the
Divine Child in her arms, rather than to the Babe and His Mother in the great
humility of Bethlehem.

The first real outburst of Christmas joy in a popular tongue is found in
Italy, in the poems of that strange “minstrel of the Lord,” the Franciscan
Jacopone da Todi (b. 1228, d. 1306). Franciscan, in that name we have an
indication of the change in religious feeling that came over the western world,
and  especially Italy, in the thirteenth century. [2-9] For the twenty all-too-short years of St. Francis's
apostolate have passed, and a new attitude towards God and man and the world has
become possible. Not that the change was due solely to St. Francis; he was
rather the supreme embodiment of the ideals and tendencies of his day than their
actual creator; but he was the spark that kindled a mighty flame. In him we
reach so important a turning-point in the history of Christmas that we must
linger awhile at his side.

Early Franciscanism meant above all the democratizing, the humanizing of
Christianity; with it begins that “carol spirit” which is the most winning part
of the Christian Christmas, the spirit which, while not forgetting the divine
side of the Nativity, yet delights in its simple humanity, the spirit that links
the Incarnation to the common life of the people, that brings human tenderness
into religion. The faithful no longer contemplate merely a theological mystery,
they are moved by affectionate devotion to the Babe of Bethlehem, realized as an
actual living child, God indeed, yet feeling the cold of winter, the roughness
of the manger bed.

St. Francis, it must be remembered, was not a man of high birth, but the son
of a silk merchant, and his appeal was made chiefly to the traders and skilled
workmen of the cities, who, in his day, were rising to importance, coming, in
modern Socialist terms, to class-consciousness. The monks, although boys of low
birth were sometimes admitted into the cloister, were in sympathy one with the
upper classes, and monastic religion and culture were essentially aristocratic.
The rise of the Franciscans meant the bringing home of Christianity to masses of
town-workers, homely people, who needed a religion full of vivid humanity, and
whom the pathetic story of the Nativity would peculiarly touch.

Love to man, the sense of human brotherhood—that was the great thing which
St. Francis brought home to his age. The message, certainly, was not new, but he
realized it with infectious intensity. The second great commandment, “Thou shall
love thy neighbour as thyself,” had not indeed been forgotten by  mediaeval Christianity; the common life of monasticism was an
attempt to fulfil it; yet for the monk love to man was often rather a duty than
a passion. But to St. Francis love was very life; he loved not by duty but by an
inner compulsion, and his burning love of God and man found its centre in the
God-man, Christ Jesus. For no saint, perhaps, has the earthly life of Christ
been the object of such passionate devotion as for St. Francis; the Stigmata
were the awful, yet, to his contemporaries, glorious fruit of his meditations on
the Passion; and of the ecstasy with which he kept his Christmas at Greccio we
shall read when we come to consider the Presepio. He had a peculiar
affection for the festival of the Holy Child; “the Child Jesus,” says Thomas of
Celano, “had been given over to forgetfulness in the hearts of many in whom, by
the working of His grace, He was raised up again through His servant
Francis.” [2-10]

To the Early Middle Ages Christ was the awful Judge, the Rex tremendae
majestatis, though also the divine bringer of salvation from sin and eternal
punishment, and, to the mystic, the Bridegroom of the Soul. To Francis He was
the little brother of all mankind as well. It was a new human joy that came into
religion with him. His essentially artistic nature was the first to realize the
full poetry of Christmas—the coming of infinity into extremest limitation, the
Highest made the lowliest, the King of all kings a poor infant. He had, in a
supreme degree, the mingled reverence and tenderness that inspire the best
carols.

Though no Christmas verses by St. Francis have come down to us, there is a
beautiful “psalm” for Christmas Day at Vespers, composed by him partly from
passages of Scripture. A portion of Father Paschal Robinson's translation may be
quoted:—

“Rejoice to God our helper.
Shout unto God, living and true,
With the
voice of triumph.
For the Lord is high,
terrible:
A great King over all the
earth.
For the most holy Father of heaven,
Our King, before ages sent His
Beloved
Son from on high, and He
was born of the Blessed Virgin,
holy
Mary.
*       *       *       *       *
This is the day which the Lord
hath made: let us rejoice and be glad in it.
For the beloved and most holy
Child has been
given to us and
born for us by the
wayside.
And laid in a manger because
He
had no room in the inn.
Glory to God in the highest: and
on earth
peace to men of good will.”
[2-11]

It is in the poetry of Jacopone da Todi, born shortly after the death of St.
Francis, that the Franciscan Christmas spirit finds its most intense expression.
A wild, wandering ascetic, an impassioned poet, and a soaring mystic, Jacopone
is one of the greatest of Christian singers, unpolished as his verses are. Noble
by birth, he made himself utterly as the common people for whom he piped his
rustic notes. “Dio fatto piccino” (“God made a little thing”) is the keynote of
his music; the Christ Child is for him “our sweet little brother”; with tender
affection he rejoices in endearing diminutives—“Bambolino,” “Piccolino,”
“Jesulino.” He sings of the Nativity with extraordinary realism. [13] Here, in words, is a picture of the Madonna and her
Child that might well have inspired an early Tuscan artist:—

“Veggiamo il suo Bambino
Gammettare nel fieno,
E le braccia
scoperte
Porgere ad ella in seno,
Ed essa lo ricopre
El meglio che può almeno,
Mettendoli la
poppa
Entro la sua bocchina.
*       *       *       *       *
A la sua man manca,
Cullava lo Bambino,
E con sante
carole
Nenciava il suo amor fino....
Gli Angioletti d’ intorno
Se ne gian
danzando,
Facendo dolci versi
E d’ amor favellando.”
[14]

[2-12]

But there is an intense sense of the divine, as well as the human, in the
Holy Babe; no one has felt more vividly the paradox of the Incarnation:—

“Ne la degna stalla del dolce
Bambino
Gli Angeli cantano d’ intorno al
piccolino;
Cantano e gridano gli Angeli
diletti,
Tutti riverenti timidi e subietti,
Al Bambolino principe de gli
eletti,
Che nudo giace nel pungente
spino.
*       *       *       *       *
Il Verbo divino, che è sommo
sapiente,
In questo dì par che non sappia
niente,
Guardal su’ l fieno, che gambetta
piangente,
Como elli non fusse huomo divino.”
[15]

[2-13]

Here, again, are some sweet and homely lines about preparation for the Infant
Saviour:—

“Andiamo a lavare
La
casa a nettare,
Che non trovi bruttura.
Poi el menaremo,
Et gli daremo
Ben da ber’ e mangiare.
Un cibo
espiato,
Et d’ or li sia dato
Senza alcuna dimura.
Lo cor
adempito
Dagiamoli fornito
Senza odio ne rancura.”
[16]

[2-14]

There have been few more rapturous poets than Jacopone; men
deemed him mad; but, “if he is mad,” says a modern Italian writer, “he is mad as
the lark”—“Nessun poeta canta a tutta gola come questo frate minore. S’ è
pazzo, è pazzo come l’ allodola.”

To him is attributed that most poignant of Latin hymns, the “Stabat Mater
dolorosa”; he wrote also a joyous Christmas pendant to it:—

“Stabat Mater speciosa,
Juxta foenum gaudiosa,
Dum jacebat
parvulus.
Cujus animam gaudentem,
Laetabundam ac ferventem,
Pertransivit
jubilus.”
[17]

[2-15]

In the fourteenth century we find a blossoming forth of Christmas poetry in
another land, Germany. [2-16] There are indeed Christmas and Epiphany passages in a
poetical Life of Christ by Otfrid of Weissenburg in the ninth century, and a
twelfth-century poem by Spervogel, “Er ist gewaltic unde starc,” opens with a
mention of Christmas, but these are of little importance for us. The fourteenth
century shows the first real outburst, and that is traceable, in part at least,
to the mystical movement in the Rhineland caused by the preaching of the great
Dominican, Eckhart of Strasburg, and his followers. It was a movement towards
inward piety as distinguished from, though not excluding, external observances,
which made its way largely by sermons listened to by great congregations in the
towns. Its impulse came not from the monasteries proper, but from the convents
of Dominican friars, and it was for Germany in the fourteenth century something
like what Franciscanism had been for Italy in the thirteenth. One of the central
doctrines of the school  was that of the Divine Birth in the soul of the believer;
according to Eckhart the soul comes into immediate union with God by “bringing
forth the Son” within itself; the historic Christ is the symbol of the divine
humanity to which the soul should rise: “when the soul bringeth forth the Son,”
he says, “it is happier than Mary.” [2-17] Several Christmas sermons by Eckhart have been
preserved; one of them ends with the prayer, “To this Birth may that God, who
to-day is new born as man, bring us, that we, poor children of earth, may be
born in Him as God; to this may He bring us eternally! Amen.” [2-18] With this profound doctrine of the Divine Birth, it
was natural that the German mystics should enter deeply into the festival of
Christmas, and one of the earliest of German Christmas carols, “Es komt ein
schif geladen,” is the work of Eckhart's disciple, John Tauler (d. 1361). It is
perhaps an adaptation of a secular song:—

“A ship comes sailing onwards
With a precious freight on board;
It bears the
only Son of God,
It bears the Eternal
Word.”

The doctrine of the mystics, “Die in order to live,” fills the last
verses:—

“Whoe'er would hope in
gladness
To kiss this Holy Child,
Must suffer many a pain and woe,
Patient like
Him and mild;
Must die with Him to evil
And rise to righteousness,
That so with Christ
he too may share
Eternal life and bliss.”
[2-19]

To the fourteenth century may perhaps belong an allegorical carol still sung
in both Catholic and Protestant Germany:—

“Es ist ein Ros entsprungen
Aus einer Wurzel zart,
Als uns die Alten
sungen,
Von Jesse kam die Art,
Und hat ein Blümlein bracht,
Mitten im kalten
Winter,
Wohl zu der halben Nacht.
Das Röslein, das ich meine,
Davon Jesajas
sagt,
Hat uns gebracht alleine
Marie, die reine Magd.
Aus Gottes ew'gem
Rat
Hat sie ein Kind geboren
Wohl zu der halben Nacht.”
[18]

[2-20]

In a fourteenth-century Life of the mystic Heinrich Suso it is told how one
day angels came to him to comfort him in his sufferings, how they took him by
the hand and led him to dance, while one began a glad song of the child Jesus,
“In dulci jubilo.” To the fourteenth century, then, dates back that most
delightful of German carols, with its interwoven lines of Latin. I may quote the
fine Scots translation in the “Godlie and Spirituall Sangis” of 1567:—

“
In dulci Jubilo
, Now lat us sing with
myrth and jo
Our hartis consolatioun lyis
in
praesepio
,
And schynis as the Sone,
Matris in
gremio
,
Alpha es et O, Alpha es et
O.
O Jesu parvule!
I thrist sore efter
thé,
Confort my hart and mynde,
O
puer optime
,
God of all grace sa kynde,
et
princeps gloriae
Trahe me post te, Trahe me post
te
.
Ubi sunt gaudia
, in ony place bot
thair,
Quhair that the Angellis sing
Nova
cantica
,
Bot and the bellis ring
in regis
curia
,
God gif I war thair, God gif I war
thair.”
[2-21]

The music of “In dulci jubilo” [19] has, with all its religious feeling, something of the
nature of a dance, and unites in a strange fashion solemnity, playfulness, and
ecstatic delight. No other air, perhaps, shows so perfectly the reverent gaiety
of the carol spirit.

The fifteenth century produced a realistic type of German carol. Here is the
beginning of one such:—

“Da Jesu Krist geboren wart,
do was es kalt;
in ain klaines
kripplein
er geleget wart.
Da
stunt ain esel und ain rint,
die atmizten über das
hailig kint
gar unverborgen.
Der ain raines herze hat, der darf nit sorgen.”
[20]

[2-22]

It goes on to tell in naïve language the story of the wanderings of the Holy
Family during the Flight into Egypt.

This carol type lasted, and continued to develop, in Austria and the Catholic
parts of Germany through the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries,
and even in the nineteenth. In Carinthia in the early nineteenth century, almost
every parish had its local poet, who added new songs to the old treasury. [2-23] Particularly popular were the Hirtenlieder or
shepherd songs, in which the peasant worshippers joined themselves to the
shepherds of Bethlehem, and sought to share their devout  emotions. Often these carols are of the most rustic character
and in the broadest dialect. They breathe forth a great kindliness and
homeliness, and one could fill pages with quotations. Two more short extracts
must, however, suffice to show their quality.

How warm and hearty is their feeling for the Child:—

“Du herzliabste Muater, gib Acht auf dös
Kind,
Es is ja gar frostig, thuas einfatschen
gschwind.
Und du alter Voda, decks Kindlein schen
zua,
Sonst hats von der Kölden und Winden kan
Ruah.
Hiazt nemen mir Urlaub, o gettliches
Kind,
Thua unser gedenken, verzeich unser
Sünd.
Es freut uns von Herzen dass d'ankomen
bist;
Es hätt uns ja niemand zu helfen gewist.”
[21]

[2-24]

And what fatherly affection is here:—

“Das Kind is in der Krippen
glögn,
So herzig und so rar!
Mei klâner Hansl war nix dgögn,
Wenn a glei
schener war.
Kolschwarz wie d'Kirchen d'Augen
sein,
Sunst aber kreidenweiss;
Die Händ so hübsch recht zart und fein,
I hans
angrürt mit Fleiss.
Aft hats auf mi an Schmutza
gmacht,
An Höscheza darzue;
O
warst du mein, hoan i gedacht,
Werst wol a munter
Bue.
Dahoam in meiner Kachelstub
Liess i brav hoazen ein,
Do in den Stâl kimt
überâl
Der kalte Wind herein.”
[22]

[2-25]

We have been following on German ground a mediaeval tradition
that has continued unbroken down to modern days; but we must now take a leap
backward in time, and consider the beginnings of the Christmas carol in
England.

Not till the fifteenth century is there any outburst of Christmas poetry in
English, though other forms of religious lyrics were produced in considerable
numbers in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. When the carols come
at last, they appear in the least likely of all places, at the end of a
versifying of the whole duty of man, by John Awdlay, a blind chaplain of
Haghmon, in Shropshire. In red letters he writes:—

“I pray you, sirus, boothe moore and
lase,
Sing these caroles in
Cristëmas,”

and then follows a collection of twenty-five songs, some of which are genuine
Christmas carols, as one now understands the word. [2-26]

A carol, in the modern English sense, may perhaps be defined as a religious
song, less formal and solemn than the ordinary Church hymn—an expression of
popular and often naïve devotional feeling, a thing intended to be sung outside
rather than within church walls. There still linger about the word some echoes
of its original meaning, for “carol” had at first a secular or even pagan
significance: in twelfth-century France it was used to describe the amorous
song-dance which hailed the coming of spring; in Italian it meant a ring- or
song-dance; while by English writers from the thirteenth to the sixteenth
century it was used chiefly of singing joined with dancing, and had no necessary
connection with religion. Much as the mediaeval Church, with its ascetic
tendencies, disliked religious dancing, it could not always suppress it; and in
Germany, as we shall see, there was choral dancing at Christmas round the cradle
of the Christ Child. Whether Christmas carols were ever danced to in England  is doubtful; many of the old airs and words have, however, a
glee and playfulness as of human nature following its natural instincts of joy
even in the celebration of the most sacred mysteries. It is probable that some
of the carols are religious parodies of love-songs, written for the melodies of
the originals, and many seem by their structure to be indirectly derived from
the choral dances of farm folk, a notable feature being their burden or refrain,
a survival of the common outcry of the dancers as they leaped around.

Awdlay's carols are perhaps meant to be sung by “wassailing neighbours, who
make their rounds at Christmastide to drink a cup and take a gift, and bring
good fortune upon the house” [2-27] —predecessors of those carol-singers of rural
England in the nineteenth century, whom Mr. Hardy depicts so delightfully in
“Under the Greenwood Tree.” Carol-singing by a band of men who go from house to
house is probably a Christianization of such heathen processions as we shall
meet in less altered forms in Part II.

It must not be supposed that the carols Awdlay gives are his own work; and
their exact date it is impossible to determine. Part of his book was composed in
1426, but one at least of the carols was probably written in the last half of
the fourteenth century. They seem indeed to be the later blossomings of the
great springtime of English literature, the period which produced Chaucer and
Langland, an innumerable company of minstrels and ballad-makers, and the
mystical poet, Richard Rolle of Hampole. [23]

Through the fifteenth century and the first half of the sixteenth, the
flowering continued; and something like two hundred carols of this period are
known. It is impossible to attempt here anything like representative quotation;
I can only sketch in  roughest outline the main characteristics of English carol
literature, and refer the reader for examples to Miss Edith Rickert's
comprehensive collection, “Ancient English Carols, MCCCC-MDCC,” or to the
smaller but fine selection in Messrs. E. K. Chambers and F. Sidgwick's “Early
English Lyrics.” Many may have been the work of goliards or wandering
scholars, and a common feature is the interweaving of Latin with English
words.

Some, like the exquisite “I sing of a maiden that is makeles,” [2-29] are rather songs to or about the Virgin than strictly
Christmas carols; the Annunciation rather than the Nativity is their theme.
Others again tell the whole story of Christ's life. The feudal idea is strong in
such lines as these:—

“Mary is quene of allë thinge,
And her sone a lovely kinge.
God graunt us
allë good endinge!
Regnat dei gracia
.”
[2-30]

On the whole, in spite of some mystical exceptions, the mediaeval English
carol is somewhat external in its religion; there is little deep individual
feeling; the caroller sings as a member of the human race, whose curse is done
away, whose nature is exalted by the Incarnation, rather than as one whose soul
is athirst for God:—

“Now man is brighter than the
sonne;
Now man in heven an hie shall
wonne;
Blessëd be God this game is
begonne
And his moder emperesse of helle.”
[2-31]

Salvation is rather an objective external thing than an inward and spiritual
process. A man has but to pray devoutly to the dear Mother and Child, and they
will bring him to the heavenly court. It is not so much personal sin as an evil
influence in humanity, that is cured by the great event of Christmas:—

“It was dark, it was dim,
For men that levëd in gret sin;
Lucifer was
all within,
Till on the Cristmes day.
There was weping, there was wo,
For every man to hell gan go.
It was litel
mery tho,
Till on the Cristmes day.”
[2-32]

But now that Christ is born, and man redeemed, one may be blithe
indeed:—

“Jhesus is that childës name,
Maide and moder is his dame,
And so oure sorow
is turned to game.
Gloria tibi
domine.
*       *       *       *       *
Now sitte we downe upon our
knee,
And pray that child that is so
free;
And with gode hertë now sing we
Gloria tibi domine
.”
[2-33]

Sometimes the religious spirit almost vanishes, and the carol becomes little
more than a gay pastoral song:—

“The shepard upon a hill he
satt;
He had on him his tabard and his
hat,
His tar-box, his pipe, and his
flagat;
His name was called Joly Joly
Wat,
For he was a gud herdës boy.
Ut hoy!
For in his pipe he made so much
joy.
*       *       *       *       *
Whan Wat to Bedlem cum was,
He swet, he had gone faster than a pace;
He
found Jesu in a simpell place,
Betwen an ox and an
asse.
Ut hoy!
For in his pipe
he made so much joy.
‘Jesu, I offer to thee here my
pipe,
My skirt, my tar-box, and my
scripe;
Home to my felowes now will I
skipe,
And also look unto my shepe.’
Ut hoy!
For in his pipe he made so much
joy.”
[2-34]

But to others again, especially the lullabies, the hardness
of the Nativity, the shadow of the coming Passion, give a deep note of sorrow
and pathos; there is the thought of the sword that shall pierce Mary's
bosom:—

“This endris night I saw a
sight,
A maid a cradell kepe,
And ever she song and seid among
‘Lullay, my
child, and slepe.’
‘I may not slepe, but I may
wepe,
I am so wo begone;
Slepe
I wold, but I am colde
And clothës have I
none.
*       *       *       *       *
‘Adam's gilt this man had
spilt;
That sin greveth me sore.
Man, for thee here shall I be
Thirty winter
and more.
*       *       *       *       *
‘Here shall I be hanged on a
tree,
And die as it is skill.
That I have bought lesse will I nought;
It is
my fader's will.’”
[2-35]

The lullabies are quite the most delightful, as they are the most human, of
the carols. Here is an exquisitely musical verse from one of 1530:—

“In a dream late as I lay,
Methought I heard a maiden say
And speak these
words so mild:
‘My little son, with thee I
play,
And come,’ she sang, ‘by,
lullaby.’
Thus rockëd she her child.
By-by, lullaby, by-by,
lullaby,
Rockëd I my child.
By-by, by-by, by-by, lullaby,
Rockëd
I my child.
”
[2-36]

Chapter III — Christmas Poetry (II)

The French Noël—Latin Hymnody in Eighteenth-century France—Spanish
Christmas Verse—Traditional Carols of Many Countries—Christmas Poetry in
Protestant Germany—Post-Reformation Verse in England—Modern English
Carols.

The Reformation marks a change in the character of Christmas poetry in
England and the larger part of Germany, and, instead of following its
development under Protestantism, it will be well to break off and turn awhile to
countries where Catholic tradition remained unbroken. We shall come back later
to Post-Reformation England and Protestant Germany.

In French [3-1] there is little or no Christmas poetry, religious in
character, before the fifteenth century; the earlier carols that have come down
to us are songs rather of feasting and worldly rejoicing than of sacred things.
The true Noël begins to appear in fifteenth-century manuscripts, but it
was not till the following century that it attained its fullest vogue and was
spread all over the country by the printing presses. Such Noëls seem to
have been written by clerks or recognized poets, either for old airs or for
specially composed music. “To a great extent,” says Mr. Gregory Smith, “they
anticipate the spirit which stimulated the Reformers to turn the popular and
often obscene songs into good and godly ballads.” [3-2]

Some of the early Noëls are not unlike the English carols of the
period, and are often half in Latin, half in French. Here are a few such
“macaronic” verses:—

“Célébrons la naissance
Nostri Salvatoris
,
Qui fait la
complaisance
Dei sui Patris
.
Cet enfant tout aimable,
In nocte
mediâ
,
Est né dans une étable,
De castâ Mariâ
.
*       *       *       *       *
Mille esprits angéliques,
Juncti pastoribus
,
Chantent dans leur
musique,
Puer vobis natus
,
Au Dieu par qui nous sommes,
Gloria in
excelsis
,
Et la paix soit aux
hommes
Bonae voluntatis
.
*       *       *       *       *
Qu'on ne soit insensible!
Adeamus omnes
A Dieu rendu
passible,
Propter nos mortales
,
Et tous, de compagnie,
Deprecemur
eum
Qu’à la fin de la vie,
Det regnum beatum
.”
[3-3]

The sixteenth century is the most interesting Noël period; we find
then a conflict of tendencies, a conflict between Gallic realism and broad
humour and the love of refined language due to the study of the ancient
classics. There are many anonymous pieces of this time, but three important
Noëlistes stand out by name: Lucas le Moigne, Curé of Saint Georges,
Puy-la-Garde, near Poitiers; Jean Daniel, called “Maître Mitou,” a
priest-organist at Nantes; and Nicholas Denisot of Le Mans, whose Noëls
appeared posthumously under the pseudonym of “Comte d'Alsinoys.”

Lucas le Moigne represents the esprit gaulois, the spirit that is
often called “Rabelaisian,” though it is only one side of the genius of
Rabelais. The good Curé was a contemporary of  the author of “Pantagruel.” His “Chansons de Noëls nouvaulx”
was published in 1520, and contains carols in very varied styles, some naïve and
pious, others hardly quotable at the present day. One of his best-known pieces
is a dialogue between the Virgin and the singers of the carol: Mary is asked and
answers questions about the wondrous happenings of her life. Here are four
verses about the Nativity:—

“Or nous dites, Marie,
Les neuf mois accomplis,
Naquit le fruit de
vie,
Comme l'Ange avoit dit?
—Oui, sans nulle peine
Et sans
oppression,
Naquit de tout le monde
La vraie Rédemption.
Or nous dites, Marie,
Du lieu impérial,
Fut-ce en chambre
parée,
Ou en Palais royal?
—En une pauvre étable
Ouverte à
l'environ
Ou n'avait feu, ni flambe
Ni latte, ni chevron.
Or nous dites, Marie,
Qui vous vint visiter;
Les bourgeois de la
ville
Vous ont-ils confortée?
—Oncque, homme ni femme
N'en eut
compassion,
Non plus que d'un esclave
D’étrange région.
*       *       *       *       *
Or nous dites, Marie,
Des pauvres pastoureaux
Qui gardaient ès
montagnes
Leurs brebis & aigneaux.
—Ceux-là m'ont
visitée
Par grande affection;
Moult me fut agréable
Leur visitation.”
[3-4]

The influence of the “Pléiade,” with its care for form, its respect for
classical models, its enrichment of the French tongue with new Latin words, is
shown by Jean Daniel, who also owes something to the poets of the late fifteenth
century. Two stanzas may be quoted from him:—

“C'est ung très grant mystère
Qu'ung roy de si hault pris
Vient naistre en
lieu austère,
En si meschant pourpris:
Le Roy de tous les bons espritz,
C'est Jésus
nostre frère,
Le Roy de tous les bons
espritz,
Duquel sommes apris.
Saluons le doulx Jésuchrist,
Notre Dieu, notre frère,
Saluons le doulx
Jésuchrist,
Chantons Noel d'esprit!
*       *       *       *       *
En luy faisant prière,
Soyons de son party,
Qu'en sa haulte
emperière
Ayons lieu de party;
Comme il nous a droict apparty,
Jésus nostre
bon frère,
Comme il nous a droict
apparty
Au céleste convy.
Saluons, etc.
Amen. Noel.”
[3-5]

As for Denisot, I may give two charming verses from one of his
pastorals:—

“Suz, Bergiez, en campaigne,
Laissez là vos troppeaux,
Avant qu'on
s'accompaigne,
Enflez vos chalumeaux.
*       *       *       *       *
Enflez vos cornemuses,
Dansez ensemblement,
Et vos doucettes
muses,
Accollez doucement.”
[3-6]

One result of the Italian influences which came over France in the sixteenth
century was a fondness for diminutives. Introduced into carols, these have
sometimes a very graceful effect:—

“Entre le boeuf & le
bouvet,
Noel nouvellet,
Voulust Jésus nostre maistre,
En un petit
hostelet,
Noel nouvellet,
En
ce pauvre monde naistre,
O Noel
nouvellet!
Ne couche, ne bercelet,
Noel nouvellet,
Ne trouvèrent en cette
estre,
Fors ung petit drappelet,
Noel nouvellet,
Pour envelopper le
maistre,
O Noel nouvellet!”
[3-7]

These diminutives are found again, though fewer, in a particularly delightful
carol:—

“Laissez paître vos bestes
Pastoureaux, par monts et par vaux;
Laissez
paître vos bestes,
Et allons chanter
Nau.
J'ai ouï chanter le rossignol,
Qui chantoit un chant si nouveau,
Si haut, si
beau,
Si résonneau,
Il m'y rompoit la tête,
Tant il chantoit et flageoloit:
Adonc pris ma
houlette
Pour aller voir Naulet.
Laissez paître, etc.”
[3-8]

The singer goes on to tell how he went with his fellow-shepherds and
shepherdesses to Bethlehem:—

“Nous dîmes tous une chanson
Les autres en vinrent au son,
Chacun
prenant
Son compagnon:
Je
prendrai Guillemette,
Margot tu prendras gros
Guillot;
Qui prendra Péronelle?
Ce sera Talebot.
Laissez paître,
etc.
Ne chantons plus, nous tardons
trop,
Pensons d'aller courir le trot.
Viens-tu, Margot?—
J'attends
Guillot.—
J'ai rompu ma courette,
Il faut ramancher mon sabot.—
Or, tiens cette
aiguillette,
Elle y servira trop.
Laissez paître, etc.
*       *       *       *       *
Nous courumes de grand’ roideur
Pour voir notre doux Rédempteur
Et
Créateur
Et Formateur,
Qui
était tendre d'aage
Et sans linceux en grand
besoin,
Il gisait en la crêche
Sur un botteau de foin.
Laissez paître, etc.
Sa mère avecque lui était:
Et Joseph si lui éclairait,
Point ne
semblait
Au beau fillet,
Il
n’était point son père;
Je l'aperçus bien au cameau
(
visage
)
Il semblait à sa mère,
Encore est-il plus beau.
Laissez paître,
etc.”

This is but one of a large class of French Noëls which make the
Nativity more real, more present, by representing the singer as one of a company
of worshippers going to adore the Child. Often these are shepherds, but
sometimes they are simply the inhabitants of a parish, a town, a countryside, or
a province, bearing presents of their own produce to the little Jesus and His
parents. Barrels of wine, fish, fowls, sucking-pigs, pastry, milk, fruit,
firewood, birds in a cage—such are their homely gifts. Often there is a
strongly satiric note: the peculiarities and weaknesses of individuals are hit
off; the reputation of a place is suggested, a village whose people are famous
for their stinginess offers cider that is half rain-water; elsewhere the
inhabitants are so given to law-suits that they can hardly find time to go to
Bethlehem.

Such Noëls with their vivid local colour, are valuable pictures of the
manners of their time. They are, unfortunately, too long for quotation here, but
any reader who cares to follow up the subject will find some interesting
specimens in a little collection of French carols that can be bought for ten
centimes. [3-9] They are of various dates; some probably were written
as late as the eighteenth century. In that century, and indeed in the
seventeenth, the best Christmas verses are those of a provincial and rustic
character, and especially those in patois; the more cultivated poets,
with their formal classicism, can ill enter into the spirit of the festival. Of
the learned writers the best is a woman, Françoise Paschal, of Lyons (b. about
1610); in spite of her Latinity she shows a real feeling for her subjects. Some
of her Noëls are dialogues between the sacred personages; one presents  Joseph and Mary as weary wayfarers seeking shelter at all the
inns of Bethlehem and everywhere refused by host or hostess:—

“
Saint Joseph.
Voyons la
Rose-Rouge
.
Madame de céans,
Auriez-vous quelque
bouge
Pour de petites gens?
L'Hôtesse.
Vous n'avez pas la mine
D'avoir de grands trésors;
Voyez chez ma
voisine,
Car, quant à moi, je dors.
Saint Joseph.
Monsieur des
Trois-Couronnes
,
Avez-vous
logement,
Chez vous pour trois
personnes,
Quelque trou seulement.
L'Hôte.
Vous perdez votre peine,
Vous venez un peu tard,
Ma maison est fort
pleine,
Allez quelqu'autre part.”
[3-10]

The most remarkable of the patois Noëlistes of the seventeenth century
are the Provençal Saboly and the Burgundian La Monnoye, the one kindly and
tender, the other witty and sarcastic. Here is one of Saboly's Provençal
Noëls:—

“Quand la mièjonue sounavo,
Ai sautà dóu liech au sòu;
Ai vist un bèl ange
que cantavo
Milo fes pu dous qu'un
roussignòu.
Lei mastin dóu vesinage
Se soun toutes atroupa;
N'avien jamai vist aquéu
visage
Se soun tout-d'un-cop mes à
japa.
Lei pastre dessus la paio
Dourmien coume de soucas;
Quand an aussi lou
bru dei sounaio
Au cresegu qu'ero lou
souiras.
S'eron de gent resounable,
Vendrien sèns èstre envita:
Trouvarien dins un
petit estable
La lumiero emai la verita.”
[24]

[3-11]

As for La Monnoye, here is a translation of one of his satirical
verses:—“When in the time of frost Jesus Christ came into the world the ass and
ox warmed Him with their breath in the stable. How many asses and oxen I know in
this kingdom of Gaul! How many asses and oxen I know who would not have done as
much!” [3-12]

Apart from the rustic Noëls, the eighteenth century
produced little French Christmas poetry of any charm. Some of the carols most
sung in French churches to-day belong, however, to this period, e.g., the
“Venez, divin Messie” of the Abbé Pellegrin. [3-13]

One cannot leave the France of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries without some mention of its Latin hymnody. From a date near
1700, apparently, comes the sweet and solemn “Adeste, fideles”; by its music and
its rhythm, perhaps, rather than by its actual words it has become the best
beloved of Christmas hymns. The present writer has heard it sung with equal
reverence and heartiness in English, German, French, and Italian churches, and
no other hymn seems so full of the spirit of Christmas devotion—wonder,  awe, and tenderness, and the sense of reconciliation between
Heaven and earth. Composed probably in France, “Adeste, fideles” came to be used
in English as well as French Roman Catholic churches during the eighteenth
century. In 1797 it was sung at the chapel of the Portuguese Embassy in London;
hence no doubt its once common name of “Portuguese hymn.” It was first used in
an Anglican church in 1841, when the Tractarian Oakley translated it for his
congregation at Margaret Street Chapel, London.

Another fine Latin hymn of the eighteenth-century French Church is Charles
Coffin's “Jam desinant suspiria.” [3-14] It appeared in the Parisian Breviary in 1736, and is
well known in English as “God from on high hath heard.”

The Revolution and the decay of Catholicism in France seem
to have killed the production of popular carols. The later nineteenth century,
however, saw a revival of interest in the Noël as a literary form. In
1875 the bicentenary of Saboly's death was celebrated by a competition for a
Noël in the Provençal tongue, and something of the same kind has been
done in Brittany. [3-15] The Noël has attracted by its aesthetic charm
even poets who are anything but devout; Théophile Gautier, for instance, wrote a
graceful Christmas carol, “Le ciel est noir, la terre est blanche.”

On a general view of the vernacular Christmas poetry of France it must be
admitted that the devotional note is not very strong; there is indeed a formal
reverence, a courtly homage, paid to the Infant Saviour, and the miraculous in
the Gospel story is taken for granted; but there is little sense of awe and
mystery. In harmony with the realistic instincts of the nation, everything is
dramatically, very humanly conceived; at times, indeed, the personages of the
Nativity scenes quite lose their sacred character, and the treatment degenerates
into grossness. At its best, however, the French Noël has a gaiety and a
grace, joined to a genuine, if not very deep, piety, that are extremely
charming. Reading these rustic songs, we are carried in imagination to French
countrysides; we think of the long walk through the snow to the Midnight Mass,
the cheerful réveillon spread on the  return, the family gathered round the hearth, feasting on
wine and chestnuts and boudins, and singing in traditional strains the
joys of Noël.

Across the Pyrenees, in Spain, the late sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries saw a great output of Christmas verse. Among the
chief writers were Juan López de Ubeda, Francisco de Ocaña, and José de
Valdivielso. [3-16] Their villancicos remind one of the paintings
of Murillo; they have the same facility, the same tender and graceful sentiment,
without much depth. They lack the homely flavour, the quaintness that make the
French and German folk-carols so delightful; they have not the rustic tang, and
yet they charm by their simplicity and sweetness.

Here are a few stanzas by Ocaña:—

“Dentro de un pobre pesebre
y cobijado con heno
yace Jesus
Nazareno.
En el heno yace echado
el hijo de Dios eterno,
para librar del
infierno
al hombre que hubo criado,
y por matar el pecado
el heno tiene por
bueno
nuestro Jesus Nazareno.
Está entre dos animales
que le calientan del frio,
quien remedia
nuestros males
con su grande poderío:
es su reino y señorío
el mundo y el cielo
sereno,
y agora duerme en el heno.
Tiene por bueno sufrir
el frio y tanta fortuna,
sin tener ropa
ninguna
con que se abrigar ni cubrir,
y por darnos el
vivir
padeció frio en el heno,
nuestro Jesus Nazareno.”
[25]

[3-17]

More of a peasant flavour is found in some snatches of Christmas carols given
by Fernan Caballero in her sketch, “La Noche de Navidad.”

“Ha nacido en un portal,
Llenito de telarañas,
Entre la mula y el
buey
El Redentor de las almas.
*       *       *       *       *
En el portal de Belen
Hay estrella, sol y luna:
La Virgen y San
José
Y el niño que está en la cuna.
En Belen tocan á fuego,
Del portal sale la llama,
Es una estrella del
cielo,
Que ha caido entre la paja.
Yo soy un pobre gitano
Que vengo de Egipto aquí,
Y al niño de Dios le
traigo
Un gallo quiquiriquí
Yo soy un pobre gallego
Que vengo de la Galicia,
Y al niño de Dios le
traigo
Lienzo para una camisa.
Al niño recien nacido
Todos le traen un don;
Yo soy chico y nada
tengo;
Le traigo mi corazon.”
[26]

[3-18]

In nearly every western language one finds traditional Christmas carols.
Europe is everywhere alive with them; they spring up like wild flowers. Some
interesting Italian specimens are given by Signor de Gubernatis in his “Usi
Natalizi.” Here are a few stanzas from a Bergamesque cradle-song of the Blessed
Virgin:—

“Dormi, dormi, o bel bambin,
Re divin.
Dormi, dormi, o
fantolin.
Fa la nanna, o caro figlio,
Re del Ciel,
Tanto bel, grazioso
giglio.
Chiüdi i lümi, o mio tesor,
Dolce amor,
Di quest’ alma, almo
Signor;
Fa la nanna, o regio infante,
Sopra il fien,
Caro ben, celeste
amante.
Perchè piangi, o bambinell,
Forse il giel
Ti dà noia, o
l'asinell?
Fa la nanna, o paradiso
Del mio cor,
Redentor, ti bacio il viso.”
[27]

[3-19]

With this lullaby may be compared a singularly lovely and
quite untranslatable Latin cradle-song of unknown origin:—

“Dormi, fili, dormi! mater
Cantat unigenito:
Dormi, puer, dormi!
pater,
Nato clamat parvulo:
Millies tibi laudes canimus
Mille, mille,
millies.
Lectum stravi tibi soli,
Dormi, nate bellule!
Stravi lectum foeno
molli:
Dormi, mi animule.
Millies tibi laudes canimus
Mille, mille,
millies.
Ne quid desit, sternam rosis,
Sternam foenum violis,
Pavimentum
hyacinthis
Et praesepe liliis.
Millies tibi laudes canimus
Mille, mille,
millies.
Si vis musicam, pastores
Convocabo protinus;
Illis nulli sunt
priores;
Nemo canit castius.
Millies tibi laudes canimus
Mille, mille,
millies.”
[3-21]

Curious little poems are found in Latin and other languages, making a
dialogue of the cries of animals at the news of Christ's birth. [3-22] The following French example is fairly typical:—

“Comme les bestes autrefois
Parloient mieux latin que françois,
Le coq, de
loin voyant le fait,
S’écria:
Christus natus
est.
Le bœuf, d'un air tout ébaubi,
Demande:
Ubi? Ubi? Ubi?
La chèvre, se
tordant le groin,
Répond que c'est à
Béthléem
.
Maistre Baudet,
curiosus
De l'aller voir, dit:
Eamus
;
Et, droit sur ses pattes, le
veau
Beugle deux fois:
Volo, Volo!
”
[28]

[3-23]

In Wales, in the early nineteenth century, carol-singing was more popular,
perhaps, than in England; the carols were sung to the harp, in church at the
Plygain or early morning service on Christmas Day, in the homes of the
people, and at the doors of the houses by visitors. [3-24] In Ireland, too, the custom of carol-singing then
prevailed. [3-25] Dr. Douglas Hyde, in his “Religious Songs of
Connacht,” gives and translates an interesting Christmas hymn in Irish, from
which two verses may be quoted. They set forth the great paradox of the
Incarnation:—

“Little babe who art so great,
Child so young who art so old,
In the manger small his
room,
Whom not heaven itself could
hold.
Father—not more old than thou?
Mother—younger, can it be?
Older, younger is
the Son,
Younger, older, she than he.”
[3-27]

Even in dour Scotland, with its hatred of religious festivals, some kind of
carolling survived here and there among Highland folk, and a remarkable and very
“Celtic” Christmas song has been translated from the Gaelic by Mr. J. A.
Campbell. It begins:—

“Sing hey the Gift, sing ho the
Gift,
Sing hey the Gift of the Living,
Son of the Dawn, Son of the Star,
Son of the
Planet, Son of the Far [twice],
Sing hey the Gift, sing
ho the Gift.”
[3-28]

Before I close this study with a survey of Christmas poetry in England after
the Reformation, it may be interesting to follow the developments in Protestant
Germany. The Reformation gave a great impetus to German religious song, and we
owe to it some of the finest of Christmas hymns. It is no doubt largely due to
Luther, that passionate lover of music and folk-poetry, that hymns have
practically become the liturgy of German Protestantism; yet he did but give
typical expression to the natural instincts of his countrymen for song. Luther,
though a rebel, was no Puritan; we can hardly call him an iconoclast; he had a
conservative mind, which only gradually became loosened from its old
attachments. His was an essentially artistic nature: “I would fain,” he said,
“see all arts, especially music, in the service of Him who has given and created
them,” and in the matter of hymnody he continued, in many respects, the
mediaeval German tradition. Homely, kindly, a lover of children, he had a deep
feeling for the festival of Christmas; and not only did he translate into German
“A solis ortus cardine” and “Veni, redemptor  gentium,” but he wrote for his little son Hans one of the
most delightful and touching of all Christmas hymns—“Vom Himmel hoch, da komm
ich her.”

“Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich
her,
Ich bring euch gute neue Mär,
Der guten Mär bring ich so viel,
Davon ich
singen und sagen will.
Euch ist ein Kindlein heut
gebor'n
Von einer Jungfrau auserkor'n,
Ein Kindelein so zart und fein,
Das soll eu'r
Freud und Wonne sein.
*       *       *       *       *
Merk auf, mein Herz, und sich dort
hin:
Was liegt doch in dem Kripplein
drin?
Wess ist das schöne Kindelein?
Es ist das liebe Jesulein.
*       *       *       *       *
Ach Herr, du Schöpfer aller
Ding,
Wie bist du worden so gering,
Dass du da liegst auf dürrem Gras,
Davon ein
Rind und Esel ass?
*       *       *       *       *
Ach, mein herzliebes Jesulein,
Mach dir ein rein sanft Bettelein,
Zu ruhen in
mein's Herzens Schrein,
Dass ich nimmer vergesse
dein.
*       *       *       *       *
Davon ich allzeit fröhlich sei,
Zu springen, singen immer frei
Das rechte Lied
dem Gottessohn
Mit Herzenslust, den süssen Ton.”
[29]

[3-29]

“Vom Himmel hoch” has qualities of simplicity, directness,
and warm human feeling which link it to the less ornate forms of carol
literature. Its first verse is adapted from a secular song; its melody may,
perhaps, have been composed by Luther himself. There is another Christmas hymn
of Luther's, too—“Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schar”—written for use when “Vom
Himmel hoch” was thought too long, and he also composed additional verses for
the mediaeval “Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ.”

“Gelobet seist du, Jesu
Christ,
Dass du Mensch geboren bist
Von einer Jungfrau, das ist wahr,
Des freuet
sich der Engel Schar.
Kyrieleis!
Des ew'gen Vaters einig Kind
Jetzt man in der Krippe find't,
In unser armes
Fleisch und Blut
Verkleidet sich das ewig
Gut.
Kyrieleis!
Den aller Weltkreis nie
beschloss,
Der lieget in Marie'n
Schoss;
Er ist ein Kindlein worden
klein,
Der alle Ding’ erhält allein.
Kyrieleis!
”
[30]

[3-31]

The first stanza alone is mediaeval, the remaining six of the hymn are
Luther's.

The Christmas hymns of Paul Gerhardt, the seventeenth-century Berlin pastor,
stand next to Luther's. They are more subjective, more finished, less direct and
forcible. Lacking the finest qualities of poetry, they are nevertheless
impressive by their dignity and heartiness. Made for music, the words alone
hardly convey the full power of these hymns. They should be heard sung to the
old chorales, massive, yet sweet, by the lusty voices of a German congregation.
To English people they are probably best known through the verses introduced
into the “Christmas Oratorio,” where the old airs are given new beauty by Bach's
marvellous harmonies. The tone of devotion, one feels, in Gerhardt and Bach is
the same, immeasurably greater as is the genius of the composer; in both there
is a profound joy in the Redemption begun by the Nativity, a robust faith joined
to a deep sense of the mystery of suffering, and a keen sympathy with childhood,
a tender fondness for the Infant King.

The finest perhaps of Gerhardt's hymns is the Advent “Wie
soll ich dich empfangen?” (“How shall I fitly meet Thee?”), which comes early in
the “Christmas Oratorio.” More closely connected with the Nativity, however, are
the Weihnachtslieder, “Wir singen dir, Emanuel,” “O Jesu Christ, dein
Kripplein ist,” “Fröhlich soll mein Herze springen,” “Ich steh an deiner Krippen
hier,” and others. I give a few verses from the third:—

“Fröhlich soll mein Herze
springen
Dieser Zeit,
Da für
Freud
Alle Engel singen.
Hört,
hört, wie mit vollen Choren
Alle Luft
Laute ruft:
Christus ist
geboren.
*       *       *       *       *
Nun, er liegt in seiner
Krippen,
Ruft zu sich
Mich und
dich,
Spricht mit süssen Lippen:
Lasset fahrn, O lieben Brüder
Was euch
quält,
Was euch fehlt;
Ich
bring alles wieder.
*       *       *       *       *
Süsses Heil, lass dich
umfangen;
Lass mich dir,
Meine
Zier,
Unverrückt anhangen.
Du
bist meines Lebens Leben;
Nun kann ich
Mich durch dich
Wohl zufrieden geben.”
[31]

[3-33]

One more German Christmas hymn must be mentioned, Gerhard
Tersteegen's “Jauchzet, ihr Himmel, frohlocket, ihr englischen Chöre.”
Tersteegen represents one phase of the mystical and emotional reaction against
the religious formalism and indifference of the eighteenth century. In the
Lutheran Church the Pietists, though they never seceded, somewhat resembled the
English Methodists; the Moravians formed a separate community, while from the
“Reformed” or Calvinistic Church certain circles of spiritually-minded people,
who drew inspiration from the mediaeval mystics and later writers like Böhme and
Madame Guyon, gathered into more or less independent groups for religious
intercourse. Of these last Tersteegen is a representative singer. Here are three
verses from his best known Christmas hymn:—

“Jauchzet, ihr Himmel, frohlocket, ihr
englischen Chöre,
Singet dem Herrn, dem Heiland der
Menschen, zur Ehre:
Sehet doch da!
Gott will so freundlich und nah
Zu den
Verlornen sich kehren.
König der Ehren, aus Liebe geworden zum
Kinde,
Dem ich auch wieder mein Herz in der Liebe
verbinde;
Du sollst es sein,
Den ich erwähle allein,
Ewig entsag’ ich der
Sünde.
Treuer Immanuel, werd’ auch in mir neu
geboren;
Komm doch, mein Heiland, und lass mich nicht
länger verloren;
Wohne in mir,
Mach mich ganz eines mit dir,
Den du zum Leben
erkoren.”
[32]

[3-35]

The note of personal religion, as distinguished from theological doctrine, is
stronger in German Christmas poetry than in that of any other nation—the birth
of Christ in the individual soul, not merely the redemption of man in general,
is a central idea.

We come back at last to England. The great carol period
is, as has already been said, the fifteenth, and the first half of the
sixteenth, century; after the Reformation the English domestic Christmas largely
loses its religious colouring, and the best carols of the late sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries are songs of  feasting and pagan ceremonies rather than of the Holy Child
and His Mother. There is no lack of fine Christmas verse in the Elizabethan and
early Stuart periods, but for the most part it belongs to the oratory and the
chamber rather than the hall. The Nativity has become a subject for private
contemplation, for individual devotion, instead of, as in the later Middle Ages,
a matter for common jubilation, a wonder-story that really happened, in which,
all alike and all together, the serious and the frivolous could rejoice,
something that, with all its marvel, could be taken as a matter of course, like
the return of the seasons or the rising of the sun on the just and on the
unjust.

English Christmas poetry after the mid-sixteenth century is, then, individual
rather than communal in its spirit; it is also a thing less of the people, more
of the refined and cultivated few. The Puritanism which so deeply affected
English religion was abstract rather than dramatic in its conception of
Christianity, it was concerned less with the events of the Saviour's life than
with Redemption as a transaction between God and man; St. Paul and the Old
Testament rather than the gospels were its inspiration. Moreover, the material
was viewed not as penetrated by and revealing the spiritual, but as sheer
impediment blocking out the vision of spiritual things. Hence the extremer
Puritans were completely out of touch with the sensuous poetry of Christmas, a
festival which, as we shall see, they actually suppressed when they came into
power.

The singing of sacred carols by country people continued, indeed, but the
creative artistic impulse was lost. True carols after the Reformation tend to be
doggerel, and no doubt many of the traditional pieces printed in such
collections as Bramley and Stainer's [33] [3-37] are debased survivals from the Middle Ages, or
perhaps new words written for old tunes. Such carols as “God rest you merry,
gentlemen,” have unspeakably delightful airs, and the words charm us moderns by
their quaintness and rusticity, but they are far from the exquisite loveliness
of the mediaeval  things. Gleams of great beauty are, however, sometimes found
amid matter that in the process of transmission has almost ceased to be poetry.
Here, for instance, are five stanzas from the traditional “Cherry-tree
Carol”:—

“As Joseph was a-walking,
He heard an angel sing:
‘This night shall be
born
Our heavenly King.
‘He neither shall be born
In housen nor in hall,
Nor in the place of
Paradise,
But in an ox's stall.
‘He neither shall be clothed
In purple nor in pall,
But all in fair
linen
As wear babies all.
‘He neither shall be rocked
In silver nor in gold,
But in a wooden
cradle
That rocks on the mould.
‘He neither shall be christened
In white wine nor red,
But with fair spring
water
With which we were
christened.’”

The old carols sung by country folk have often not much to do with the
Nativity; they are sometimes rhymed lives of Christ or legends of the Holy
Childhood. Of the latter class the strangest is “The Bitter Withy,” discovered
in Herefordshire by Mr. Frank Sidgwick. It tells how the little Jesus asked
three lads to play with Him at ball. But they refused:—

“’O we are lords’ and ladies’
sons,
Born in bower or in hall;
And you are but a poor maid's child,
Born in
an oxen's stall.’
‘If I am but a poor maid's
child,
Born in an oxen's stall,
I will let you know at the very latter end
That I am above you all.’
So he built him a bridge with the beams of the
sun,
And over the sea went he,
And after followed the three jolly jerdins,
And drowned they were all three.
Then Mary mild called home her
child,
And laid him across her knee,
And with a handful of green withy twigs
She
gave him slashes three.
‘O the withy, O the withy, O bitter
withy
That causes me to smart!
O the withy shall be the very first tree
That
perishes at the heart.’”

From these popular ballads, mediaeval memories in the rustic mind, we must
return to the devotional verse of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries. Two of the greatest poets of the Nativity, the Roman priests
Southwell and Crashaw, are deeply affected by the wave of mysticism which passed
over Europe in their time. Familiar as is Southwell's “The Burning Babe,” few
will be sorry to find it here:—

“As I in hoary winter's night
Stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was
with sudden heat,
Which made my heart to
glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye
To view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe all
burning bright
Did in the air appear;
Who, scorchèd with excessive heat,
Such floods
of tears did shed,
As though His floods should quench
His flames
Which with His tears were fed.
‘Alas!’ quoth He, ‘but newly
born,
In fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts
Or feel
my fire, but I!
My faultless breast the furnace
is,
The fuel, wounding thorns;
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke,
The
ashes, shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth
on,
And Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought
Are men's
defilèd souls,
For which, as now on fire I
am,
To work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath,
To wash them in my
blood.’
With this he vanished out of
sight,
And swiftly shrunk away:
And straight I callèd unto mind
That it was
Christmas Day.”
[3-38]

As for Crashaw,

“That the great angel-blinding light should
shrink
His blaze to shine in a poor shepherd's
eye,
That the unmeasured God so low should
sink
As Pris'ner in a few poor rags to
lie,
That from His mother's breast He milk should
drink
Who feeds with nectar heaven's fair
family,
That a vile manger His low bed should
prove
Who in a throne of stars thunders
above:
That He, whom the sun serves, should faintly
peep
Through clouds of infant flesh; that He the
old
Eternal Word should be a Child and
weep,
That He who made the fire should fear the
cold:
That heaven's high majesty His court should
keep
In a clay cottage, by each blast
controll'd:
That glory's self should serve our griefs
and fears,
And free Eternity submit to years—”
[3-39]

such are the wondrous paradoxes celebrated in his glowing imagery. The
contrast of the winter snow with the burning  heat of Incarnate Love, of the blinding light of Divinity
with the night's darkness, indeed the whole paradox of the Incarnation—Infinity
in extremest limitation—is nowhere realized with such intensity as by him. Yet,
magnificent as are his best lines, his verse sometimes becomes too like the
seventeenth-century Jesuit churches, with walls overladen with decoration, with
great languorous pictures and air heavy with incense; and then we long for the
dewy freshness of the early carols.

The representative Anglican poets of the seventeenth century, Herbert and
Vaughan, scarcely rise to their greatest heights in their treatment of
Christmas, but with them as with the Romanists it is the mystical note that is
dominant. Herbert sings:—

“O Thou, whose glorious, yet contracted,
light,
Wrapt in night's mantle, stole into a
manger;
Since my dark soul and brutish is Thy
right,
To man, of all beasts, be not Thou a
stranger.
Furnish and deck my soul, that thou may'st
have
A better lodging than a rack or grave.”
[3-40]

And Vaughan:—

“I would I had in my best part
Fit rooms for Thee! or that my heart
Were so
clean as
Thy manger was!
But I
am all filth, and obscene:
Yet, if Thou wilt, Thou
canst make clean.
Sweet Jesu! will then. Let no
more
This leper haunt and soil thy
door!
Cure him, ease him,
O
release him!
And let once more, by mystic
birth,
The Lord of life be born in earth.”
[3-41]

In Herrick—how different a country parson from Herbert!—we find a sort of
pagan piety towards the Divine Infant which,  though purely English in its expression, makes us think of
some French Noëliste or some present-day Italian worshipper of the
Bambino:—

“Instead of neat enclosures
Of interwoven osiers,
Instead of fragrant
posies
Of daffodils and roses,
Thy cradle, kingly Stranger,
As gospel
tells,
Was nothing else
But
here a homely manger.
But we with silks not crewels,
With sundry precious jewels,
And lily work
will dress Thee;
And, as we dispossess
Thee
Of clouts, we'll make a chamber,
Sweet Babe, for Thee,
Of
ivory,
And plaster'd round with amber.”
[3-42]

Poems such as Herrick's to the Babe of Bethlehem reveal in their writers a
certain childlikeness, an insouciance without irreverence, the spirit
indeed of a child which turns to its God quite simply and naturally, which makes
Him after its own child-image, and sees Him as a friend who can be pleased with
trifles—almost, in fact, as a glorious playmate. Such a nature has no intense
feeling of sin, but can ask for forgiveness and then forget; religion for it is
rather an outward ritual to be duly and gracefully performed than an inward
transforming power. Herrick is a strange exception among the Anglican singers of
Christmas.

Milton's great Nativity hymn, with its wondrous blending of pastoral
simplicity and classical conceits, is too familiar for quotation here; it may be
suggested, however, that this work of the poet's youth is far more Anglican than
Puritan in its spirit.

Sweet and solemn Spenserian echoes are these verses from Giles Fletcher's
“Christ's Victory in Heaven”:—

“Who can forget—never to be
forgot—
The time, that all the world in slumber
lies,
When, like the stars, the singing angels
shot
To earth, and heaven awakèd all his
eyes
To see another sun at midnight
rise
On earth? Was never sight of pareil
fame,
For God before man like Himself did
frame,
But God Himself now like a mortal man
became.
A Child He was, and had not learnt to
speak,
That with His word the world before did
make;
His mother's arms Him bore, He was so
weak,
That with one hand the vaults of heaven could
shake,
See how small room my infant Lord doth
take,
Whom all the world is not enough to
hold!
Who of His years, or of His age hath
told?
Never such age so young, never a child so
old.”
[3-43]

The old lullaby tradition is continued by Wither, though the infant in the
cradle is an ordinary human child, who is rocked to sleep with the story of his
Lord:—

“A little Infant once was He,
And strength in weakness then was laid
Upon
His virgin-mother's knee,
That power to thee might be
conveyed.
Sweet baby, then, forbear to
weep;
Be still, my babe; sweet baby,
sleep.
*       *       *       *       *
Within a manger lodged thy
Lord,
Where oxen lay and asses fed;
Warm rooms we do to thee afford,
An easy
cradle or a bed.
Sweet baby, then, forbear to
weep;
Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep.”
[3-44]

When we come to the eighteenth century we find, where we might least expect
it, among the moral verses of Dr. Watts, a charming cradle-song conceived in
just the same way:—

“Hush, my dear, lie still and
slumber,
Holy angels guard thy bed!
Heavenly blessings without number
Gently
falling on thy head.
*       *       *       *       *
Soft and easy is thy cradle;
Coarse and hard thy Saviour lay.
When His
birthplace was a stable,
And His softest bed was
hay.
*       *       *       *       *
Lo He slumbers in His manger
Where the hornèd oxen fed;
—Peace, my
darling, here's no danger;
Here's no ox a-near thy
bed.”
[3-45]

It is to the eighteenth century that the three most popular of English
Christmas hymns belong. Nahum Tate's “While shepherds watched their flocks by
night”—one of the very few hymns (apart from metrical psalms) in common use in
the Anglican Church before the nineteenth century—is a bald and apparently
artless paraphrase of St. Luke which, by some accident, has attained dignity,
and is aided greatly by the simple and noble tune now attached to it. Charles
Wesley's “Hark, the herald angels sing,” or—as it should be—“Hark, how all the
welkin rings,” is much admired by some, but to the present writer seems a mere
piece of theological rhetoric. Byrom's “Christians, awake, salute the happy
morn,” has the stiffness and formality or its period, but it is not without a
certain quaintness and dignity. One could hardly expect fine Christmas poetry of
an age whose religion was on the one hand staid, rational, unimaginative, and on
the other “Evangelical” in the narrow sense, finding its centre in the Atonement
rather than the Incarnation.

The revived mediaevalism, religious and aesthetic, of the nineteenth century,
produced a number of Christmas carols. Some, like Swinburne's “Three damsels in
the queen's chamber,” with  its exquisite verbal music and delightful colour, and William
Morris's less successful “Masters, in this hall,” and “Outlanders, whence come
ye last?” are the work of unbelievers and bear witness only to the aesthetic
charm of the Christmas story; but there are others, mostly from Roman or
Anglo-Catholic sources, of real religious inspiration. [34] The most spontaneous are Christina Rossetti's, whose
haunting rhythms and delicate feeling are shown at their best in her songs of
the Christ Child. More studied and self-conscious are the austere Christmas
verses of Lionel Johnson and the graceful carols of Professor Selwyn Image. In
one poem Mr. Image strikes a deeper and stronger note than elsewhere; its solemn
music takes us back to an earlier century:—

“Consider, O my soul, what morn is
this!
Whereon the eternal Lord of all things
made,
For us, poor mortals, and our endless
bliss,
Came down from heaven; and, in a manger
laid,
The first, rich, offerings of our ransom
paid:
Consider, O my soul, what morn is this!”
[3-46]

Not a few contemporary poets have given us Christmas carols or poems. Among
the freshest and most natural are those of Katharine Tynan, while Mr. Gilbert
Chesterton has written some Christmas lyrics full of colour and vitality, and
with a true mystical quality. Singing of Christmas, Mr. Chesterton is at his
best; he has instinctive sympathy with the spirit of the festival, its human
kindliness, its democracy, its sacramentalism, its exaltation of the
child:—

“The thatch of the roof was as
golden
Though dusty the straw was and
old;
The wind had a peal as of
trumpets,
Though blowing and barren and cold.
The mother's hair was a glory,
Though loosened and torn;
For under the eaves
in the gloaming
A child was born.”
[3-47]

Thus opens a fine poem on the Nativity as symbolizing miracle of birth, of
childhood with its infinite possibilities, eternal renewal of faith and
hope.

Chapter IV — Christmas in Liturgy and Popular Devotion

Advent and Christmas Offices of the Roman Church—The Three Masses of
Christmas, their Origin and their Celebration in Rome—The Midnight Mass in
Many Lands—Protestant Survivals of the Night Services—Christmas in the Greek
Church—The Eastern Epiphany and the Blessing of the Waters—The
Presepio or Crib, its Supposed Institution by St. Francis—Early Traces
of the Crib—The Crib in Germany, Tyrol, &c.—Cradle-rocking in Mediaeval
Germany—Christmas Minstrels in Italy and Sicily—The Presepio in
Italy—Ceremonies with the Culla and the Bambino in
Rome—Christmas in Italian London—The Spanish Christmas—Possible Survivals
of the Crib in England.

From a study of Christmas as reflected in lyric poetry, we now pass to other
forms of devotion in which the Church has welcomed the Redeemer at His birth.
These are of two kinds—liturgical and popular; and they correspond in a large
degree to the successive ways of apprehending the meaning of Christmas which we
traced in the foregoing chapters. Strictly liturgical devotions are little
understanded of the people: only the clergy can fully join in them; for the mass
of the lay folk they are mysterious rites in an unknown tongue, to be followed
with reverence, as far as may be, but remote and little penetrated with
humanity. Side by side with these, however, are popular devotions, full of vivid
colour, highly anthropomorphic, bringing the mysteries of religion within the
reach of the simplest minds, and warm with human feeling. The austere Latin
hymns of the earlier centuries belong to liturgy; the vernacular Christmas
poetry of later ages is largely associated with popular devotion.

Liturgiology is a vast and complicated, and except to the
few, an unattractive, subject. To attempt here a survey of the liturgies in
their relation to Christmas is obviously impossible; we must be content to dwell
mainly upon the present-day Roman offices, which, in spite of various revisions,
give some idea of the mediaeval services of Latin Christianity, and to cast a
few glances at other western rites, and at those of the Greek Church.

Whatever may be his attitude towards Catholicism, or, indeed, Christianity,
no one sensitive to the music of words, or the suggestions of poetic imagery,
can read the Roman Breviary and Missal without profound admiration for the
amazing skill with which the noblest passages of Hebrew poetry are chosen and
fitted to the expression of Christian devotion, and the gold of psalmists,
prophets, and apostles is welded into coronals for the Lord and His saints. The
office-books of the Roman Church are, in one aspect, the greatest of
anthologies.

Few parts of the Roman Breviary have more beauty than the Advent [35] offices, where the Church has brought together the
majestic imagery of the Hebrew prophets, the fervent exhortation of the
apostles, to prepare the minds of the faithful for the coming of the Christ, for
the celebration of the Nativity.

Advent begins with a stirring call. If we turn to the opening service of the
Christian Year, the First Vespers of the First Sunday in Advent, we shall find
as the first words in the “Proper of the Season” the trumpet-notes of St. Paul:
“Brethren, it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now is our salvation
nearer than when we believed.” This, the Little Chapter for the office, is
followed by the ancient hymn, “Creator alme siderum,” [4-1] chanting in awful tones the two comings of  Christ, for redemption and for judgment; and then are sung
the words that strike the keynote of the Advent services, and are heard again
and again.

“
Rorate, coeli, desuper, et nubes pluant
Justum
(Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let
the skies pour down the Righteous One).
Aperiatur
terra et germinet Salvatorem
(Let the earth open,
and let her bring forth the Saviour).”

Rorate, coeli, desuper—Advent is a time of longing expectancy. It is
a season of waiting patiently for the Lord, whose coming in great humility is to
be commemorated at Christmas, to whose coming again in His glorious majesty to
judge both the quick and the dead the Christian looks forward with mingled hope
and awe. There are four weeks in Advent, and an ancient symbolical explanation
interprets these as typifying four comings of the Son of God: the first in the
flesh, the second in the hearts of the faithful through the Holy Spirit, the
third at the death of every man, and the fourth at the Judgment Day. The fourth
week is never completed (Christmas Eve is regarded as not part of Advent),
because the glory bestowed on the saints at the Last Coming will never end.

The great Eucharistic hymn, “Gloria in excelsis,” is omitted in Advent, in
order, say the symbolists, that on Christmas night, when it was first sung by
the angels, it may be chanted with the greater eagerness and devotion. The “Te
Deum” at Matins too is left unsaid, because Christ is regarded as not yet come.
But “Alleluia” is not omitted, because Advent is only half a time of penitence:
there is awe at the thought of the Coming for Judgment, but joy also in the hope
of the Incarnation to be celebrated at Christmas, and the glory in store for the
faithful. [4-3]

Looking forward is above all things the note of Advent; the Church seeks to
share the mood of the Old Testament saints, and she draws more now than at any
other season, perhaps, on the treasures of Hebrew prophecy for her lessons,
antiphons, versicles, and responds. Looking for the glory that shall be
revealed, she awaits, at this darkest time of the year, the rising  of the Sun of Righteousness. Rorate, coeli,
desuper—the mood comes at times to all idealists, and even those moderns
who hope not for a supernatural Redeemer, but for the triumph of social justice
on this earth, must be stirred by the poetry of the Advent offices.

It is at Vespers on the seven days before Christmas Eve that the Church's
longing finds its noblest expression—in the antiphons known as the “Great O's,”
sung before and after the “Magnificat,” one on each day. “O Sapientia,” runs the
first, “O Wisdom, which camest out of the mouth of the Most High, and reachest
from one end to another, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: come and
teach us the way of prudence.” “O Adonai,” “O Root of Jesse,” “O Key of David,”
“O Day-spring, Brightness of Light Everlasting,” “O King of the Nations,” thus
the Church calls to her Lord, “O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Desire of
all nations, and their Salvation: come and save us, O Lord our God.” [4-4]

At last Christmas Eve is here, and at Vespers we feel the nearness of the
great Coming. “Lift up your heads: behold your redemption draweth nigh,” is the
antiphon for the last psalm. “To-morrow shall be done away the iniquity of the
earth,” is the versicle after the Office Hymn. And before and after the
“Magnificat” the Church sings: “When the sun shall have risen, ye shall see the
King of kings coming forth from the Father, as a bridegroom out of his
chamber.”

Yet only with the night office of Matins does the glory of the festival
begin. There is a special fitness at Christmas in the Church's keeping watch by
night, like the shepherds of Bethlehem, and the office is full of the poetry of
the season, full of exultant joy. To the “Venite, exultemus Domino” a Christmas
note is added by the oft-repeated Invitatory, “Unto us the Christ is born: O
come, let us adore Him.” Psalms follow—among them the three retained by the
Anglican Church in her Christmas Matins—and lessons from the Old and New
Testaments and the homilies of the Fathers, interspersed with Responsories
bringing home to the faithful the wonders of the Holy Night. Some are almost
dramatic; this, for instance:—

“Whom saw ye, O shepherds? speak; tell us who
hath appeared on the earth.
We saw the new-born Child,
and angels singing praise unto the Lord.
Speak, what
saw ye? and tell us of the birth of Christ.
We saw the
new-born Child, and angels singing praise unto the Lord.”

It is the wonder of the Incarnation, the marvel of the spotless Birth, the
song of the Angels, the coming down from heaven of true peace, the daybreak of
redemption and everlasting joy, the glory of the Only-begotten, now beheld by
men—the supernatural side, in fact, of the festival, that the Church sets forth
in her radiant words; there is little thought of the purely human side, the
pathos of Bethlehem.

It was customary at certain places, in mediaeval times, to lay on the altar
three veils, and remove one at each nocturn of Christmas Matins. The first was
black, and symbolised the time of darkness before the Mosaic Law; the second
white, typifying, it would seem, the faith of those who lived under that Law of
partial revelation; the third red, showing the love of Christ's bride, the
Church, in the time of grace flowing from the Incarnation. [4-5]

A stately ceremony took place in England in the Middle Ages at the end of
Christmas Matins—the chanting of St. Matthew's genealogy of Christ. The deacon,
in his dalmatic, with acolytes carrying tapers, with thurifer and cross-bearer,
all in albs and unicles, went in procession to the pulpit or the rood-loft, to
sing this portion of the Gospel. If the bishop were present, he it was who
chanted it, and a rich candlestick was held to light him. [36] Then followed the chanting of the “Te Deum.” [4-6] The ceremony does not appear in the ordinary Roman
books, but it is still performed by the Benedictines, as one may read in the
striking account of the monastic Christmas given by Huysmans in “L'Oblat.” [4-7]

Where, as in religious communities, the offices of the Church
are performed in their full order, there follows on Matins that custom peculiar
to Christmas, the celebration of Midnight Mass. On Christmas morning every
priest is permitted to say three Masses, which should in strictness be
celebrated at midnight, at dawn, and in full daylight. Each has its own Collect,
Epistle, and Gospel, each its own Introit, Gradual, and other anthems. In many
countries the Midnight Mass is the distinctive Christmas service, a great and
unique event in the year, something which by its strangeness gives to the feast
of the Nativity a place by itself. Few Catholic rites are more impressive than
this Midnight Mass, especially in country places; through the darkness and cold
of the winter's night, often for long distances, the faithful journey to worship
the Infant Saviour in the splendour of the lighted church. It is a re-enactment
of the visit of the shepherds to the cave at Bethlehem, aglow with supernatural
light.

Various symbolical explanations of the three Masses were given by mediaeval
writers. The midnight celebration was supposed to represent mankind's condition
before the Law of Moses, when thick darkness covered the earth; the second, at
dawn, the time of the Law and the Prophets with its growing light; the third, in
full daylight, the Christian era of light and grace. Another interpretation,
adopted by St. Thomas Aquinas, is more mystical; the three Masses stand for the
threefold birth of Christ, the first typifying the dark mystery of the eternal
generation of the Son, the second the birth of Christ the morning-star within
the hearts of men, the third the bodily birth of the Son of Mary. [4-8]

At the Christmas Masses the “Gloria in excelsis” resounds again. This song of
the angels was at first chanted only at Christmas; it was introduced into Rome
during the fifth century at Midnight Mass in imitation of the custom of the
Church of Jerusalem. [4-9]

It is, indeed, from imitation of the services at Jerusalem and Bethlehem that
the three Roman Masses of Christmas seem to have sprung. From a late
fourth-century document known as  the “Peregrinatio Silviae,” the narrative of a pilgrimage to
the holy places of the east by a great lady from southern Gaul, it appears that
at the feast of the Epiphany—when the Birth of Christ was commemorated in the
Palestinian Church—two successive “stations” were held, one at Bethlehem, the
other at Jerusalem. At Bethlehem the station was held at night on the eve of the
feast, then a procession was made to the church of the Anastasis or
Resurrection—where was the Holy Sepulchre—arriving “about the hour when one
man begins to recognise another, i.e., near daylight, but before the day
has fully broken.” There a psalm was sung, prayers were said, and the
catechumens and faithful were blessed by the bishop. Later, Mass was celebrated
at the Great Church at Golgotha, and the procession returned to the Anastasis,
where another Mass was said. [4-10]

At Bethlehem at the present time impressive services are held on the Latin
Christmas Day. The Patriarch comes from Jerusalem, with a troop of cavalry and
Kavasses in gorgeous array. The office lasts from 10 o'clock on Christmas Eve
until long after midnight. “At the reading of the Gospel the clergy and as many
of the congregation as can follow leave the church, and proceed by a flight of
steps and a tortuous rock-hewn passage to the Grotto of the Nativity, an
irregular subterranean chamber, long and narrow. They carry with them a waxen
image of an infant—the bambino—wrap it in swaddling bands and lay it on
the site which is said to be that of the manger.” [4-11]

The Midnight Mass appears to have been introduced into Rome in the first half
of the fifth century. It was celebrated by the Pope in the church of Santa Maria
Maggiore, while the second Mass was sung by him at Sant’ Anastasia—perhaps
because of the resemblance of the name to the Anastasis at Jerusalem—and the
third at St. Peter's. [4-12] On Christmas Eve the Pope held a solemn “station” at
Santa Maria Maggiore, and two Vespers were sung, the first very simple, the
second, at which the Pope pontificated, with elaborate ceremonial. Before the
second Vespers, in the twelfth century, a good meal had to  be prepared for the papal household by the Cardinal-Bishop of
Albano. After Matins and Midnight Mass at Santa Maria Maggiore, the Pope went in
procession to Sant’ Anastasia for Lauds and the Mass of the Dawn. The third
Mass, at St. Peter's, was an event of great solemnity, and at it took place in
the year 800 that profoundly significant event, the coronation of Charlemagne by
Leo III.—a turning-point in European history. [4-13]

Later it became the custom for the Pope, instead of proceeding to St.
Peter's, to return to Santa Maria Maggiore for the third Mass. On his arrival he
was given a cane with a lighted candle affixed to it; with this he had to set
fire to some tow placed on the capitals of the columns. [4-14] The ecclesiastical explanation of this strange
ceremony was that it symbolised the end of the world by fire, but one may
conjecture that some pagan custom lay at its root. Since 1870 the Pope, as “the
prisoner of the Vatican,” has of course ceased to celebrate at Santa Maria
Maggiore or Sant’ Anastasia. The Missal, however, still shows a trace of the
papal visit to Sant’ Anastasia in a commemoration of this saint which comes as a
curious parenthesis in the Mass of the Dawn.

On Christmas Day in the Vatican the Pope blesses a hat and a sword, and these
are sent as gifts to some prince. The practice is said to have arisen from the
mediaeval custom for the Holy Roman Emperor or some other sovereign to read one
of the lessons at Christmas Matins, in the papal chapel, with his sword
drawn. [4-15]

Celebrated in countries as distant from one another, both geographically and
in character, as Ireland and Sicily, Poland and South America, the Midnight Mass
naturally varies greatly in its tone and setting. Sometimes it is little more
than a fashionable function, sometimes the devotion of those who attend is shown
by a tramp over miles of snow through the darkness and the bitter wind.

In some charming memories of the Christmas of her childhood, Madame Th.
Bentzon thus describes the walk to the Midnight Mass in a French country place
about sixty years ago:—

“I can see myself as a little girl, bundled up to the tip of my nose in
furs and knitted shawls, tiny wooden shoes on my feet, a lantern in my hand,
setting out with my parents for the Midnight Mass of Christmas Eve.... We
started off, a number of us, together in a stream of light.... Our lanterns
cast great shadows on the white road, crisp with frost. As our little group
advanced it saw others on their way, people from the farm and from the mill,
who joined us, and once on the Place de l’Église we found ourselves with all
the parishioners in a body. No one spoke—the icy north wind cut short our
breath; but the voice of the chimes filled the silence.... We entered,
accompanied by a gust of wind that swept into the porch at the same time we
did; and the splendours of the altar, studded with lights, green with pine and
laurel branches, dazzled us from the threshold.” [4-16]

In devout Tyrol, the scenes on Christmas Eve before the Midnight Mass are
often extremely impressive, particularly in narrow valleys where the houses lie
scattered on the mountain slopes. Long before midnight the torches lighting the
faithful on their way to Mass begin to twinkle; downward they move, now hidden
in pine-woods and ravines, now reappearing on the open hill-side. More and more
lights show themselves and throw ruddy flashes on the snow, until at last, the
floor of the valley reached, they vanish, and only the church windows glow
through the darkness, while the solemn strains of the organ and chanting break
the silence of the night. [4-17]

Not everywhere has the great Mass been celebrated amid scenes so still and
devotional. In Madrid, says a writer of the early nineteenth century, “the
evening of the vigil is scarcely dark when numbers of men, women, and boys are
seen traversing the streets with torches, and many of them supplied with
tambourines, which they strike loudly as they move along in a kind of Bacchanal
procession. There is a tradition here that the shepherds who visited Bethlehem
on the day of the Nativity had instruments of this sort upon which they
expressed the sentiment of joy that animated them when they received the
intelligence that a Saviour was born.” At the Midnight Mass crowds of people
who, perhaps, had been traversing the streets the whole night, came into the
church  with their tambourines and guitars, and accompanied the
organ. The Mass over, they began to dance in the very body of the church. [4-18] A later writer speaks of the Midnight Mass in Madrid
as a fashionable function to which many gay young people went in order to meet
one another. [4-19] Such is the character of the service in the
Spanish-American cities. In Lima the streets on Christmas Eve are crowded with
gaily dressed and noisy folks, many of them masked, and everybody goes to the
Mass. [4-20] In Paris the elaborate music attracts enormous and
often not very serious crowds. In Sicily there is sometimes extraordinary
irreverence at the midnight services: people take provisions with them to eat in
church, and from time to time go out to an inn for a drink, and between the
offices they imitate the singing of birds. [4-21] We may see in such things the licence of pagan
festivals creeping within the very walls of the sanctuary.

In the Rhineland Midnight Mass has been abolished, because the conviviality
of Christmas Eve led to unseemly behaviour at the solemn service, but Mass is
still celebrated very early—at four or five—and great crowds of worshippers
attend. It is a stirring thing, this first Mass of Christmas, in some ancient
town, when from the piercing cold, the intense stillness of the early morning,
one enters a great church thronged with people, bright with candles, warm with
human fellowship, and hears the vast congregation break out into a slow solemn
chorale, full of devout joy that

“In Bethlehem geboren
Ist uns ein Kindelein.”

It is interesting to trace survivals of the nocturnal Christmas offices in
Protestant countries. In German “Evangelical” churches, midnight or early
morning services were common in the eighteenth century; but they were forbidden
in some places because of the riot and drunkenness which accompanied them. The
people seem to have regarded them as a part of their Christmas revellings rather
than as sacred functions; one writer compares the congregation to a crowd of
wild drunken sailors in a  tavern, another gives disgusting particulars of disorders in
a church where the only sober man was the preacher. [4-22]

In Sweden the Christmas service is performed very early in the morning, the
chancel is lighted up with many candles, and the celebrant is vested in a white
chasuble with golden orphreys. [4-23]

A Midnight Mass is now celebrated in many Anglican churches, but this is
purely a modern revival. The most distinct British survival is to be
found in Wales in the early service known as Plygain (dawn), sometimes a
celebration of the Communion. At Tenby at four o'clock on Christmas morning it
was customary for the young men of the town to escort the rector with lighted
torches from his house to the church. Extinguishing their torches in the porch,
they went in to the early service, and when it was ended the torches were
relighted and the procession returned to the rectory. At St. Peter's Church,
Carmarthen, an early service was held, to the light of coloured candles brought
by the congregation. At St. Asaph, Caerwys, at 4 or 5 a.m., Plygain,
consisting of carols sung round the church in procession, was held. [4-24] The Plygain continued in Welsh churches until
about the eighteen-fifties, and, curiously enough, when the Established Church
abandoned it, it was celebrated in Nonconformist chapels. [4-25]

In the Isle of Man on Christmas Eve, or Oiel Verry (Mary's Eve), “a
number of persons used to assemble in each parish church and proceed to shout
carols or ‘Carvals.’ There was no unison or concert about the chanting, but a
single person would stand up with a lighted candle in his or her hand, and chant
in a dismal monotone verse after verse of some old Manx ‘Carval,’ until the
candle was burnt out. Then another person would start up and go through a
similar performance. No fresh candles might be lighted after the clock had
chimed midnight.” [4-26]

One may conjecture that the common English practice of ringing bells until
midnight on Christmas Eve has also some connection with the old-time Midnight
Mass.

For the Greek Church Christmas is a comparatively
unimportant festival by the side of the Epiphany, the celebration of  Christ's Baptism; the Christmas offices are, however, full
of fine poetry. There is far less restraint, far less adherence to the words of
Scripture, far greater richness of original composition, in the Greek than in
the Roman service-books, and while there is less poignancy there is more
amplitude and splendour. Christmas Day, with the Greeks, is a commemoration of
the coming of the Magi as well as of the Nativity and the adoration of the
shepherds, and the Wise Men are very prominent in the services. The following
hymn of St. Anatolius (fifth century), from the First Vespers of the feast, is
fairly typical of the character of the Christmas offices:—

“When Jesus Our Lord was born of
Her,
The Holy Virgin, all the universe
Became enlightened.
For as the shepherds
watched their flocks,
And as the Magi came to
pray,
And as the Angels sang their hymn
Herod was troubled; for God in flesh appeared,
The Saviour of our souls.
Thy kingdom, Christ our God, the kingdom
is
Of all the worlds, and Thy dominion
O'er every generation bears the sway,
Incarnate of the Holy Ghost,
Man of the
Ever-Virgin Mary,
By Thy presence, Christ our
God,
Thou hast shined a Light on us.
Light of Light, the Brightness of the Father,
Thou hast beamed on every creature.
All that
hath breath doth praise Thee,
Image of the Father's
glory.
Thou who art, and wast before,
God who shinedst from the Maid,
Have mercy
upon us.
What gift shall we bring to
Thee,
O Christ, since Thou as Man on
earth
For us hast shewn Thyself?
Since every creature made by
Thee
Brings to Thee its thanksgiving.
The Angels bring their song,
The Heavens bring
their star,
The Magi bring their gifts,
The Shepherds bring their awe,
Earth gives a
cave, the wilderness a manger,
And we the Virgin-Mother
bring.
God before all worlds, have mercy upon us!”
[4-27]

A beautiful rite called the “Peace of God” is performed in Slavonic churches
at the end of the “Liturgy” or Mass on Christmas morning—the people kiss one
another on both cheeks, saying, “Christ is born!” To this the answer is made,
“Of a truth He is born!” and the kisses are returned. This is repeated till
everyone has kissed and been kissed by all present. [4-28]

We must pass rapidly over the feasts of saints within the
Octave of the western Christmas, St. Stephen (December 26), St. John the
Evangelist (December 27), the Holy Innocents (December 28), and St.
Sylvester (December 31). None of these, except the feast of the Holy
Innocents, have any special connection with the Nativity or the Infancy, and the
popular customs connected with them will come up for consideration in our Second
Part.

The commemoration of the Circumcision (“when eight days were accomplished for
the circumcising of the child”) falls naturally on January 1, the Octave of
Christmas. It is not of Roman origin, and was not observed in Rome until it had
long been established in the Byzantine and Gallican Churches. [4-29] In Gaul, as is shown by a decree of the Council of
Tours in 567, a solemn fast was held on the Circumcision and the two days
following it, in order to turn away the faithful from the pagan festivities of
the Kalends. [4-30]

The feast of the Epiphany on January 6, as we have seen, is in the
eastern Church a commemoration of the Baptism of Christ. In the West it has
become primarily the festival of the adoration  of the Magi, the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.
Still in the Roman offices many traces of the baptismal commemoration remain,
and the memory of yet another manifestation of Christ's glory appears in the
antiphon at “Magnificat” at the Second Vespers of the feast:—

“We keep holy a day adorned by three wonders: to-day a star led the Magi to
the manger; to-day at the marriage water was made wine; to-day for our
salvation Christ was pleased to be baptized of John in Jordan.
Alleluia.”

On the Octave of the Epiphany at Matins the Baptism is the central idea, and
the Gospel at Mass bears on the same subject. In Rome itself even the Blessing
of the Waters, the distinctive ceremony of the eastern Epiphany rite, is
performed in certain churches according to a Latin ritual. [4-31] At Sant’ Andrea della Valle, Rome, during the Octave
of the Epiphany a Solemn Mass is celebrated every morning in Latin, and
afterwards, on each of the days from January 7-13, there follows a Mass
according to one of the eastern rites: Greco-Slav, Armenian, Chaldean, Coptic,
Greco-Ruthenian, Greco-Melchite, and Greek. [4-32] It is a week of great opportunities for the
liturgiologist and the lover of strange ceremonial.

The Blessing of the Waters is an important event in all countries where the
Greek Church prevails. In Greece the “Great Blessing,” as it is called, is
performed in various ways according to the locality; sometimes the sea is
blessed, sometimes a river or reservoir, sometimes merely water in a church. In
seaport towns, where the people depend on the water for their living, the
celebration has much pomp and elaborateness. At the Piraeus enormous and
enthusiastic crowds gather, and there is a solemn procession of the bishop and
clergy to the harbour, where the bishop throws a little wooden cross, held by a
long blue ribbon, into the water, withdraws it dripping wet, and sprinkles the
bystanders. This is done three times. At Nauplia and other places a curious
custom prevails: the archbishop throws a wooden cross into the waters of the
harbour, and the fishermen  of the place dive in after it and struggle for its
possession; he who wins it has the right of visiting all the houses of the town
and levying a collection, which often brings in a large sum. In Samos all the
women send to the church a vessel full of water to be blessed by the priest;
with this water the fields and the trees are sprinkled. [4-33]

The sense attached to the ceremony by the Church is shown in this
prayer:—

“Thou didst sanctify the streams of Jordan by sending from Heaven Thy Holy
Spirit, and by breaking the heads of the dragons lurking there. Therefore, O
King, Lover of men, be Thou Thyself present also now by the visitation of Thy
Holy Spirit, and sanctify this water. Give also to it the grace of ransom, the
blessing of Jordan: make it a fountain of incorruption; a gift of
sanctification; a washing away of sins; a warding off of diseases; destruction
to demons; repulsion to the hostile powers; filled with angelic strength; that
all who take and receive of it may have it for purification of souls and
bodies, for healing of sicknesses, for sanctification of houses, and meet for
every need.” [4-34]

Though for the Church the immersion of the cross represents the Baptism of
Christ, and the blessings springing from that event are supposed to be carried
to the people by the sprinkling with the water, it is held by some students that
the whole practice is a Christianization of a primitive rain-charm—a piece of
sympathetic magic intended to produce rain by imitating the drenching which it
gives. An Epiphany song from Imbros connects the blessing of rain with the
Baptism of Christ, and another tells how at the river Jordan “a dove came down,
white and feathery, and with its wings opened; it sent rain down on the Lord,
and again it rained and rained on our Lady, and again it rained and rained on
its wings.” [4-35]

The Blessing of the Waters is performed in the Greek church of St. Sophia,
Bayswater, London, on the morning of the Epiphany, which, through the difference
between the old and new “styles,” falls on our 19th of January. All is done
within the church; the water to be blessed is placed on a table under  the dome, and is sanctified by the immersion of a small
cross; afterwards it is sprinkled on everyone present, and some is taken home by
the faithful in little vessels. [4-36]

In Moscow and St. Petersburg the Blessing is a function of great
magnificence, but it is perhaps even more interesting as performed in Russian
country places. Whatever may be the orthodox significance of the rite, to the
country people it is the chasing away of “forest demons, sprites, and fairies,
once the gods the peasants worshipped, but now dethroned from their high
estate,” who in the long dark winter nights bewitch and vex the sons of men. A
vivid and imaginative account of the ceremony and its meaning to the peasants is
given by Mr. F. H. E. Palmer in his “Russian Life in Town and Country.” The
district in which he witnessed it was one of forests and of lakes frozen in
winter. On one of these lakes had been erected “a huge cross, constructed of
blocks of ice, that glittered like diamonds in the brilliant winter sunlight....
At length, far away could be heard the sound of human voices, singing a strange,
wild melody. Presently there was a movement in the snow among the trees, and
waving banners appeared as a procession approached, headed by the pope in his
vestments, and surrounded by the village dignitaries, venerable, grey-bearded
patriarchs.” A wide space in the procession was left for “a strange and motley
band of gnomes and sprites, fairies and wood-nymphs,” who, as the peasants
believed, had been caught by the holy singing and the sacred sign on the waving
banner. The chanting still went on as the crowd formed a circle around the
glittering cross, and all looked on with awe while half a dozen peasants with
their axes cut a large hole in the ice. “And now the priest's voice is heard,
deep and sonorous, as he pronounces the words of doom. Alas for the poor
sprites! Into that yawning chasm they must leap, and sink deep, deep below the
surface of that ice-cold water.” [4-37]

Following these eastern Epiphany rites we have wandered
far from the cycle of ideas generally associated with Christmas. We  must now pass to those popular devotions to the Christ
Child which, though they form no part of the Church's liturgy, she has permitted
and encouraged. It is in the West that we shall find them; the Latin Church, as
we have seen, makes far more of Christmas than the Greek.

Rome is often condemned for using in her liturgy the dead language of Latin,
but it must not be forgotten that in every country she offers to the faithful a
rich store of devotional literature in their own tongue, and that, supplementary
to the liturgical offices, there is much public prayer and praise in the
vernacular. Nor, in that which appeals to the eye, does she limit herself to the
mysterious symbolism of the sacraments and the ritual which surrounds them; she
gives to the people concrete, pictorial images to quicken their faith. How
ritual grew in mediaeval times into full-fledged drama we shall see in the next
chapter; here let us consider that cult of the Christ Child in which the scene
of Bethlehem is represented not by living actors but in plastic art, often most
simple and homely.

The use of the “crib” (French crèche, Italian presepio, German
krippe) at Christmas is now universally diffused in the Roman Church.
Most readers of this book must have seen one of these structures representing
the stable at Bethlehem, with the Child in the manger, His mother and St.
Joseph, the ox and the ass, and perhaps the shepherds, the three kings, or
worshipping angels. They are the delight of children, who through the season of
Christmas and Epiphany wander into the open churches at all times of day to gaze
wide-eyed on the life-like scene and offer a prayer to their Little Brother. No
one with anything of the child-spirit can fail to be touched by the charm of the
Christmas crib. Faults of artistic taste there may often be, but these are wont
to be softened down by the flicker of tapers, the glow of ruby lights, amidst
the shades of some dim aisle or chapel, and the scene of tender humanity,
gently, mysteriously radiant, as though with “bright shoots of everlastingness,”
is full of religious and poetic suggestions.

The institution of the presepio is often ascribed to St. Francis of
Assisi, who in the year 1224 celebrated Christmas at Greccio  with a Bethlehem scene with a real ox and ass. About
fifteen days before the Nativity, according to Thomas of Celano, the blessed
Francis sent for a certain nobleman, John by name, and said to him: “If thou
wilt that we celebrate the present festival of the Lord at Greccio, make haste
to go before and diligently prepare what I tell thee. For I would fain make
memorial of that Child who was born in Bethlehem, and in some sort behold with
bodily eyes His infant hardships; how He lay in a manger on the hay, with the ox
and the ass standing by.” The good man prepared all that the Saint had
commanded, and at last the day of gladness drew nigh. The brethren were called
from many convents; the men and women of the town prepared tapers and torches to
illuminate the night. Finding all things ready, Francis beheld and rejoiced: the
manger had been prepared, the hay was brought, and the ox and ass were led in.
“Thus Simplicity was honoured, Poverty exalted, Humility commended, and of
Greccio there was made as it were a new Bethlehem. The night was lit up as the
day, and was delightsome to men and beasts.... The woodland rang with voices,
the rocks made answer to the jubilant throng.” Francis stood before the manger,
“overcome with tenderness and filled with wondrous joy”; Mass was celebrated,
and he, in deacon's vestments, chanted the Holy Gospel in an “earnest, sweet,
and loud-sounding voice.” Then he preached to the people of “the birth of the
poor King and the little town of Bethlehem.” “Uttering the word ‘Bethlehem’ in
the manner of a sheep bleating, he filled his mouth with the sound,” and in
naming the Child Jesus “he would, as it were, lick his lips, relishing with
happy palate and swallowing the sweetness of that word.” At length, the solemn
vigil ended, each one returned with joy to his own place. [4-38]

It has been suggested by Countess Martinengo [4-39] that this beautiful ceremony was “the crystallization
of haunting memories carried away by St. Francis from the real Bethlehem”; for
he visited the east in 1219-20, and the Greccio celebration took place in 1224.
St. Francis and his followers may well have helped greatly to popularize the use
of the presepio, but it can be  traced back far earlier than their time. In the liturgical
drama known as the “Officium Pastorum,” which probably took shape in the
eleventh century, we find a praesepe behind the altar as the centre of
the action [4-40]; but long before this something of the kind seems to
have been in existence in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome—at one
time called “Beata Maria ad praesepe.” Here Pope Gregory III. (731-41) placed “a
golden image of the Mother of God embracing God our Saviour, in various
gems.” [4-41] According to Usener's views this church was founded
by Pope Liberius (352-66), and was intended to provide a special home for the
new festival of Christmas introduced by him, while an important part of the
early Christmas ritual there was the celebration of Mass over a “manger” in
which the consecrated Host was laid, as once the body of the Holy Child in the
crib at Bethlehem. [4-42] Further, an eastern homily of the late fourth century
suggests that the preacher had before his eyes a representation of the Nativity.
Such material representations, Usener conjectures, may have arisen from the
devotions of the faithful at the supposed actual birthplace at Bethlehem, which
would naturally be adorned with the sacred figures of the Holy Night. [4-43]

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the crib can be traced at Milan,
Parma, and Modena, and an Italian example carved in 1478 still exists. [4-44] The Bavarian National Museum at Munich has a fine
collection of cribs of various periods and from various lands—Germany, Tyrol,
Italy, and Sicily—showing what elaborate care has been bestowed upon the
preparation of these models. Among them is a great erection made at Botzen in
the first half of the nineteenth century, and large enough to fill a fair-sized
room. It represents the central square of a town, with imposing buildings,
including a great cathedral not unlike our St. Paul's. Figures of various sizes
were provided to suit the perspective, and the crib itself was probably set up
in the porch of the church, while processions of puppets were arranged on the
wide open square. Another, made in Munich, shows the adoration of the shepherds
in a sort of ruined castle, while others, from Naples, lay the scene among
remains of classical temples. One Tyrolese crib has a wide landscape background
with a  village and mountains typical of the country. The figures
are often numerous, and, as their makers generally dressed them in the costume
of their contemporaries, are sometimes exceedingly quaint. An angel with a
wasp-waist, in a powdered wig, a hat trimmed with big feathers, and a red velvet
dress with heavy gold embroidery, seems comic to us moderns, yet this is how the
Ursuline nuns of Innsbruck conceived the heavenly messenger. Many of the cribs
and figures, however, are of fine artistic quality, especially those from Naples
and Sicily, and to the student of costume the various types of dress are of
great interest. [4-45]

The use of the Christmas crib is by no means confined to churches; it is
common in the home in many Catholic regions, and in at least one Protestant
district, the Saxon Erzgebirge. [4-46] In Germany the krippe is often combined with
the Christmas-tree; at Treves, for instance, the present writer saw a
magnificent tree covered with glittering lights and ornaments, and underneath it
the cave of the Nativity with little figures of the holy persons. Thus have
pagan and Christian symbols met together.

There grew up in Germany, about the fourteenth century,
the extremely popular Christmas custom of “cradle-rocking,” a response to the
people's need of a life-like and homely presentation of Christianity. By the
Kindelwiegen the lay-folk were brought into most intimate touch with the
Christ Child; the crib became a cradle (wiege) that could be rocked, and
the worshippers were thus able to express in physical action their devotion to
the new-born Babe. The cradle-rocking seems to have been done at first by
priests, who impersonated the Virgin and St. Joseph, and sang over the Child a
duet:—

“Joseph, lieber neve mîn,
Hilf mir wiegen daz kindelîn.
Gerne, liebe muome mîn,
Hilf ich dir wiegen dîn kindelîn.”
[37]

The choir and people took their part in the singing; and
dancing, to the old Germans a natural accompaniment of festive song, became
common around the cradle, which in time the people were allowed to rock with
their own hands. [4-47] “In dulci jubilo” has the character of a dance, and
the same is true of another delightful old carol, “Lasst uns das Kindlein
wiegen,” still used, in a form modified by later editors, in the churches of the
Rhineland. The present writer has heard it sung, very slowly, in unison, by vast
congregations, and very beautiful is its mingling of solemnity, festive joy, and
tender sentiment:—

“Lasst uns das Kindlein
wiegen,
Das Herz zum Krippelein biegen!
Lasst uns den Geist erfreuen,
Das Kindlein
benedeien:
O Jesulein süss! O Jesulein
süss!
*       *       *       *       *
Lasst uns sein Händel und
Füsse,
Sein feuriges Herzlein grüssen!
Und ihn demütiglich eren
Als unsern Gott und
Herren!
O Jesulein süss! O Jesulein süss!”
[38]

[4-48]

Two Latin hymns, “Resonet in laudibus” and “Quem pastores laudavere,” [4-49] were also sung at the Kindelwiegen, and  a charming and quite untranslatable German lullaby has come
down to us:—

“Sausa ninne, gottes minne,
Nu sweig und ru!
Wen du wilt, so wellen wir
deinen willen tun,
Hochgelobter edler furst, nu schweig
und wein auch nicht,
Tûste das, so wiss wir, dass uns
wol geschicht.”
[4-50]

It was by appeals like this Kindelwiegen to the natural, homely
instincts of the folk that the Church gained a real hold over the masses, making
Christianity during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries a
genuinely popular religion in Germany. Dr. Alexander Tille, the best historian
of the German Christmas, has an interesting passage on the subject: “In the
dancing and jubilation around the cradle,” he writes, “the religion of the
Cross, however much it might in its inmost character be opposed to the nature of
the German people and their essential healthiness, was felt no longer as
something alien. It had become naturalized, but had lost in the process its very
core. The preparation for a life after death, which was its Alpha and Omega, had
passed into the background. It was not joy at the promised ‘Redemption’ that
expressed itself in the dance around the cradle; for the German has never learnt
to feel himself utterly vile and sinful: it was joy at the simple fact that a
human being, a particular human being in peculiar circumstances, was born into
the world.... The Middle Ages showed in the cradle-rocking ‘a true German and
most lovable childlikeness.’ The Christ Child was the ‘universal little brother
of all children of earth,’ and they acted accordingly, they lulled Him to sleep,
they fondled and rocked Him, they danced before Him and leapt around Him in
dulci jubilo.” [4-51] There is much here that is true of the cult of the
Christ Child in other countries than Germany, though perhaps Dr. Tille
underestimates the religious feeling that is often joined to the human
sentiment.

The fifteenth century was the great period for the Kindelwiegen, the
time when it appears to have been practised in all the churches of Germany; in
the sixteenth it began to seem  irreverent to the stricter members of the clergy, and the
figure of the infant Jesus was in many places no longer rocked in the cradle but
enthroned on the altar. [4-52] This usage is described by Naogeorgus (1553):—

“A woodden childe in clowtes is on the aultar
set,
About the which both boyes and gyrles do daunce
and trymly jet,
And Carrols sing in prayse of Christ,
and, for to helpe them heare,
The organs aunswere every
verse with sweete and solemne cheare.
The priestes do
rore aloude; and round about the parentes stande
To see
the sport, and with their voyce do helpe them and their hande.”
[4-53]

The placing of a “Holy Child” above the altar at Christmas is still customary
in many Roman Catholic churches.

Protestantism opposed the Kindelwiegen, on the grounds both of
superstition and of the disorderly proceedings that accompanied it, but it was
long before it was utterly extinguished even in the Lutheran churches. In
Catholic churches the custom did not altogether die out, though the unseemly
behaviour which often attended it—and the growth of a pseudo-classical
taste—caused its abolition in most places. [4-54]

At Tübingen as late as 1830 at midnight on Christmas Eve an image of the
Christ Child was rocked on the tower of the chief church in a small cradle
surrounded with lights, while the spectators below sang a cradle-song. [4-55] According to a recent writer the “rocking” is still
continued in the Upper Innthal. [4-56] In the Tyrolese cathedral city of Brixen it was once
performed every day between Christmas and Candlemas by the sacristan or
boy-acolytes. That the proceedings had a tendency to be disorderly is shown by
an eighteenth-century instruction to the sacristan: “Be sure to take a stick or
a thong of ox-hide, for the boys are often very ill-behaved.” [4-57]

There are records of other curious ceremonies in German or Austrian churches.
At St. Peter am Windberge in Mühlkreis in Upper Austria, during the service on
Christmas night a life-sized wooden figure of the Holy Child was offered in  a basket to the congregation; each person reverently kissed
it and passed it on to his neighbour. This was done as late as 1883. [4-58] At Crimmitschau in Saxony a boy, dressed as an angel,
used to be let down from the roof singing Luther's “Vom Himmel hoch,” and the
custom was only given up when the breaking of the rope which supported the
singer had caused a serious accident. [4-59]

It is in Italy, probably, that the cult of the Christ
Child is most ardently practised to-day. No people have a greater love of
children than the Italians, none more of that dramatic instinct which such a
form of worship demands. “Easter,” says Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco, “is the
great popular feast in the eastern Church, Christmas in the Latin—especially in
Italy. One is the feast of the next world, and the other of this. Italians are
fond of this world.” [4-60] Christmas is for the poorer Italians a summing up of
human birthdays, an occasion for pouring out on the Bambino parental and
fraternal affection as well as religious worship.

In Rome, Christmas used to be heralded by the arrival, ten days before the
end of Advent, of the Calabrian minstrels or pifferari with their sylvan
pipes (zampogne), resembling the Scottish bagpipe, but less harsh in
sound. These minstrels were to be seen in every street in Rome, playing their
wild plaintive music before the shrines of the Madonna, under the traditional
notion of charming away her labour-pains. Often they would stop at a carpenter's
shop “per politezza al messer San Giuseppe.” [4-61] Since 1870 the pifferari have become rare in
Rome, but some were seen there by an English lady quite recently. At Naples,
too, there are zampognari before Christmas, though far fewer than there
used to be; for one lira they will pipe their rustic melodies before any
householder's street Madonna through a whole novena. [4-62]

In Sicily, too, men come down from the mountains nine days before Christmas
to sing a novena to a plaintive melody accompanied by ‘cello and violin.
“All day long,” writes Signora Caico about Montedoro in Caltanissetta, “the
melancholy dirge  was sung round the village, house after house, always the
same minor tune, the words being different every day, so that in nine days the
whole song was sung out.... I often looked out of the window to see them at a
short distance, grouped before a house, singing their stanzas, well muffled in
shawls, for the air is cold in spite of the bright sunshine.... The flat, white
houses all round, the pure sky overhead, gave an Oriental setting to the
scene.”

Another Christmas custom in the same place was the singing of a novena
not outside but within some of the village houses before a kind of altar gaily
decorated and bearing at the top a waxen image of the Child Jesus. “Close to it
the orchestra was grouped—a ’cello, two violins, a guitar, and a tambourine.
The kneeling women huddled in front of the altar. All had on their heads their
black mantelline. They began at once singing the novena stanzas
appointed for that day; the tune was primitive and very odd: the first half of
the stanza was quick and merry, the second half became a wailing dirge.” A full
translation of a long and very interesting and pathetic novena is given
by Signora Caico. [39] [4-63]

The presepio both in Rome and at Naples is the special Christmas
symbol in the home, just as the lighted tree is in Germany. In Rome the Piazza
Navona is the great place for the sale of little clay figures of the holy
persons. (Is there perchance a survival here of the sigillaria, the
little clay dolls sold in Rome at the Saturnalia?) These are bought in
the market for two soldi each, and the presepi or “Bethlehems” are
made at home with cardboard and moss. [4-64] The home-made presepi at Naples are well
described by Matilde Serao; they are pasteboard models of the landscape of
Bethlehem—a hill with the sacred cave beneath it and two or three paths leading
down to the grotto, a little tavern, a shepherd's hut, a few trees, sometimes a
stream in glittering glass. The ground is made verdant with moss, and there is
 straw within the cave for the repose of the infant Jesus;
singing angels are suspended by thin wires, and the star of the Wise Men hangs
by an invisible thread. There is little attempt to realize the scenery of the
East; the Child is born and the Magi adore Him in a Campanian or Calabrian
setting. [4-66]

Italian churches, as well as Italian homes, have their presepi.
“Thither come the people, bearing humble gifts of chestnuts, apples, tomatoes,
and the like, which they place as offerings in the hands of the figures. These
are very often life-size. Mary is usually robed in blue satin, with crimson
scarf and white head-dress. Joseph stands near her dressed in the ordinary
working-garb. The onlookers are got up like Italian contadini. The Magi are
always very prominent in their grand clothes, with satin trains borne by black
slaves, jewelled turbans, and satin tunics all over jewels.” [4-67]

In Rome the two great centres of Christmas devotion are the churches of Santa
Maria Maggiore, where are preserved the relics of the cradle of Christ, and Ara
Coeli, the home of the most famous Bambino in the world. A vivid picture
of the scene at Santa Maria Maggiore in the early nineteenth century is given by
Lady Morgan. She entered the church at midnight on Christmas Eve to wait for the
procession of the culla, or cradle. “Its three ample naves, separated by
rows of Ionic columns of white marble, produced a splendid vista. Thousands of
wax tapers marked their form, and contrasted their shadows; some blazed from
golden candlesticks on the superb altars of the lateral chapels.... Draperies of
gold and crimson decked the columns, and spread their shadows from the
inter-columniations over the marble pavement. In the midst of this imposing
display of church magnificence, sauntered or reposed a population which
displayed the most squalid misery. The haggard natives of the mountains... were
mixed with the whole mendicity of Rome.... Some of these terrific groups lay
stretched in heaps on the ground, congregating for warmth; and as their dark
eyes scowled from beneath the mantle which half hid a sheepskin dress, they had
the air of banditti awaiting their prey; others with their wives and children
knelt, half asleep,  round the chapel of the Santa Croce.... In the
centre of the nave, multitudes of gay, gaudy, noisy persons, the petty
shopkeepers, laquais, and popolaccio of the city, strolled and laughed,
and talked loud.” About three o'clock the service began, with a choral swell,
blazing torches, and a crowded procession of priests of every rank and order. It
lasted for two hours; then began the procession to the cell where the cradle
lay, enshrined in a blaze of tapers and guarded by groups of devotees. Thence it
was borne with solemn chants to the chapel of Santa Croce. A musical Mass
followed, and the culla being at last deposited on the High Altar, the
wearied spectators issued forth just as the dome of St. Peter's caught the first
light of the morning. [4-68]

Still to-day the scene in the church at the five o'clock High Mass on
Christmas morning is extraordinarily impressive, with the crowds of poor people,
the countless lights at which the children gaze in open-eyed wonder, the many
low Masses said in the side chapels, the imposing procession and the setting of
the silver casket on the High Altar. The history of the relics of the
culla—five long narrow pieces of wood—is obscure, but it is admitted
even by some orthodox Roman Catholics that there is no sufficient evidence to
connect them with Bethlehem. [4-69]

The famous Bambino at the Franciscan church of Ara Coeli on the
citadel of Rome is “a flesh-coloured doll, tightly swathed in gold and silver
tissue, crowned, and sparkling with jewels,” no thing of beauty, but believed to
have miraculous powers. An inscription in the sacristy of the church states that
it was made by a devout Minorite of wood from the Mount of Olives, and given
flesh-colour by the interposition of God Himself. It has its own servants and
its own carriage in which it drives out to visit the sick. There is a strange
story of a theft of the wonder-working image by a woman who feigned sickness,
obtained permission to have the Bambino left with her, and then sent back
to the friars another image dressed in its clothes. That night the Franciscans
heard great ringing of bells and knockings at the church door, and found outside
the true Bambino, naked in the wind and rain. Since then it has never
been allowed out alone. [4-70]

All through the Christmas and Epiphany season Ara Coeli is
crowded with visitors to the Bambino. Before the presepio, where
it lies, is erected a wooden platform on which small boys and girls of all ranks
follow one another with little speeches—“preaching” it is called—in praise of
the infant Lord. “They say their pieces,” writes Countess Martinengo, “with an
infinite charm that raises half a smile and half a tear.” They have the vivid
dramatic gift, the extraordinary absence of self-consciousness, typical of
Italian children, and their “preaching” is anything but a wooden repetition of a
lesson learned by heart. Nor is there any irksome constraint; indeed to
northerners the scene in the church might seem irreverent, for the children blow
toy trumpets and their parents talk freely on all manner of subjects. The church
is approached by one hundred and twenty-four steps, making an extraordinarily
picturesque spectacle at this season, when they are thronged by people ascending
and descending, and by vendors of all sorts of Christmas prints and images. On
the Octave of the Epiphany there is a great procession, ending with the blessing
of Rome by the Holy Child. The Bambino is carried out to the space at the
top of the giddy flight of marble steps, and a priest raises it on high and
solemnly blesses the Eternal City. [4-71]

A glimpse of the southern Christmas may be had in London in the Italian
colony in and around Eyre Street Hill, off the Clerkenwell Road, a little town
of poor Italians set down in the midst of the metropolis. The steep, narrow Eyre
Street Hill, with its shops full of southern wares, is dingy enough by day, but
after dark on Christmas Eve it looks like a bit of Naples. The windows are gay
with lights and coloured festoons, there are lantern-decked sweetmeat stalls,
one old man has a presepio in his room, other people have little altars
or shrines with candles burning, and bright pictures of saints adorn the walls.
It is a strangely pathetic sight, this festa of the children of the
South, this attempt to keep an Italian Christmas amid the cold damp dreariness
of a London slum. The colony has its own church, San Pietro, copied from some
Renaissance basilica at Rome, a building half tawdry, half magnificent, which
transports him who enters it far away to the South. Like every Italian church,
it is  at once the Palace of the Great King and the refuge of the
humblest—no other church in London is quite so intimately the home of the poor.
Towards twelve o'clock on Christmas Eve the deep-toned bell of San Pietro booms
out over the colony, and the people crowd to the Midnight Mass, and pay their
devotions at a great presepio set up for the veneration of the faithful.
When on the Octave of the Epiphany [40] the time comes to close the crib, an impressive and
touching ceremony takes place. The afternoon Benediction over, the priest, with
the acolytes, goes to the presepio and returns to the chancel with the
Bambino. Holding it on his arm, he preaches in Italian on the story of
the Christ Child. The sermon ended, the notes of “Adeste, fideles” are heard,
and while the Latin words are sung the faithful kneel at the altar rails and
reverently kiss the Holy Babe. It is their farewell to the Bambino till
next Christmas.

A few details may here be given about the religious
customs at Christmas in Spain. The Midnight Mass is there the great event of the
festival. Something has already been said as to its celebration in Madrid. The
scene at the midnight service in a small Andalusian country town is thus
described by an English traveller:—“The church was full; the service orderly;
the people of all classes. There were muleteers, wrapped in their blue and white
checked rugs; here, Spanish gentlemen, enveloped in their graceful capas, or
capes... here, again, were crowds of the commonest people,—miners,
fruitsellers, servants, and the like,—the women kneeling on the rush matting of
the dimly-lit church, the men standing in dark masses behind, or clustering in
groups round every pillar.... At last, from under the altar, the senior priest
... took out the image of the Babe New-born, reverently and slowly, and held it
up in his hands for adoration. Instantly every one crossed himself, and fell on
his knees in silent worship.” [4-72] The crib is very popular in Spanish homes and is the
delight of children, as may be learnt from Fernan Caballero's interesting sketch
of Christmas Eve in Spain, “La Noche de Navidad.” [4-73]

In England the Christmas crib is to be found nowadays in
most Roman, and a few Anglican, churches. In the latter it is of course an
imitation, not a survival. It is, however, possible that the custom of carrying
dolls about in a box at Advent or Christmas time, common in some parts of
England in the nineteenth century, is a survival, from the Middle Ages, of
something like the crib. The so-called “vessel-cup” was “a box containing two
dolls, dressed up to represent the Virgin and the infant Christ, decorated with
ribbons and surrounded by flowers and apples.” The box had usually a glass lid,
was covered by a white napkin, and was carried from door to door by a woman. [4-74] It was esteemed very unlucky for any household not to
be visited by the “Advent images” before Christmas Eve, and the bearers sang the
well-known carol of the “Joys of Mary.” [4-75] In Yorkshire only one image was carried about. [4-76] At Gilmorton, Leicestershire, a friend of the present
writer remembers that the children used to carry round what they called a
“Christmas Vase,” an open box without lid in which lay three dolls side by side,
with oranges and sprigs of evergreen. Some people regarded these as images of
the Virgin, the Christ Child, and Joseph. [41]

In this study of the feast of the Nativity as represented
in liturgy and ceremonial we have already come close to what may strictly be
called drama; in the next chapter we shall cross the border line and consider
the religious plays of the Middle Ages and the relics of or parallels to them
found in later times.

Chapter V — Christmas Drama

Origins of the Mediaeval Drama—Dramatic Tendencies in the Liturgy—Latin
Liturgical Plays—The Drama becomes Laicized—Characteristics of the Popular
Drama—The Nativity in the English Miracle Cycles—Christmas Mysteries in
France—Later French Survivals of Christmas Drama—German Christmas
Plays—Mediaeval Italian Plays and Pageants—Spanish Nativity Plays—Modern
Survivals in Various Countries—The Star-singers, &c.

In this chapter the Christian side only of the Christmas drama will be
treated. Much folk-drama of pagan origin has gathered round the festival, but
this we shall study in our Second Part. Our subject here is the dramatic
representation of the story of the Nativity and the events immediately connected
with it. The Christmas drama has passed through the same stages as the poetry of
the Nativity. There is first a monastic and hieratic stage, when the drama is
but an expansion of the liturgy, a piece of ceremonial performed by clerics with
little attempt at verisimilitude and with Latin words drawn mainly from the
Bible or the offices of the Church. Then, as the laity come to take a more
personal interest in Christianity, we find fancy beginning to play around the
subject, bringing out its human pathos and charm, until, after a transitional
stage, the drama leaves the sanctuary, passes from Latin to the vulgar tongue,
is played by lay performers in the streets and squares of the city, and, while
its framework remains religious, takes into itself episodes of a more or less
secular character. The Latin liturgical plays are to the “miracles” and
“mysteries” of the later Middle Ages as a Romanesque church, solemn, oppressive,
hieratic, to  a Gothic cathedral, soaring, audacious, reflecting every
phase of the popular life.

The mediaeval religious drama [5-1] was a natural development from the Catholic liturgy,
not an imitation of classical models. The classical drama had expired at the
break-up of the Roman Empire; its death was due largely, indeed, to the
hostility of Christianity, but also to the rude indifference of the barbarian
invaders. Whatever secular dramatic impulses remained in the Dark Ages showed
themselves not in public and organized performances, but obscurely in the songs
and mimicry of minstrels and in traditional folk-customs. Both of these classes
of practices were strongly opposed by the Church, because of their connection
with heathenism and the licence towards which they tended. Yet the dramatic
instinct could not be suppressed. The folk-drama in such forms as the Feast of
Fools found its way, as we shall see, even into the sanctuary, and—most
remarkable fact of all—the Church's own services took on more and more a
dramatic character.

While the secular stage decayed, the Church was building up a stately system
of ritual. It is needless to dwell upon the dramatic elements in Catholic
worship. The central act of Christian devotion, the Eucharist, is in its essence
a drama, a representation of the death of the Redeemer and the participation of
the faithful in its benefits, and around this has gathered in the Mass a
multitude of dramatic actions expressing different aspects of the Redemption.
Nor, of course, is there merely symbolic action; the offices of the
Church are in great part dialogues between priest and people, or between
two sets of singers. It was from this antiphonal song, this alternation of
versicle and respond, that the religious drama of the Middle Ages took its rise.
In the ninth century the “Antiphonarium” traditionally ascribed to Pope Gregory
the Great had become insufficient for ambitious choirs, and the practice grew up
of supplementing it by new melodies and words inserted at the beginning or end
or even in the middle of the old antiphons. The new texts were called “tropes,”
and from the ninth to the thirteenth century many were written. An interesting
Christmas  example is the following ninth-century trope ascribed to
Tutilo of St. Gall:—

“Hodie cantandus est nobis puer, quem gignebat ineffabiliter ante tempora
pater, et eundem sub tempore generavit inclyta mater. (To-day must we sing of
a Child, whom in unspeakable wise His Father begat before all times, and whom,
within time, a glorious mother brought forth.)

Int[errogatio].

Quis est iste puer quem tam magnis praeconiis dignum vociferatis? Dicite
nobis ut collaudatores esse possimus. (Who is this Child whom ye proclaim
worthy of so great laudations? Tell us that we also may praise Him.)

Resp[onsio].

Hic enim est quem praesagus et electus symmista Dei ad terram venturum
praevidens longe ante praenotavit, sicque praedixit. (This is He whose coming
to earth the prophetic and chosen initiate into the mysteries of God foresaw
and pointed out long before, and thus foretold.)”

Here followed at once the Introit for the third Mass of Christmas Day, “Puer
natus est nobis, et filius datus est nobis, &c. (Unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given.)” The question and answer were no doubt sung by
different choirs. [5-2]

One can well imagine that this might develop into a regular little drama. As
a matter of fact, however, it was from an Easter trope in the same manuscript,
the “Quem quaeritis,” a dialogue between the three Maries and the angel at the
sepulchre, that the liturgical drama sprang. The trope became very popular, and
was gradually elaborated into a short symbolic drama, and its popularity led to
the composition of similar pieces for Christmas and Ascensiontide. Here is the
Christmas trope from a St. Gall manuscript:—

“On the Nativity of the Lord at Mass let there be ready two deacons
having on dalmatics, behind the altar, saying:

Quem quaeritis in praesepe, pastores, dicite? (Whom seek ye in the manger,
say, ye shepherds?)

Let two cantors in the choir answer:

Salvatorem Christum Dominum, infantem pannis involutum, secundum sermonem
angelicum. (The Saviour, Christ the Lord, a child wrapped in swaddling
clothes, according to the angelic word.)

And the deacons:

Adest hic parvulus cum Maria, matre sua, de qua, vaticinando, Isaias
Propheta: ecce virgo concipiet et pariet filium; et nuntiantes dicite quia
natus est. (Present here is the little one with Mary, His Mother, of whom
Isaiah the prophet foretold: Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and shall bring
forth a son; and do ye say and announce that He is born.)

Then let the cantor lift up his voice and say:

Alleluia, alleluia, jam vere scimus Christum natum in terris, de quo
canite, omnes, cum Propheta dicentes: Puer natus est! (Alleluia, alleluia. Now
we know indeed that Christ is born on earth, of whom sing ye all, saying with
the Prophet: Unto us a child is born.)” [5-3]

The dramatic character of this is very marked. A comparison with later
liturgical plays suggests that the two deacons in their broad vestments were
meant to represent the midwives mentioned in the apocryphal Gospel of St. James,
and the cantors the shepherds.

A development from this trope, apparently, was the “Office of the Shepherds,”
which probably took shape in the eleventh century, though it is first given in a
Rouen manuscript of the thirteenth. It must have been an impressive ceremony as
performed in the great cathedral, dimly lit with candles, and full of mysterious
black recesses and hints of infinity. Behind the high altar a praesepe or
“crib” was prepared, with an image of the Virgin. After the “Te Deum” had been
sung five canons or their vicars, clad in albs and amices, entered by the great
door of the choir, and proceeded towards the apse. These were the shepherds.
Suddenly from high above them came a clear boy's voice: “Fear not, behold I
bring you good tidings of great joy,” and the rest of the angelic message. The
“multitude of the heavenly host” was represented by other boys stationed
probably  in the triforium galleries, who broke out into the exultant
“Gloria in excelsis.” Singing a hymn, “Pax in terris nunciatur,” the shepherds
advanced towards the crib where two priests—the midwives—awaited them. These
addressed to the shepherds the question “Whom seek ye in the manger?” and then
came the rest of the “Quem quaeritis” which we already know, a hymn to the
Virgin being sung while the shepherds adored the Infant. Mass followed
immediately, the little drama being merely a prelude. [5-4]

More important than this Office of the Shepherds is an Epiphany play called
by various names, “Stella,” “Tres Reges,” “Magi,” or “Herodes,” and found in
different forms at Limoges, Rouen, Laon, Compiègne, Strasburg, Le Mans, Freising
in Bavaria, and other places. Mr. E. K. Chambers suggests that its kernel is a
dramatized Offertory. It was a custom for Christian kings to present gold,
frankincense, and myrrh at the Epiphany—the offering is still made by proxy at
the Chapel Royal, St. James's—and Mr. Chambers takes “the play to have served
as a substitute for this ceremony, when no king actually regnant was
present.” [5-5] Its most essential features were the appearance of the
Star of Bethlehem to the Magi, and their offering of the mystic gifts. The star,
bright with candles, hung from the roof of the church, and was sometimes made to
move.

In the Rouen version of the play it is ordered that on the day of the
Epiphany, Terce having been sung, three clerics, robed as kings, shall come from
the east, north, and south, and meet before the altar, with their servants
bearing the offerings of the Magi. The king from the east, pointing to the star
with his stick, exclaims:—

“Stella fulgore nimio rutilat. (The star glows with exceeding
brightness.)”

The second monarch answers:

“Quae regem regum natum demonstrat. (Which shows the birth of the King of
Kings.)”

And the third:

“Quem venturum olim prophetiae signaverant. (To whose coming the prophecies
of old had pointed.)”

Then the Magi kiss one another and together sing:

“Eamus ergo et inquiramus eum, offerentes ei munera: aurum, thus, et
myrrham. (Let us therefore go and seek Him, offering unto Him gifts: gold,
frankincense, and myrrh.)”

Antiphons are sung, a procession is formed, and the Magi go to a certain
altar above which an image of the Virgin has been placed with a lighted star
before it. Two priests in dalmatics—apparently the midwives—standing on either
side of the altar, inquire who the Magi are, and receiving their answer, draw
aside a curtain and bid them approach to worship the Child, “for He is the
redemption of the world.” The three kings do adoration, and offer their gifts,
each with a few pregnant words:—

“Suscipe, rex, aurum. (Receive, O King,
gold.)”
“Tolle thus, tu vere Deus. (Accept incense,
Thou very God.)”
“Myrrham, signum sepulturae. (Myrrh,
the sign of burial.)”

The clergy and people then make their offerings, while the Magi fall asleep
and are warned by an angel to return home another way. This they do symbolically
by proceeding back to the choir by a side aisle. [5-6]

In its later forms the Epiphany play includes the appearance of Herod, who is
destined to fill a very important place in the mediaeval drama. Hamlet's saying
“he out-Herods Herod” sufficiently suggests the raging tyrant whom the
playwrights of the Middle Ages loved. His appearance marks perhaps the first
introduction into the Christian religious play of the evil principle so
necessary to dramatic effect. At first Herod holds merely a mild conversation
with the Magi, begging them to tell him when they have found the new-born King;
in later versions of the play, however, his wrath is shown on learning that the
Wise Men have  departed home by another way; he breaks out into
bloodthirsty tirades, orders the slaying of the Innocents, and in one form takes
a sword and brandishes it in the air. He becomes in fact the outstanding figure
in the drama, and one can understand why it was sometimes named after him.

In the Laon “Stella” the actual murder of the Innocents was represented, the
symbolical figure of Rachel weeping over her children being introduced. The
plaint and consolation of Rachel, it should be noted, seem at first to have
formed an independent little piece performed probably on Holy Innocents’ Day. [5-7] This later coalesced with the “Stella,” as did also the
play of the shepherds, and, at a still later date, another liturgical drama
which we must now consider—the “Prophetae.”

This had its origin in a sermon (wrongly ascribed to St. Augustine) against
Jews, Pagans, and Arians, a portion of which was used in many churches as a
Christmas lesson. It begins with a rhetorical appeal to the Jews who refuse to
accept Jesus as the Messiah in spite of the witness of their own prophets. Ten
prophets are made to give their testimony, and then three Pagans are called
upon, Virgil, Nebuchadnezzar and the Erythraean Sibyl. The sermon has a strongly
dramatic character, and when chanted in church the parts of the preacher and the
prophets were possibly distributed among different choristers. In time it
developed into a regular drama, and more prophets were brought in. It was,
indeed, the germ of the great Old Testament cycles of the later Middle Ages. [5-8]

An extension of the “Prophetae” was the Norman or Anglo-Norman play of
“Adam,” which began with the Fall, continued with Cain and Abel, and ended with
the witness of the prophets. In the other direction the “Prophetae” was extended
by the addition of the “Stella.” It so happens that there is no text of a Latin
drama containing both these extensions at the same time, but such a play
probably existed. From the mid-thirteenth to the mid-fourteenth century, indeed,
there was a tendency for the plays to run together into cycles and become too
long and too elaborate for performance in church. In the eleventh century, even,
they had begun to pass out into the churchyard or  the market-place, and to be played not only by the clergy
but by laymen. This change had extremely important effects on their character.
In the first place the vulgar tongue crept in. As early, possibly, as the
twelfth century are the Norman “Adam” and the Spanish “Misterio de los Reyes
Magos,” the former, as we have seen, an extended vernacular “Prophetae,” the
latter, a fragment of a highly developed vernacular “Stella.” They are the first
of the popular as distinguished from the liturgical plays; they were meant, as
their language shows, for the instruction and delight of the folk; they were not
to be listened to, like the mysterious Latin of the liturgy, in uncomprehending
reverence, but were to be understanded of the people.

The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries saw a progressive supplanting of
Latin by the common speech, until, in the great cycles, only a few scraps of the
church language were left to tell of the liturgical origin of the drama. The
process of popularization, the development of the plays from religious
ceremonial to lively drama, was probably greatly helped by the goliards
or vagabond scholars, young, poor, and fond of amusement, who wandered over
Europe from teacher to teacher, from monastery to monastery, in search of
learning. Their influence is shown not merely in the broadening of the drama,
but also in its passing from the Latin of the monasteries to the language of the
common folk.

A consequence of the outdoor performance of the plays was that Christmas, in
the northern countries at all events, was found an unsuitable time for them. The
summer was naturally preferred, and we find comparatively few mentions of plays
at Christmas in the later Middle Ages. Whitsuntide and Corpus Christi became
more popular dates, especially in England, and the pieces then performed were
vast cosmic cycles, like the York, Chester, Towneley, and “Coventry” plays, in
which the Christmas and Epiphany episodes formed but links in an immense chain
extending from the Creation to the Last Judgment, and representing the whole
scheme of salvation. It is in these Nativity scenes, however, that we have the
only English renderings of the Christmas story in drama, [5-9] and though they  were actually performed not at the winter festival [42] but in the summer, they give in so striking a way the
feelings, the point of view, of our mediaeval forefathers in regard to the
Nativity that we are justified in dealing with them here at some length.

As the drama became laicized, it came to reflect that strange medley of
conflicting elements, pagan and Christian, materialistic and spiritual, which
was the actual religion of the folk, as distinguished from the philosophical
theology of the doctors and councils and the mysticism of the ascetics. The
popularizing of Christianity had reached its climax in most countries of western
Europe in the fifteenth century, approximately the period of the great
“mysteries.” However little the ethical teaching of Jesus may have been acted
upon, the Christian religion on its external side had been thoroughly
appropriated by the people and wrought into a many-coloured polytheism, a true
reflection of their minds.

The figures of the drama are contemporaries of the spectators both in garb
and character; they are not Orientals of ancient times, but Europeans of the end
of the Middle Ages. Bethlehem is a “faier borow,” Herod a “mody king,” like unto
some haughty, capricious, and violent monarch of the time, the shepherds are
rustics of England or Germany or France or Italy, the Magi mighty potentates
with gorgeous trains, and the Child Himself is a little being subject to all the
pains and necessities of infancy, but delighted with sweet and pleasant things
like a bob of cherries or a ball. The realism of the writers is sometimes
astounding, and comic elements often appear—to the people of the Middle Ages
religion was so real and natural a thing that they could laugh at it without
ceasing to believe in or to love it.

The English mediaeval playwrights, it may safely be said, are surpassed by no
foreigners in their treatment of Christmas subjects. To illustrate their way of
handling the scenes I may  gather from the four great cycles a few of the most
interesting passages.

From the so-called “Ludus Coventriae” I take the arrival of Joseph and Mary
at Bethlehem; they ask a man in the street where they may find an inn:—

“
Joseph.
Heyl, wurchepful
sere, and good day!
A ceteceyn of this cytë ye seme to
be;
Of herborwe
[43]
ffor spowse and me I yow pray,
ffor trewly this woman is fful werë,
And fayn
at reste, sere, wold she be;
We wolde ffulffylle the byddynge of oure
emperoure,
ffor to pay tribute, as right is
oure,
And to kepe oureselfe ffrom
dolowre,
We are come to this cytë.
Cives.
Sere, ostage in this
towne know I non,
Thin wyff and thou in for to
slepe;
This cetë is besett with pepyl every
won,
And yett thei ly withowte fful every
strete.
Withinne no walle, man, comyst thou
nowth,
Be thou onys
[44]
withinne the cytë gate;
Onethys
[45]
in the strete a place may be sowth,
Theron to reste, withowte debate.
Joseph.
Nay, sere, debate
that wyl I nowth;
Alle suche thyngys passyn my
powere:
But yitt my care and alle my
thought
Is for Mary, my derlynge dere.
A! swete wyff, wat xal we do?
Wher xal we logge this nyght?
Onto the ffadyr
of heffne pray we so,
Us to kepe ffrom every wykkyd
whyt.
Cives.
Good man, o word I wyl
the sey,
If thou wylt do by the counsel of
me;
Yondyr is an hous of haras
[46]
that stant be the wey,
Amonge
the bestys herboryd may ye be.
Maria.
Now the fadyr of hefne
he mut yow yelde!
His sone in my wombe forsothe he
is;
He kepe the and thi good be fryth and
ffelde!
Go we hens, husbond, for now tyme it is.”
[5-11]

The scene immediately after the Nativity is delicately and reverently
presented in the York cycle. The Virgin worships the Child, saluting Him
thus:—

“Hayle my lord God! hayle prince of
pees!
Hayle my fadir, and hayle my
sone!
Hayle souereyne sege all synnes to
sesse!
Hayle God and man in erth to wonne!
[47]
Hayle! thurgh whos
myht
All this worlde was first
be-gonne,
merkness
[48]
and light.
Sone, as I am sympill sugett of
thyne,
Vowchesaffe, swete sone I pray
the,
That I myght the take in the[r] armys of
mine,
And in this poure wede to arraie
the;
Graunte me thi blisse!
As
I am thy modir chosen to be
in
sothfastnesse.”

Joseph, who has gone out to get a light, returns, and this dialogue
follows:—

“
Joseph.
Say, Marie doghtir,
what chere with the?
Mary.
Right goode, Joseph, as has been
ay.
Joseph.
O Marie! what swete thyng
is that on thy kne?
Mary.
It is my sone, the soth to saye,
that is so gud
Joseph.
Wel is me I
bade this day, to se this foode!
[49]
Me merueles mekill of this
light
That thus-gates shynes in this
place,
For suth it is a selcouth
[50]
sight!
Mary.
This hase he ordand of his grace,
my sone so ying,
A starne to be schynyng a space at his
bering
*       *       *       *       *
Joseph.
Nowe welcome, floure
fairest of hewe,
I shall the menske
[51]
with mayne and myght.
Hayle!
my maker, hayle Crist Jesu!
Hayle, riall king, roote of
all right!
Hayle, saueour.
Hayle, my lorde, lemer
[52]
of light,
Hayle, blessid
floure!
Mary.
Nowe lord!
that all this worlde schall wynne,
To the my sone is
that I saye,
Here is no bedde to laye the
inne,
Therfore my dere sone, I the praye sen it is
soo,
Here in this cribbe I myght the lay betwene ther
bestis two.
And I sall happe
[53]
the, myn owne dere childe,
With such clothes as we haue here.
Joseph.
O Marie! beholde thes
beestis mylde,
They make louyng in ther manere as thei
wer men.
For-sothe it semes wele be ther chere thare
lord thei ken.
Mary.
Ther lorde
thai kenne, that wate I wele,
They worshippe hym with
myght and mayne;
The wedir is colde, as ye may
feele,
To halde hym warme thei are full fayne, with
thare warme breth.”
[5-12]

The playwrights are at their best in the shepherd scenes; indeed these are
the most original parts of the cycles, for here the writers found little to help
them in theological tradition, and were thrown upon their own wit. In humorous
dialogue and naïve sentiment the lusty burgesses of the fifteenth century were
thoroughly at home, and the comedy and pathos of these scenes must have been as
welcome a relief to the spectators, from the  long-winded solemnity of many of the plays, as they are to
modern readers. In the York mysteries the shepherds make uncouth exclamations at
the song of the angels and ludicrously try to imitate it. The Chester shepherds
talk in a very natural way of such things as the diseases of sheep, sit down
with much relish to a meal of “ale of Halton,” sour milk, onions, garlick and
leeks, green cheese, a sheep's head soused in ale, and other items; then they
call their lad Trowle, who grumbles because his wages have not been paid,
refuses to eat, wrestles with his masters and throws them all. They sit down
discomfited; then the Star of Bethlehem appears, filling them with wonder, which
grows when they hear the angels’ song of “Gloria in excelsis.” They discuss what
the words were—“glore, glare with a glee,” or, “glori, glory, glorious,” or,
“glory, glory, with a glo.” At length they go to Bethlehem, and arrived at the
stable, the first shepherd exclaims:—

“Sym, Sym, sickerlye
Heare I see Marye,
And Jesus Christe faste
by,
Lapped in haye.”
[5-13]

Joseph is strangely described:—

“Whatever this oulde man that heare
is,
Take heede howe his head is whore,
His beirde is like a buske of breyers,
With a
pound of heaire about his mouth and more.”
[5-14]

Their gifts to the Infant are a bell, a flask, a spoon to eat pottage with,
and a cape. Trowle the servant has nought to offer but a pair of his wife's old
hose; four boys follow with presents of a bottle, a hood, a pipe, and a
nut-hook. Quaint are the words of the last two givers:—

“
The Thirde Boye.
O, noble childe of thee!
Alas! what have I for thee,
Save only my
pipe?
Elles trewly
nothinge,
Were I in the rockes or in,
I coulde make this pippe
That all this woode
should ringe,
And quiver, as yt were.
The Fourth Boye.
Nowe, childe, although thou be comon from
God,
And be God thy selfe in thy
manhoode,
Yet I knowe that in thy
childehoode
Thou wylte for sweete meate
loke,
To pull downe aples, peares, and
plumes,
Oulde Joseph shall not nede to hurte his
thombes,
Because thou hast not pleintie of
crombes,
I geve thee heare my nutthocke.”
[5-15]

Let no one deem this irreverent; the spirit of this adoration of the
shepherds is intensely devout; they go away longing to tell all the world the
wonder they have seen; one will become a pilgrim; even the rough Trowle exclaims
that he will forsake the shepherd's craft and will betake himself to an
anchorite's hard by, in prayers to “wache and wake.”

More famous than this Chester “Pastores” are the two shepherd plays in the
Towneley cycle. [5-16] The first begins with racy talk, leading to a wrangle
between two of the shepherds about some imaginary sheep; then a third arrives
and makes fun of them both; a feast follows, with much homely detail; they go to
sleep and are awakened by the angelic message; after much debate over its
meaning and over the foretellings of the prophets—one of them, strangely
enough, quotes a Latin passage from Virgil—they go to Bethlehem and present to
the Child a “lytyll spruse cofer,” a ball, and a gourd-bottle.

The second play surpasses in humour anything else in the mediaeval drama of
any country. We find the shepherds first complaining of the cold and their hard
lot; they are “al lappyd in sorow.” They talk, almost like modern Socialists, of
the oppressions of the rich:—

“For the tylthe of our landys lyys falow as the
floore,
As ye ken.
We ar so hamyd,
[54]
For-taxed and ramyd,
[55]
We ar mayde
hand-tamyd,
With thyse gentlery men.
Thus thay refe
[56]
us our rest, Our Lady theym wary!
[57]
These men that ar
lord-fest,
[58]
they cause the ploghe tary.”

To these shepherds joins himself Mak, a thieving neighbour. Going to sleep,
they make him lie between them, for they doubt his honesty. But for all their
precautions he manages to steal a sheep, and carries it home to his wife. She
thinks of an ingenious plan for concealing it from the shepherds if they visit
the cottage seeking their lost property: she will pretend that she is in
child-bed and that the sheep is the new-born infant. So it is wrapped up and
laid in a cradle, and Mak sings a lullaby. The shepherds do suspect Mak, and
come to search his house; his wife upbraids them and keeps them from the cradle.
They depart, but suddenly an idea comes to one of them:—

“
The First Shepherd.
Gaf ye the chyld
any thyng?
The Second.
I trow not oone
farthyng.
The Third.
Fast agane will I
flyng,
Abyde ye me there. [
He goes
back.
]
Mak, take it to no grefe, if I com to thi
barne.”

Mak tries to put him off, but the shepherd will have his way:—

“Gyf me lefe hym to kys, and lyft up the
clowtt.
What the devill is this? he has a long
snowte.”

So the secret is out. Mak's wife gives a desperate explanation:—

“He was takyn with an elfe,
I saw it myself.
When the clok stroke
twelf
Was he forshapyn.”

Naturally this avails nothing, and her husband is given a
good tossing by the shepherds until they are tired out and lie down to rest.
Then comes the “Gloria in excelsis” and the call of the angel:—

“Ryse, hyrd men heynd! for now is he
borne
That shall take fro the feynd that Adam had
lorne:
That warloo
[59]
to sheynd,
[60]
this nyght is he borne,
God
is made youre freynd: now at this morne
He
behestys,
At Bedlem go se,
Ther lygys that fre
[61]
In a cryb fulle
poorely,
Betwyx two bestys.”

The shepherds wonder at the song, and one of them tries to imitate it; then
they go even unto Bethlehem, and there follows the quaintest and most delightful
of Christmas carols:—

“
Primus Pastor.
Hail, comly and clene,
Hail, yong child!
Hail, maker, as I
meene,
Of a maden so milde!
Thou has warëd,
[62]
I weene,
The warlo
[63]
so wilde;
The fals giler of
teen,
[64]
Now goes he
begilde.
Lo! he merys,
[65]
Lo! he laghës, my
sweting.
A welfare meting!
I
have holden my heting.
[66]
Have a bob of
cherys!
Secundus Pastor.
Hail, sufferan Savioure,
For thou has us soght!
Hail, frely
[67]
foyde
[68]
and floure,
That all thing
has wroght!
Hail, full of
favoure,
That made all of noght!
Hail, I kneel and I cowre.
A bird have I
broght
To my barne.
Hail,
litel tinë mop!
[69]
Of oure crede thou art
crop;
[70]
I wold drink on thy
cop,
Litel day starne.
Tertius Pastor.
Hail, derling dere,
Full of godhede!
I pray thee be
nere
When that I have nede.
Hail! swete is thy chere;
[71]
My hart woldë
blede
To see thee sitt here
In
so poorë wede,
With no pennys.
Hail! Put forth thy dall!
[72]
I bring thee bot a
ball;
Have and play thee with all,
And go to the tenis!”
[5-17]

The charm of this will be felt by every reader; it lies in a curious
incongruity—extreme homeliness joined to awe; the Infinite is contained within
the narrowest human bounds; God Himself, the Creator and Sustainer of the
universe, a weak, helpless child. But a step more, and all would have been
irreverence; as it is we have devotion, human, naïve, and touching.

It would be interesting to show how other scenes connected with Christmas are
handled in the English miracle-plays: how Octavian (Caesar Augustus) sent out
the decree that all the world should be taxed, and learned from the Sibyl the
birth of Christ; how the Magi were led by the star and offered their symbolic
gifts; how the raging of the boastful tyrant Herod, the  Slaughter of the Innocents, and the Flight into Egypt are
treated; but these scenes, though full of colour, are on the whole less
remarkable than the shepherd and Nativity pieces, and space forbids us to dwell
upon them. They contain many curious anachronisms, as when Herod invokes
Mahounde, and talks about his princes, prelates, barons, baronets and
burgesses. [73]

The religious play in England did not long survive the Reformation. Under the
influence of Protestantism, with its vigilant dread of profanity and
superstition, the cycles were shorn of many of their scenes, the performances
became irregular, and by the end of the sixteenth century they had mostly ceased
to be. Not sacred story, but the play of human character, was henceforth the
material of the drama. The rich, variegated religion of the people, communal in
its expression, tinged everywhere with human colour, gave place to a sterner,
colder, more individual faith, fearful of contamination by the use of the
outward and visible.

There is little or no trace in the vernacular Christmas
plays of direct translation from one language into another, though there was
some borrowing of motives. Thus the Christmas drama of each nation has its own
special flavour.

If we turn to France, we find a remarkable fifteenth-century cycle that
belongs purely to the winter festival, and shows the strictly Christmas drama at
its fullest development. This great mystery of the “Incarnacion et nativité de
nostre saulveur et redempteur Jesuchrist” was performed out-of-doors at Rouen in
1474, an exceptional event for a northern city in winter-time. The twenty-four
establies or “mansions” set up for the various scenes reached across the
market-place from the “Axe and Crown” Inn to the “Angel.”

After a prologue briefly explaining its purpose, the
mystery begins, like the old liturgical plays, with the witness of the prophets;
then follows a scene in Limbo where Adam is shown lamenting his fate, and
another in Heaven where the Redemption of mankind is discussed and the
Incarnation decided upon. With the Annunciation and the Visitation of the Virgin
the first day closed. The second day opened with the ordering by Octavian of the
world-census. The edict is addressed:—

“A tous roys, marquis, ducs et
contes,
Connestables, bailifs, vicomtes
Et tous autres generalment
Qui sont desoubz le
firmament.”

Joseph, in order to fulfil the command of Cyrenius, governor of Syria, leaves
Nazareth for Bethlehem. A comic shepherds’ scene follows, with a rustic
song:—

“Joyeusement, la garenlo,
Chantons en venant a la veille,
Puisque nous
avons la bouteille
Nous y berons jusques a
bo.”

When Joseph and Mary reach the stable where the Nativity is to take place,
there is a charming dialogue. Joseph laments over the meanness of the stable,
Mary accepts it with calm resignation.

Joseph.
“Las! vecy bien povre merrien
Pour edifier un hostel
Et logis a ung seigneur
tel.
Il naistra en bien povre place.
Marie.
Il plait a Dieu qu'ainsy se
face.
*       *       *       *       *
Joseph.
Ou sont ces chambres tant
fournies
De Sarges, de Tapiceries
Batus d'or, ou luyt mainte
pierre,
Et nates mises sur la terre,
Affin que le froit ne mefface?
Marie.
Il plait a Dieu qu'ainsy se
face.
*       *       *       *       *
Joseph.
Helas! cy gerra povrement
Le createur du firmament
Celui qui fait le
soleil luire,
Qui fait la terre fruis
produire,
Qui tient la mer en son
espace.
Marie.
Il plait a Dieu qu'ainsy se
face.”

At last Christ is born, welcomed by the song of the angels, adored by His
mother. In the heathen temples the idols fall; Hell mouth opens and shows the
rage of the demons, who make a hideous noise; fire issues from the nostrils and
eyes and ears of Hell, which shuts up with the devils within it. And then the
angels in the stable worship the Child Jesus. The adoration of the shepherds was
shown with many naïve details for the delight of the people, and the performance
ended with the offering of a sacrifice in Rome by the Emperor Octavian to an
image of the Blessed Virgin. [5-19]

The French playwrights, quite as much as the English, love comic shepherd
scenes with plenty of eating and drinking and brawling. A traditional figure is
the shepherd Rifflart, always a laughable type. In the strictly mediaeval plays
the shepherds are true French rustics, but with the progress of the Renaissance
classical elements creep into the pastoral scenes; in a mystery printed in 1507
Orpheus with the Nymphs and Oreads is introduced. As might be expected,
anachronisms often occur; a peculiarly piquant instance is found in the S.
Geneviève mystery, where Caesar Augustus gets a piece of Latin translated into
French for his convenience.

Late examples of French Christmas mysteries are the
so-called “comedies” of the Nativity, Adoration of the Kings, Massacre of the
Innocents, and Flight into Egypt contained in the “Marguerites” (published in
1547) of Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, sister of François I. Intermingled with
the traditional figures treated more or less in the traditional way are
personified abstractions like Philosophy, Tribulation, Inspiration, Divine
Intelligence, and Contemplation, which largely rob the plays of dramatic effect.
There is some true poetry in these pieces, but too much theological learning and
too little simplicity, and in one place the ideas of Calvin seem to show
themselves. [5-20]

The French mystery began to fall into decay about the middle of the sixteenth
century. It was attacked on every side: by the new poets of the Renaissance, who
preferred classical to Christian subjects; by the Protestants, who deemed the
religious drama a trifling with the solemn truths of Scripture; and even by the
Catholic clergy, who, roused to greater strictness by the challenge of
Protestantism, found the comic elements in the plays offensive and dangerous,
and perhaps feared that too great familiarity with the Bible as represented in
the mysteries might lead the people into heresy. [5-21] Yet we hear occasionally of Christmas dramas in
France in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. In the
neighbourhood of Nantes, for instance, a play of the Nativity by Claude Macée,
hermit, probably written in the seventeenth century, was commonly performed in
the first half of the nineteenth. [5-22] At Clermont the adoration of the shepherds was still
performed in 1718, and some kind of representation of the scene continued in the
diocese of Cambrai until 1834, when it was forbidden by the bishop. In the
south, especially at Marseilles, “pastorals” were played towards the end of the
nineteenth century; they had, however, largely lost their sacred character, and
had become a kind of review of the events of the year. [5-23] At Dinan, in Brittany, some sort of Herod play was
performed, though it was dying out, in 1886. It was acted by young men on the
Epiphany, and there was an “innocent” whose throat they pretended to cut with a
wooden sword. [5-24]

An interesting summary of a very full Nativity play
performed in the churches of Upper Gascony on Christmas Eve is given by Countess
Martinengo-Cesaresco. [5-25] It ranges from the arrival of Joseph and Mary at
Bethlehem to the Flight into Egypt and the Murder of the Innocents, but perhaps
the most interesting parts are the shepherd scenes. After the message of the
angel—a child in a surplice, with wings fastened to his shoulders, seated on a
chair drawn up to the ceiling and supported by ropes—the shepherds leave the
church, the whole of which is now regarded as the stable of the Divine Birth.
They knock for admittance, and Joseph, regretting that the chamber is “so badly
lighted,” lets them in. They fall down before the manger, and so do the
shepherdesses, who “deposit on the altar steps a banner covered with flowers and
greenery, from which hang strings of small birds, apples, nuts, chestnuts, and
other fruits. It is their Christmas offering to the curé; the shepherds have
already placed a whole sheep before the altar, in a like spirit.” The play is
not mere dumb-show, but has a full libretto.

A rather similar piece of dramatic ceremonial is described by Barthélemy in
his edition of Durandus, [5-26] as customary in the eighteenth century at La
Villeneuve-en-Chevrie, near Mantes. At the Midnight Mass a crèche with a
wax figure of the Holy Child was placed in the choir, with tapers burning about
it. After the “Te Deum” had been sung, the celebrant, accompanied by his
attendants, censed the crèche, to the sound of violins, double-basses,
and other instruments. A shepherd then prostrated himself before the crib,
holding a sheep with a sort of little saddle bearing sixteen lighted candles. He
was followed by two shepherdesses in white with distaffs and tapers. A second
shepherd, between two shepherdesses, carried a laurel branch, to which were
fastened oranges, lemons, biscuits, and sweetmeats. Two others brought great
pains-bénits and lighted candles; then came four shepherdesses, who made
their adoration, and lastly twenty-six more shepherds, two by two, bearing in
one hand a candle and in the other a festooned crook. The same ceremonial was
practised at the Offertory and after the close of the Mass. All was done, it is
said, with such piety and edification that  St. Luke's words about the Bethlehem shepherds were true of
these French swains—they “returned glorifying and praising God for all the
things they had heard and seen.”

In German there remain very few Christmas plays earlier
than the fifteenth century. Later periods, however, have produced a multitude,
and dramatic performances at Christmas have continued down to quite modern times
in German-speaking parts.

At Oberufer near Pressburg—a German Protestant village in Hungary—some
fifty years ago, a Christmas play was performed under the direction of an old
farmer, whose office as instructor had descended from father to son. The play
took place at intervals of from three to ten years and was acted on all Sundays
and festivals from Advent to the Epiphany. Great care was taken to ensure the
strictest piety and morality in the actors, and no secular music was allowed in
the place during the season for the performances. The practices began as early
as October. On the first Sunday in Advent there was a solemn procession to the
hall hired for the play. First went a man bearing a gigantic star—he was called
the “Master Singer”—and another carrying a Christmas-tree decked with ribbons
and apples; then came all the actors, singing hymns. There was no scenery and no
theatrical apparatus beyond a straw-seated chair and a wooden stool. When the
first was used, the scene was understood to be Jerusalem, when the second,
Bethlehem. The Christmas drama, immediately preceded by an Adam and Eve play,
and succeeded by a Shrove Tuesday one, followed mediaeval lines, and included
the wanderings of Joseph and Mary round the inns of Bethlehem, the angelic
tidings to the shepherds, their visit to the manger, the adoration of the Three
Kings, and various Herod scenes. Protestant influence was shown by the
introduction of Luther's “Vom Himmel hoch,” but the general character was very
much that of the old mysteries, and the dialogue was full of quaint naïveté. [5-27]

At Brixlegg, in Tyrol, as late as 1872 a long Christmas play was acted under
Catholic auspices; some of its dialogue was in  the Tyrolese patois and racy and humorous, other
parts, and particularly the speeches of Mary and Joseph—out of respect for
these holy personages—had been rewritten in the eighteenth century in a very
stilted and undramatic style. Some simple shepherd plays are said to be still
presented in the churches of the Saxon Erzgebirge. [5-28]

The German language is perhaps richer in real Christmas plays, as
distinguished from Nativity and Epiphany episodes in great cosmic cycles, than
any other. There are some examples in mediaeval manuscripts, but the most
interesting are shorter pieces performed in country places in comparatively
recent times, and probably largely traditional in substance. Christianity by the
fourteenth century had at last gained a real hold upon the German people, or
perhaps one should rather say the German people had laid a strong hold upon
Christianity, moulding it into something very human and concrete, materialistic
often, yet not without spiritual significance. In cradle-rocking and religious
dancing at Christmas the instincts of a lusty, kindly race expressed themselves,
and the same character is shown in the short popular Christmas dramas collected
by Weinhold and others. [5-29] Many of the little pieces—some are rather duets than
plays—were sung or acted in church or by the fireside in the nineteenth
century, and perhaps even now may linger in remote places. They are in dialect,
and the rusticity of their language harmonizes well with their naïve, homely
sentiment. In them we behold the scenes of Bethlehem as realized by peasants,
and their mixture of rough humour and tender feeling is thoroughly in keeping
with the subject.

One is made to feel very vividly the amazement of the shepherds at the
wondrous and sudden apparition of the angels:—

“
Riepl.
Woas is das für a
Getümmel,
I versteh mi nit in d'Welt.
Jörgl.
Is den heunt eingfalln der Himmel,
Fleugn d'Engeln auf unserm Feld?
R.
Thuen Sprüng macha
J.
Von oben acha!
R.
I turft das Ding nit
noacha thoan,
that mir brechn Hals und Boan.”
[74]

[5-30]

The cold is keenly brought home to us when they come to the manger:—

“
J.
Mei Kind, kanst kei Herberg
finden?
Muest so viel Frost leiden
schoan.
R.
Ligst du under kalden
Windeln!
Lägts ihm doch a Gwandl oan!
J.
Machts ihm d'Füess ein,
Hüllts in
zue fein!”
[75]

[5-31]

Very homely are their presents to the Child:—

“Ein drei Eier und ein Butter
Bringen wir auch, nemt es an!
Einen Han zu
einer Suppen,
Wanns die Mutter kochen
kann.
Giessts ein Schmalz drein, wirds wol guet
sein.
Weil wir sonsten gar nix han,
Sind wir selber arme Hirten,
Nemts den guten
Willen an.”
[76]

[5-32]

One of the dialogues ends with a curious piece of ordinary human kindliness,
as if the Divine nature of the Infant were quite forgotten for the moment:—

“
J.
Bleib halt fein gsund, mein kloans
Liebl,
Wannst woas brauchst, so komm ze
mir.
*       *       *       *       *
J.
Pfüet di Gôt halt!
R.
Wär fein gross
bald!
J.
Kannst in mein Dienst stehen
ein,
Wann darzu wirst gross gnue sein.”
[77]

[5-33]

Far more interesting in their realism and naturalness are these little plays
of the common folk than the elaborate Christmas dramas of more learned German
writers, Catholic and Lutheran, who in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
became increasingly stilted and bombastic.

The Italian religious drama [5-34] evolved somewhat differently from that of the
northern countries. The later thirteenth century saw the outbreak of the
fanaticism of the Flagellants or Battuti, vast crowds of people of all
classes who went in procession from church to church, from city to city,
scourging their naked bodies in terror and repentance till the blood flowed.
When the wild enthusiasm of this movement subsided it left enduring traces in
the foundation of lay communities throughout the land, continuing in a more
sober way the penitential practices of the Flagellants. One of their aids to
devotion was the singing or reciting of vernacular poetry, less formal than the
Latin hymns of the liturgy, and known as laude. [78] These laude developed a more or less dramatic
form, which gained the name of divozioni. [79] They were, perhaps (though not certainly, for there
seems to have been another tradition derived from the regular liturgical drama),
the source from which sprang the gorgeously produced sacre
rappresentazioni of the fifteenth century.

The sacre rappresentazioni corresponded, though with considerable
differences, to the miracle-plays of England and France. Their great period was
the fifty years from 1470 to 1520, and  they were performed, like the divozioni, by
confraternities of religious laymen. The actors were boys belonging to the
brotherhoods, and the plays were intended to be edifying for youth. They are
more refined than the northern religious dramas, but only too often fall into
insipidity.

Among the texts given by D'Ancona in his collection of sacre
rappresentazioni is a Tuscan “Natività,” [5-36] opening with a pastoral scene resembling those in the
northern mysteries, but far less vigorous. It cannot compare, for character and
humour, with the Towneley plays. Still the shepherds, whose names are Bobi del
Farucchio, Nencio di Pucchio, Randello, Nencietto, Giordano, and Falconcello,
are at least meant to have a certain rusticity, as they feast on bread and
cheese and wine, play to the Saviour on bagpipe or whistle, and offer humble
presents like apples and cheese. The scenes which follow, the coming of the Magi
and the Murder of the Innocents, are not intrinsically of great interest.

It is possible that this play may have been the spectacle performed in
Florence in 1466, as recorded by Machiavelli, “to give men something to take
away their thoughts from affairs of state.” It “represented the coming of the
three Magi Kings from the East, following the star which showed the Nativity of
Christ, and it was of so great pomp and magnificence that it kept the whole city
busy for several months in arranging and preparing it.” [5-37]

An earlier record of an Italian pageant of the Magi is this account by the
chronicler Galvano Flamma of what took place at Milan in 1336:—

“There were three kings crowned, on great horses,... and an exceeding
great train. And there was a golden star running through the air, which went
before these three kings, and they came to the columns of San Lorenzo, where
was King Herod in effigy, with the scribes and wise men. And they were seen to
ask King Herod where Christ was born, and having turned over many books they
answered, that He should be born in the city of David distant five miles from
Jerusalem. And having heard this, those three kings, crowned with golden
crowns, holding in their hands golden cups with gold, incense,  and myrrh, came to the church of Sant’ Eustorgio, the
star preceding them through the air,... and a wonderful train, with
resounding trumpets and horns going before them, with apes, baboons, and
diverse kinds of animals, and a marvellous tumult of people. There at the side
of the high altar was a manger with ox and ass, and in the manger was the
little Christ in the arms of the Virgin Mother. And those kings offered gifts
unto Christ; then they were seen to sleep, and a winged angel said to them
that they should not return by the region of San Lorenzo but by the Porta
Romana; which also was done. There was so great a concourse of the people and
soldiers and ladies and clerics that scarce anything like it was ever beheld.
And it was ordered that every year this festal show should be performed.” [5-38]

How suggestive this is of the Magi pictures of the fifteenth century, with
their gorgeous eastern monarchs and retinues of countless servants and strange
animals. No other story in the New Testament gives such opportunity for
pageantry as the Magi scene. All the wonder, richness, and romance of the East,
all the splendour of western Renaissance princes could lawfully be introduced
into the train of the Three Kings. With Gentile da Fabriano and Benozzo Gozzoli
it has become a magnificent procession; there are trumpeters, pages, jesters,
dwarfs, exotic beasts—all the motley, gorgeous retinue of the monarchs of the
time, while the kings themselves are romantic figures in richest attire, velvet,
brocade, wrought gold, and jewels. It may be that much of this splendour was
suggested to the painters by dramatic spectacles which actually passed before
their eyes.

I have already alluded to the Spanish “Mystery of the Magi
Kings,” a mere fragment, but of peculiar interest to the historian of the drama
as one of the two earliest religious plays in a modern European language. Though
plays are known to have been performed in Spain at Christmas and Easter in the
Middle Ages, [5-39] we have no further texts until the very short
“Representation of the Birth of Our Lord,” by Gómez Manrique, Señor de
Villazopeque (1412-91), acted at the convent at Calabazanos, of which the
author's sister was Superior. The characters  introduced are the Virgin, St. Joseph, St. Gabriel, St.
Michael, St. Raphael, another angel, and three shepherds. [5-40]

Touched by the spirit of the Renaissance, and particularly by the influence
of Virgil, is Juan del Encina of Salamanca (1469-1534), court poet to the Duke
of Alba, and author of two Christmas eclogues. [5-41] The first introduces four shepherds who bear the
names of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and are curiously mixed
personages, their words being half what might be expected from the shepherds of
Bethlehem and half sayings proper only to the authors of the Gospels. It ends
with a villancico or carol. The second eclogue is far more realistic, and
indeed resembles the English and French pastoral scenes. The shepherds grumble
about the weather—it has been raining for two months, the floods are terrible,
and no fords or bridges are left; they talk of the death of a sacristan, a fine
singer; and they play a game with chestnuts; then comes the angel—whom one of
them calls a “smartly dressed lad” (garzon repìcado)—to tell them of the
Birth, and they go to adore the Child, taking Him a kid, butter-cakes, eggs, and
other presents.

Infinitely more ambitious is “The Birth of Christ” [5-42] by the great Lope de Vega (1562-1635). It opens in
Paradise, immediately after the Creation, and ends with the adoration of the
Three Kings. Full of allegorical conceits and personified qualities, it will
hardly please the taste of modern minds. Another work of Lope's, “The Shepherds
of Bethlehem,” a long pastoral in prose and verse, published in 1612, contains,
amid many incongruities, some of the best of his shorter poems; one lullaby,
sung by the Virgin in a palm-grove while her Child sleeps, has been thus
translated by Ticknor:—

“Holy angels and blest,
Through these palms as ye sweep,
Hold their
branches at rest,
For my babe is
asleep.
And ye Bethlehem palm-trees,
As stormy winds rush
In tempest and
fury,
Your angry noise hush;
Move gently, move gently,
Restrain your wild
sweep;
Hold your branches at rest,
My babe is asleep.
My babe all divine,
With earth's sorrows oppressed,
Seeks in
slumber an instant
His grievings to
rest;
He slumbers, he slumbers,
O, hush, then, and keep
Your branches all
still,
My babe is asleep!”
[5-43]

Apart from such modern revivals of the Christmas drama as
Mr. Laurence Housman's “Bethlehem,” Miss Buckton's “Eager Heart,” Mrs. Percy
Dearmer's “The Soul of the World,” and similar experiments in Germany and
France, a genuine tradition has lingered on in some parts of Europe into modern
times. We have already noticed some French and German instances; to these may be
added a few from other countries.

In Naples there is no Christmas without the “Cantata dei pastori”; it is
looked forward to no less than the Midnight Mass. Two or three theatres compete
for the public favour in the performance of this play in rude verse. It begins
with Adam and Eve and ends with the birth of Jesus and the adoration of the
shepherds. Many devils are brought on the stage, their arms and legs laden with
brass chains that rattle horribly. Awful are their names, Lucifero, Satanasso,
Belfegor, Belzebù, &c. They not only tempt Adam and Eve, but annoy the
Virgin and St. Joseph, until an angel comes and frightens them away. Two
non-Biblical figures are introduced, Razzullo and Sarchiapone, who are tempted
by devils and aided by angels. [5-44] In Sicily too the Christmas play still lingers under
the name of Pastorale. [5-45]

A nineteenth-century Spanish survival of the “Stella” is
described in Fernan Caballero's sketch, “La Noche de Navidad.” [5-46] At the foot of the altar of the village church,
according to this account, images of the Virgin and St. Joseph were placed, with
the Holy Child between them, lying on straw. On either side knelt a small boy
dressed as an angel. Solemnly there entered the church a number of men attired
as shepherds, bearing their offerings to the Child; afterwards they danced with
slow and dignified movements before the altar. The shepherds were followed by
the richest men of the village dressed as the Magi Kings, mounted on horseback,
and followed by their train. Before them went a shining star. On reaching the
church they dismounted; the first, representing a majestic old man with white
hair, offered incense to the Babe; the others, Caspar and Melchior, myrrh and
gold respectively. This was done on the feast of the Epiphany.

A remnant possibly of the “Stella” is to be found in a Christmas custom
extremely widespread in Europe and surviving even in some Protestant lands—the
carrying about of a star in memory of the Star of Bethlehem. It is generally
borne by a company of boys, who sing some sort of carol, and expect a gift in
return.

The practice is—or was—found as far north as Sweden. All through the
Christmas season the “star youths” go about from house to house. Three are
dressed up as the Magi Kings, a fourth carries on a stick a paper lantern in the
form of a six-pointed star, made to revolve and lighted by candles. There are
also a Judas, who bears the purse for the collection, and, occasionally, a King
Herod. A doggerel rhyme is sung, telling the story of the Nativity and offering
good wishes. [5-47] In Norway and Denmark processions of a like character
were formerly known. [5-48]

In Normandy at Christmas children used to go singing through the village
streets, carrying a lantern of coloured paper on a long osier rod. [5-49] At Pleudihen in Brittany three young men representing
the Magi sang carols in the cottages, dressed in their holiday clothes covered
with ribbons. [5-50]

In England there appears to be no trace of the custom,
which is however found in Germany, Austria, Holland, Italy, Bohemia, Roumania,
Poland, and Russia. [5-51]

In Thuringia a curious carol used to be sung, telling how Herod tried to
tempt the Wise Men—

“‘Oh, good Wise Men, come in and
dine;
I will give you both beer and
wine,
And hay and straw to make your
bed,
And nought of payment shall be
said.’”

But they answer:—

“‘Oh, no! oh, no! we must
away,
We seek a little Child to-day,
A little Child, a mighty King,
Him who created
everything.’”
[5-52]

In Tyrol the “star-singing” is very much alive at the present day. In the
Upper Innthal three boys in white robes, with blackened faces and gold paper
crowns, go to every house on Epiphany Eve, one of them carrying a golden star on
a pole. They sing a carol, half religious, half comic—almost a little
drama—and are given money, cake, and drink. In the Ilsethal the boys come on
Christmas Eve, and presents are given them by well-to-do people. In some parts
there is but one singer, an old man with a white beard and a turban, who twirls
a revolving star. A remarkable point about the Tyrolese star-singers is that
before anything is given them they are told to stamp on the snowy fields outside
the houses, in order to promote the growth of the crops in summer. [5-53]

In Little Russia the “star” is made of pasteboard and has a transparent
centre with a picture of Christ through which the light of a candle shines. One
boy carries the star and another twirls the points. [5-54] In Roumania it is made of wood and adorned with
frills and little bells. A representation of the “manger,” illuminated from
behind, forms the centre, and the star also shows pictures of Adam and Eve and
angels. [5-55]

A curious traditional drama, in which pagan elements seem
to have mingled with the Herod story, is still performed by the Roumanians
during the Christmas festival. It is called in Wallachia “Vicleim” (from
Bethlehem), in Moldavia and Transylvania “Irozi” (plural from Irod =
Herod). At least ten persons figure in it: “Emperor” Herod, an old grumbling
monarch who speaks in harsh tones to his followers; an officer and two soldiers
in Roman attire; the three Magi, in Oriental garb, a child, and “two comical
figures—the paiaţa (the clown) and the moşul, or old man, the
former in harlequin accoutrement, the latter with a mask on his face, a long
beard, a hunch on his back, and dressed in a sheepskin with the wool on the
outside. The plot of the play is quite simple. The officer brings the news that
three strange men have been caught, going to Bethlehem to adore the new-born
Messiah; Herod orders them to be shown in: they enter singing in a choir. Long
dialogues ensue between them and Herod, who at last orders them to be taken to
prison. But then they address the Heavenly Father, and shout imprecations on
Herod, invoking celestial punishment on him, at which unaccountable noises are
heard, seeming to announce the fulfilment of the curse. Herod falters, begs the
Wise Men's forgiveness, putting off his anger till more opportune times. The
Wise Men retire.... Then a child is introduced, who goes on his knees before
Herod, with his hands on his breast, asking pity. He gives clever answers to
various questions and foretells the Christ's future career, at which Herod stabs
him. The whole troupe now strikes up a tune of reproach to Herod, who falls on
his knees in deep repentance.” The play is sometimes performed by puppets
instead of living actors. [5-56]

Christmas plays performed by puppets are found in other countries too. In
Poland “during the week between Christmas and New Year is shown the
Jaselki or manger, a travelling series of scenes from the life of Christ
or even of modern peasants, a small travelling puppet-theatre, gorgeous with
tinsel and candles, and something like our ‘Punch and Judy’ show. The
market-place of Cracow, especially at night, is a very pretty spectacle, its
sidewalks all lined with these glittering Jaselki.” [5-57] In Madrid  at the Epiphany a puppet-play was common, in which the
events of the Nativity and the Infancy were mimed by wooden figures, [5-58] and in Provence, in the mid-nineteenth century, the
Christmas scenes were represented in the same way. [5-59]

Last may be mentioned a curious Mexican mixture of religion and amusement, a
sort of drama called the “Posadas,” described by Madame Calderon de la Barca in
her “Life in Mexico” (1843). [5-60] The custom was based upon the wanderings of the
Virgin and St. Joseph in Bethlehem in search of repose. For eight days these
wanderings of the holy pair to the different posadas were represented. On
Christmas Eve, says the narrator, “a lighted candle was put into the hand of
each lady [this was at a sort of party], and a procession was formed, two by
two, which marched all through the house... the whole party singing the
Litanies.... A group of little children, dressed as angels, joined the
procession.... At last the procession drew up before a door, and a shower of
fireworks was sent flying over our heads, I suppose to represent the descent of
the angels; for a group of ladies appeared, dressed to represent the
shepherds.... Then voices, supposed to be those of Mary and Joseph, struck up a
hymn, in which they begged for admittance, saying that the night was cold and
dark, that the wind blew hard, and that they prayed for a night's shelter. A
chorus of voices from within refused admittance. Again those without entreated
shelter, and at length declared that she at the door, who thus wandered in the
night, and had not where to lay her head, was the Queen of Heaven! At this name
the doors were thrown wide open, and the Holy Family entered singing. The scene
within was very pretty: a nacimiento.... One of the angels held a waxen
baby in her arms.... A padre took the baby from the angel and placed it in the
cradle, and the posada was completed. We then returned to the
drawing-room—angels, shepherds, and all, and danced till supper-time.” [5-60]
Here the religious drama has sunk to little more than a “Society” game.

Postscript

Before we pass on to the pagan aspects of Christmas, let us gather up our
thoughts in an attempt to realize the peculiar appeal of the Feast of the
Nativity, as it has been felt in the past, as it is felt to-day even by moderns
who have no belief in the historical truth of the story it commemorates.

This appeal of Christmas seems to lie in the union of two modes of feeling
which may be called the carol spirit and the mystical spirit. The
carol spirit—by this we may understand the simple, human joyousness, the
tender and graceful imagination, the kindly, intimate affection, which have
gathered round the cradle of the Christ Child. The folk-tune, the secular song
adapted to a sacred theme—such is the carol. What a sense of kindliness, not of
sentimentality, but of genuine human feeling, these old songs give us, as though
the folk who first sang them were more truly comrades, more closely knit
together than we under modern industrialism.

One element in the carol spirit is the rustic note that finds its sanction as
regards Christmas in St. Luke's story of the shepherds keeping watch over their
flocks by night. One thinks of the stillness over the fields, of the hinds with
their rough talk, “simply chatting in a rustic row,” of the keen air, and the
great burst of light and song that dazes their simple wits, of their journey to
Bethlehem where “the heaven-born Child all meanly wrapt in the rude manger
lies,” of the ox and ass linking the beasts of the field to the Christmas
adoration of mankind. [80]

For many people, indeed, the charm of Christmas is inseparably associated
with the country; it is lost in London—the city is too vast, too modern, too
sophisticated. It is bound up with the thought of frosty fields, of bells heard
far away, of bare trees  against the starlit sky, of carols sung not by trained
choirs but by rustic folk with rough accent, irregular time, and tunes learnt by
ear and not by book.

Again, without the idea of winter half the charm of Christmas would be gone.
Transplanted in the imagination of western Christendom from an undefined season
in the hot East to Europe at midwinter, the Nativity scenes have taken on a new
pathos with the thought of the bitter cold to which the great Little One lay
exposed in the rough stable, with the contrast between the cold and darkness of
the night and the fire of love veiled beneath that infant form. Lux in
tenebris is one of the strongest notes of Christmas: in the bleak midwinter
a light shines through the darkness; when all is cold and gloom, the sky bursts
into splendour, and in the dark cave is born the Light of the World.

There is the idea of royalty too, with all it stands for of colour and
magnificence, though not so much in literature as in painting is this side of
the Christmas story represented. The Epiphany is the great opportunity for
imaginative development of the regal idea. Then is seen the union of utter
poverty with highest kingship; the monarchs of the East come to bow before the
humble Infant for whom the world has found no room in the inn. How suggestive by
their long, slow syllables are the Italian names of the Magi. Gasparre,
Baldassarre, Melchiorre—we picture Oriental monarchs in robes mysteriously
gorgeous, wrought with strange patterns, heavy with gold and precious stones.
With slow processional motion they advance, bearing to the King of Kings their
symbolic gifts, gold for His crowning, incense for His worship, myrrh for His
mortality, and with them come the mystery, colour, and perfume of the East, the
occult wisdom which bows itself before the revelation in the Child.

Above all, as the foregoing pages have shown, it is the childhood of
the Redeemer that has won the heart of Europe for Christmas; it is the appeal to
the parental instinct, the love for the tender, weak, helpless, yet
all-potential babe, that has given the Church's festival its strongest hold. And
this side of Christmas is penetrated often by the mystical spirit—that
sense of the Infinite in the finite without which the highest human life is
impossible.

The feeling for Christmas varies from mere delight in the
Christ Child as a representative symbol on which to lavish affection, as a child
delights in a doll, to the mystical philosophy of Eckhart, in whose Christmas
sermons the Nativity is viewed as a type of the Birth of God in the depths of
man's being. Yet even the least spiritual forms of the cult of the Child are
seldom without some hint of the supersensual, the Infinite, and even in Eckhart
there is a love of concrete symbolism. Christmas stands peculiarly for the
sacramental principle that the outward and visible is a sign and shadow of the
inward and spiritual. It means the seeing of common, earthly things shot through
by the glory of the Infinite. “Its note,” as has been said of a stage of the
mystic consciousness, the Illuminative Way, “is sacramental not ascetic. It
entails... the discovery of the Perfect One ablaze in the Many, not the
forsaking of the Many in order to find the One... an ineffable radiance, a
beauty and a reality never before suspected, are perceived by a sort of
clairvoyance shining in the meanest things.” [6-1] Christmas is the festival of the Divine Immanence, and
it is natural that it should have been beloved by the saint and mystic whose
life was the supreme manifestation of the Via Illuminativa, Francis of
Assisi.

Christmas is the most human and lovable of the Church's feasts. Easter and
Ascensiontide speak of the rising and exaltation of a glorious being, clothed in
a spiritual body refined beyond all comparison with our natural flesh;
Whitsuntide tells of the coming of a mysterious, intangible Power—like the
wind, we cannot tell whence It cometh and whither It goeth; Trinity offers for
contemplation an ineffable paradox of Pure Being. But the God of Christmas is no
ethereal form, no mere spiritual essence, but a very human child, feeling the
cold and the roughness of the straw, needing to be warmed and fed and cherished.
Christmas is the festival of the natural body, of this world; it means the
consecration of the ordinary things of life, affection and comradeship, eating
and drinking and merrymaking; and in some degree the memory of the Incarnation
has been able to blend with the pagan joyance of the New Year.

Part II — Pagan Survivals

Chapter VI — Pre-Christian Winter Festivals

The Church and Superstition—Nature of Pagan Survivals—Racial
Origins—Roman Festivals of the Saturnalia and Kalends—Was there a
Teutonic Midwinter Festival?—The Teutonic, Celtic, and Slav New Year—Customs
attracted to Christmas or January 1—The Winter Cycle of
Festivals—Rationale of Festival Ritual: (a) Sacrifice and
Sacrament, (b) the Cult of the Dead, (c) Omens and Charms for
the New Year—Compromise in the Later Middle Ages—The Puritans and
Christmas—Decay of Old Traditions.

We have now to leave the commemoration of the Nativity of Christ, and to turn
to the other side of Christmas—its many traditional observances which, though
sometimes coloured by Christianity, have nothing to do with the Birth of the
Redeemer. This class of customs has often, especially in the first millennium of
our era, been the object of condemnations by ecclesiastics, and represents the
old paganism which Christianity failed to extinguish. The Church has played a
double part, a part of sheer antagonism, forcing heathen customs into the shade,
into a more or less surreptitious and unprogressive life, and a part of
adaptation, baptizing them into Christ, giving them a Christian name and
interpretation, and often modifying their form. The general effect of
Christianity upon pagan usages is well suggested by Dr. Karl Pearson:—

“What the missionary could he repressed, the more as his church grew in
strength; what he could not repress he adopted or simply left unregarded....
What the missionary tried to repress became mediaeval witchcraft; what he
judiciously disregarded survives to this  day in peasant weddings and in the folk-festivals at the
great changes of season.” [7-1]

We find then many pagan practices concealed beneath a superficial
Christianity—often under the mantle of some saint—but side by side with these
are many usages never Christianized even in appearance, and obviously identical
with heathen customs against which the Church thundered in the days of her
youth. Grown old and tolerant—except of novelties—she has long since ceased to
attack them, and they have themselves mostly lost all definite religious
meaning. As the old pagan faith decayed, they tended to become in a literal
sense “superstition,” something standing over, like shells from which the living
occupant has gone. They are now often mere “survivals” in the technical
folk-lore sense, pieces of custom separated from the beliefs that once gave them
meaning, performed only because in a vague sort of way they are supposed to
bring good luck. In many cases those who practise them would be quite unable to
explain how or why they work for good.

Mental inertia, the instinct to do and believe what has always been done and
believed, has sometimes preserved the animating faith as well as the external
form of these practices, but often all serious significance has departed. What
was once religious or magical ritual, upon the due observance of which the
welfare of the community was believed to depend, has become mere pageantry and
amusement, often a mere children's game. [7-2]

Sometimes the spirit of a later age has worked upon these pagan customs,
revivifying and transforming them, giving them charm. Often, however, one does
not find in them the poetry, the warm humanity, the humour, which mark the
creations of popular Catholicism. They are fossils and their interest is that of
the fossil: they are records of a vanished world and help us to an imaginative
reconstruction of it. But further, just as on a stratum of rock rich in fossils
there may be fair meadows and gardens and groves, depending for their life on
the denudation of the rock beneath, so have these ancient religious products
largely supplied the soil in which more spiritual and more  beautiful things have flourished. Amid these, as has been
well said, “they still emerge, unchanged and unchanging, like the quaint
outcrops of some ancient rock formation amid rich vegetation and fragrant
flowers.” [7-3]

The survivals of pagan religion at Christian festivals relate not so much to
the worship of definite divinities—against this the missionaries made their
most determined efforts, and the names of the old gods have practically
disappeared—as to cults which preceded the development of anthropomorphic gods
with names and attributes. These cults, paid to less personally conceived
spirits, were of older standing and no doubt had deeper roots in the popular
mind. Fundamentally associated with agricultural and pastoral life, they have in
many cases been preserved by the most conservative element in the population,
the peasantry.

Many of the customs we shall meet with are magical, rather than religious in
the proper sense; they are not directed to the conciliation of spiritual beings,
but spring from primitive man's belief “that in order to produce the great
phenomena of nature on which his life depended he had only to imitate them.” [7-4] Even when they have a definitely religious character,
and are connected with some spirit, magical elements are often found in
them.

Before we consider these customs in detail it will be necessary to survey the
pagan festivals briefly alluded to in  I, to note the various ideas and practices that characterized them, and to
study the attitude of the Church towards survivals of such practices while the
conversion of Europe was in progress, and also during the Middle Ages.

The development of religious custom and belief in Europe is a matter of such
vast complexity that I cannot in a book of this kind attempt more than the
roughest outline of the probable origins of the observances, purely pagan or
half-Christianized, clustering round Christmas. It is difficult, in the present
state of knowledge, to discern clearly the contributions of different peoples to
the traditional customs of Europe, and even, in many cases, to say whether a
given custom is “Aryan” or pre-Aryan. The proportion of the Aryan military
aristocracy to the peoples whom they conquered was not uniform in all countries,
and  probably was often small. While the families of the
conquerors succeeded in imposing their languages, it by no means necessarily
follows that the folk-practices of countries now Aryan in speech came entirely
or even chiefly from Aryan sources. Religious tradition has a marvellous power
of persistence, and it must be remembered that the lands conquered by men of
Aryan speech had been previously occupied for immense periods. [7-5] Similarly, in countries like our own, which have been
successively invaded by Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, and Normans, it is
often extraordinarily hard to say even to what national source a given
custom should be assigned.

It is but tentatively and with uncertain hands that scholars are trying to
separate the racial strains in the folk-traditions of Europe, and here I can
hardly do more than point out three formative elements in Christian customs: the
ecclesiastical, the classical (Greek and Roman), and the barbarian, taking the
last broadly and without a minute racial analysis. So far, indeed, as ritual,
apart from mythology, is concerned, there seems to be a broad common ground of
tradition among the Aryan-speaking peoples. How far this is due to a common
derivation we need not here attempt to decide. The folk-lore of the whole world,
it is to be noted, “reveals for the same stages of civilization a wonderful
uniformity and homogeneity.... This uniformity is not, however, due to necessary
uniformity of origin, but to a great extent to the fact that it represents the
state of equilibrium arrived at between minds at a certain level and their
environment.” [7-6]

The scientific study of primitive religion is still almost in its infancy,
and a large amount of conjecture must necessarily enter into any explanations of
popular ritual that can be offered. In attempting to account for Christmas
customs we must be mindful, therefore, of the tentative nature of the theories
put forward. Again, it is important to remember that ritual practices are far
more enduring than the explanations given to them. “The antique religions,” to
quote the words of Robertson Smith, “had for the most part no creed; they
consisted entirely of institutions and practices... as a rule we find that
while the practice was  rigorously fixed, the meaning attached to it was extremely
vague, and the same rite was explained by different people in different
ways.” [7-7]

Thus if we can arrive at the significance of a rite at a given period, it by
no means follows that those who began it meant the same thing. At the time of
the conflict of the heathen religions with Christianity elaborate structures of
mythology had grown up around their traditional ceremonial, assigning to it
meanings that had often little to do with its original purpose. Often, too, when
the purpose was changed, new ceremonies were added, so that a rite may look very
unlike what it was at first.

With these cautions and reservations we must now try to trace the connection
between present-day or recent goings-on about Christmas-time and the festival
practices of pre-Christian Europe.

Christmas, as we saw in  I, has taken the date of the Natalis Invicti. We need not linger
over this feast, for it was not attended by folk-customs, and there is nothing
to connect it with modern survivals. The Roman festivals that really count for
our present purpose are the Kalends of January and, probably, the
Saturnalia. The influence of the Kalends is strongest naturally in the
Latin countries, but is found also all over Europe. The influence of the
Saturnalia is less certain; the festival is not mentioned in
ecclesiastical condemnations after the institution of Christmas, and possibly
its popularity was not so widespread as that of the Kalends. There are, however,
some curiously interesting Christmas parallels to its usages.

The strictly religious feast of the Saturnalia [7-8] was held on December 17, but the festal customs
were kept up for seven days, thus lasting until the day before our Christmas
Eve. Among them was a fair called the sigillariorum celebritas, for the
sale of little images of clay or paste which were given away as presents. [81] Candles seem also to have been given away, perhaps  as symbols of, or even charms to ensure, the return of the
sun's power after the solstice. The most remarkable and typical feature,
however, of the Saturnalia was the mingling of all classes in a common
jollity. Something of the character of the celebration (in a Hellenized form)
may be gathered from the “Cronia” or “Saturnalia” of Lucian, a dialogue between
Cronus or Saturn and his priest. We learn from it that the festivities were
marked by “drinking and being drunk, noise and games and dice, appointing of
kings and feasting of slaves, singing naked, clapping of tremulous hands, an
occasional ducking of corked faces in icy water,” and that slaves had licence to
revile their lords. [7-9]

The spirit of the season may be judged from the legislation which Lucian
attributes to Cronosolon, priest and prophet of Cronus, much as a modern writer
might make Father Christmas or Santa Klaus lay down rules for the due observance
of Yule. Here are some of the laws:—

“All business, be it public or private, is forbidden during the feast
days, save such as tends to sport and solace and delight. Let none follow
their avocations saving cooks and bakers.

All men shall be equal, slave and free, rich and poor, one with
another.

Anger, resentment, threats, are contrary to law.

No discourse shall be either composed or delivered, except it be witty
and lusty, conducing to mirth and jollity. ”

There follow directions as to the sending of presents of money, clothing, or
vessels, by rich men to poor friends, and as to poor men's gifts in return. If
the poor man have learning, his return gift is to be “an ancient book, but of
good omen and festive humour, or a writing of his own after his ability.... For
the unlearned, let him send a garland or grains of frankincense.” The
“Cronosolon” closes with “Laws of the Board,” of which the following are a
few:—

“Every man shall take place as chance may direct; dignities and birth
and wealth shall give no precedence.

All shall be served with the same wine.... Every man's portion of meat
shall be alike.

When the rich man shall feast his slaves, let his friends serve with
him. ” [7-11]

Over the whole festival brooded the thought of a golden age in the distant
past, when Saturn ruled, a just and kindly monarch, when all men were good and
all men were happy.

A striking feature of the Saturnalia was the choosing by lot of a mock
king, to preside over the revels. His word was law, and he was able to lay
ridiculous commands upon the guests; “one,” says Lucian, “must shout out a libel
on himself, another dance naked, or pick up the flute-girl and carry her thrice
round the house.” [7-12] This king may have been originally the representative
of the god Saturn himself. In the days of the classical writers he is a mere
“Lord of Misrule,” but Dr. Frazer has propounded the very interesting theory
that this time of privilege and gaiety was once but the prelude to a grim
sacrifice in which he had to die in the character of the god, giving his life
for the world. [7-13] Dr. Frazer's theory, dependent for its evidence upon
the narrative of the martyrdom of a fourth-century saint, Dasius by name, has
been keenly criticized by Dr. Warde Fowler. He holds that there is nothing
whatever to show that the “Saturn” who in the fourth century, according to the
story, was sacrificed by soldiers on the Danube, had anything to do with the
customs of ancient Rome. [7-14] Still, in whatever way the king of the
Saturnalia may be explained, it is interesting to note his existence and
compare him with the merry monarchs whom we shall meet at Christmas and Twelfth
Night.

How far the Saturnalian customs in general were of old Latin origin it is
difficult to say; the name Saturnus (connected with the root of serere,
to sow) and the date point to a real Roman festival of the sowing of the crops,
but this was heavily overlaid with Greek ideas and practice. [7-15] It is especially important to bear this in mind in
considering Lucian's statements.

The same is true of the festival of the January Kalends, a few days after the
Saturnalia. On January 1, the Roman New  Year's Day, the new consuls were inducted into office, and
for at least three days high festival was kept. The houses were decorated with
lights and greenery—these, we shall find, may be partly responsible for the
modern Christmas-tree. As at the Saturnalia masters drank and gambled
with slaves. Vota, or solemn wishes of prosperity for the Emperor during
the New Year, were customary, and the people and the Senate were even expected
to present gifts of money to him. The Emperor Caligula excited much disgust by
publishing an edict requiring these gifts and by standing in the porch of his
palace to receive them in person. Such gifts, not only presented to the Emperor,
but frequently exchanged between private persons, were called strenae, a
name still surviving in the French étrennes (New Year's presents). [7-16]

An interesting and very full account of the Kalends celebrations is given in
two discourses of Libanius, the famous Greek sophist of the fourth
century:—

“The festival of the Kalends,” he says, “is celebrated everywhere as far as
the limits of the Roman Empire extend.... Everywhere may be seen carousals and
well-laden tables; luxurious abundance is found in the houses of the rich, but
also in the houses of the poor better food than usual is put upon the table.
The impulse to spend seizes everyone. He who the whole year through has taken
pleasure in saving and piling up his pence, becomes suddenly extravagant. He
who erstwhile was accustomed and preferred to live poorly, now at this feast
enjoys himself as much as his means will allow.... People are not only
generous towards themselves, but also towards their fellow-men. A stream of
presents pours itself out on all sides.... The highroads and footpaths are
covered with whole processions of laden men and beasts.... As the thousand
flowers which burst forth everywhere are the adornment of Spring, so are the
thousand presents poured out on all sides, the decoration of the Kalends
feast. It may justly be said that it is the fairest time of the year.... The
Kalends festival banishes all that is connected with toil, and allows men to
give themselves up to undisturbed enjoyment. From the minds of young people it
removes two kinds of dread: the dread of the schoolmaster and the dread of the
stern pedagogue. The slave also it allows, so far as possible, to breathe the
air of freedom....  Another great quality of the festival is that it teaches
men not to hold too fast to their money, but to part with it and let it pass
into other hands.” [7-17]

The resemblances here to modern Christmas customs are very striking. In
another discourse Libanius speaks of processions on the Eve of the festival. Few
people, he says, go to bed; most go about the streets with singing and leaping
and all sorts of mockery. The severest moralist utters no blame on this
occasion. When morning begins to dawn they decorate their houses with laurels
and other greenery, and at daybreak may go to bed to sleep off their
intoxication, for many deem it necessary at this feast to follow the flowing
bowl. On the 1st of January money is distributed to the populace; on the 2nd no
more presents are given: it is customary to stay at home playing dice, masters
and slaves together. On the 3rd there is racing; on the 4th the festivities
begin to decline, but they are not altogether over on the 5th. [7-18]

Another feature of the Kalends, recorded not in the pages of classical
writers but in ecclesiastical condemnations, was the custom of dressing up in
the hides of animals, in women's clothes, and in masks of various kinds. [7-19] Dr. Tille [7-20] regards this as Italian in origin, but it seems
likely that it was a native custom in Greece, Gaul, Germany, and other countries
conquered by the Romans. In Greece the skin-clad mummers may have belonged to
the winter festivals of Dionysus supplanted by the Kalendae. [7-21]

The Church's denunciations of pagan festal practices in the winter season are
mainly directed against the Kalends celebrations, and show into how many regions
the keeping of the feast had spread. Complaints of its continued observance
abound in the writings of churchmen and the decrees of councils. In the second
volume of his “Mediaeval Stage” [7-22] Mr. Chambers has made an interesting collection of
forty excerpts from such denunciations, ranging in date from the fourth century
to the eleventh, and coming from Spain, Italy, Antioch, northern Africa,
Constantinople, Germany, England, and various districts of what is now
France.

As a specimen I may translate a passage describing at some
length the practices condemned. It is from a sermon often ascribed to St.
Augustine of Hippo, but probably composed in the sixth century, very likely by
Caesarius of Arles in southern Gaul:—

“On those days,” says the preacher, speaking of the Kalends of January,
“the heathen, reversing the order of all things, dress themselves up in
indecent deformities.... These miserable men, and what is worse, some who have
been baptized, put on counterfeit forms and monstrous faces, at which one
should rather be ashamed and sad. For what reasonable man would believe that
any men in their senses would by making a stag (cervulum) turn
themselves into the appearance of animals? Some are clothed in the hides of
cattle; others put on the heads of beasts, rejoicing and exulting that they
have so transformed themselves into the shapes of animals that they no longer
appear to be men.... How vile, further, it is that those who have been born
men are clothed in women's dresses, and by the vilest change effeminate their
manly strength by taking on the forms of girls, blushing not to clothe their
warlike arms in women's garments; they have bearded faces, and yet they wish
to appear women.... There are some who on the Kalends of January practise
auguries, and do not allow fire out of their houses or any other favour to
anyone who asks. Also they both receive and give diabolical presents
(strenas). Some country people, moreover, lay tables with plenty of
things necessary for eating... thinking that thus the Kalends of January will
be a warranty that all through the year their feasting will be in like measure
abundant. Now as for them who on those days observe any heathen customs, it is
to be feared that the name of Christian will avail them nought. And therefore
our holy fathers of old, considering that the majority of men on those days
became slaves to gluttony and riotous living and raved in drunkenness and
impious dancing, determined for the whole world that throughout the Churches a
public fast should be proclaimed.... Let us therefore fast, beloved brethren,
on those days.... For he who on the Kalends shows any civility to foolish men
who are wantonly sporting, is undoubtedly a partaker of their sin.” [7-23]

There are several points to be noted here. First, the zeal of the Church
against the Kalends celebrations as impious relics of  heathenism: to root them out she even made the first three
days of the year a solemn fast with litanies. [7-24] Next, the particular offences should be observed.
These are: first, the dressing up of men in the hides of animals and the clothes
of women; next, the New Year auguries and the superstition about fire, the
giving of presents, and the laying of tables with good things; and last,
drunkenness and riot in general. All these we shall find fully represented in
modern Christmas customs.

That Roman customs either spread to Germany, or were paralleled there, is
shown by a curious letter written in 742 by St. Boniface to Pope Zacharias. The
saint complained that certain Alamanni, Bavarians, and Franks refused to give up
various heathen practices because they had seen such things done in the sacred
city of Rome, close to St. Peter's, and, as they deemed, with the sanction of
the clergy. On New Year's Eve, it was alleged, processions went through the
streets of Rome, with impious songs and heathen cries; tables of fortune were
set up, and at that time no one would lend fire or iron or any other article to
his neighbour. The Pope replied that these things were odious to him, and should
be so to all Christians; and next year all such practices at the January Kalends
were formally forbidden by the Council of Rome. [7-25]

So much for Roman customs; if indeed such practices as
beast-masking are Roman, and not derived from the religion of peoples conquered
by the imperial legions. We must now turn to the winter festivals of the
barbarians with whom the Church began to come into contact soon after the
establishment of Christmas.

Much attention has been bestowed upon a supposed midwinter festival of the
ancient Germans. In the mid-nineteenth century it was customary to speak of
Christmas and the Twelve Nights as a continuation of the holy season kept by our
forefathers at the winter solstice. The festive fires of Christmas were regarded
as symbols of the sun, who then began his upward journey in the heavens, while
the name Yule was traced back to the Anglo-Saxon word hwéol (wheel), and
connected with the circular  course of the sun through the wheeling-points of the
solstices and equinoxes. More recent research, however, has thrown the gravest
doubts upon the existence of any Teutonic festival at the winter solstice. [82] It appears from philology and the study of surviving
customs that the Teutonic peoples had no knowledge of the solstices and
equinoxes, and until the introduction of the Roman Calendar divided their year
not into four parts but into two, three, and six, holding their New Year's Day
with its attendant festivities not at the end of December or beginning of
January, but towards the middle of November. At that time in Central Europe the
first snowfall usually occurred and the pastures were closed to the flocks. A
great slaughter of cattle would then take place, it being impossible to keep the
beasts in stall throughout the winter, and this time of slaughter would
naturally be a season of feasting and sacrifice and religious observances. [83] [7-26]

The Celtic year, like the Teutonic, appears to have begun in November with
the feast of Samhain—a name that may mean either “summer-end” or
“assembly.” It appears to have been in origin a “pastoral and agricultural
festival, which in time came to be looked upon as affording assistance to the
powers of growth in their conflict with the powers of blight,” and to have had
many features in common with the Teutonic feast at the same season, for instance
animal sacrifice, commemoration of the dead, and omens and charms for the New
Year. [7-27]

There is some reason also to believe that the New Year  festival of the Slavs took place in the autumn and that its
usages have been transferred to the feast of the Nativity. [7-29] A description based on contemporary documents cannot
be given of these barbarian festivals; we have, rather, to reconstruct them from
survivals in popular custom. At the close of this book, when such relics have
been studied, we may have gained some idea of what went on upon these
pre-Christian holy-days. It is the Teutonic customs that have been most fully
recorded and discussed by scholars, and these will loom largest in our review;
at the same time Celtic and Slav practices will be considered, and we shall find
that they often closely resemble those current in Teutonic lands.

The customs of the old New Year feasts have frequently wandered from their
original November date, and to this fact we owe whatever elements of northern
paganism are to be found in Christmas. Some practices seem to have been put
forward to Michaelmas; one side of the festivals, the cult of the dead, is
represented especially by All Saints’ and All Souls’ days (November 1 and 2).
St. Martin's Day (November 11) probably marks as nearly as possible the old
Teutonic date, and is still in Germany an important folk-feast attended by many
customs derived from the beginning-of-winter festival. Other practices are found
strewn over various holy-days between Martinmas and Epiphany, and concentrated
above all on the Church's feast of the Nativity and the Roman New Year's Day,
January 1, both of which had naturally great power of attraction. [7-30]

The progress of agriculture, as Dr. Tille points out, [7-31] tended to destroy the mid-November celebration. In
the Carolingian period an improvement took place in the cultivation of meadows,
and the increased quantity of hay made it possible to keep the animals fattening
in stall, instead of slaughtering them as soon as the pastures were closed. Thus
the killing-time, with its festivities, became later and later. St. Andrew's Day
(November 30) and St. Nicholas's (December 6) may mark stages in its
progress into the winter. In St. Nicholas's Day, indeed, we find a feast that
closely resembles Martinmas, and seems to be the same folk-festival transferred
to a later date. Again, as regards England we  must remember the difference between its climate and that
of Central Europe. Mid-November would here not be a date beyond which pasturing
was impossible, and thus the slaughter and feast held then by Angles and Saxons
in their old German home would tend to be delayed. [7-32]

Christmas, as will be gathered from the foregoing, cannot on its pagan side
be separated from the folk-feasts of November and December. The meaning of the
term will therefore here be so extended as to cover the whole period between All
Saints’ Day and Epiphany. That this is not too violent a proceeding will be seen
later on.

For the purposes of this book it seems best to treat the winter festivals
calendarially, so to speak: to start at the beginning of November, and show them
in procession, suggesting, as far as may be, the probable origins of the customs
observed. Thus we may avoid the dismemberment caused by taking out certain
practices from various festivals and grouping them under their probable origins,
a method which would, moreover, be perilous in view of the very conjectural
nature of the theories offered.

Before we pass to our procession of festivals, something
must be said about the general nature and rationale of the customs
associated with them. For convenience these customs may be divided into three
groups:—

I.
Sacrificial or Sacramental
Practices.
II.
Customs connected with the Cult
of the Dead and the Family Hearth.
III.
Omens
and Charms for the New Year.

Though these three classes overlap and it is sometimes difficult to place a
given practice exclusively in one of them, they will form a useful framework for
a brief account of the primitive ritual which survives at the winter
festivals.

I. Sacrificial and Sacramental Practices.

To most people, probably, the word “sacrifice” suggests an offering,
something presented to a divinity in order to obtain his favour. Such seems to
have been the meaning generally given to  sacrificial rites in Europe when Christianity came into
conflict with paganism. It is, however, held by many scholars that the original
purpose of sacrifice was sacramental—the partaking by the worshipper of the
divine life, conceived of as present in the victim, rather than the offering of
a gift to a divinity. [7-33]

The whole subject of sacred animals is obscure, and in regard, especially, to
totemism—defined by Dr. Frazer [7-34] as “belief in the kinship of certain families with
certain species of animals” and practices based upon that belief—the most
divergent views are held by scholars. The religious significance which some have
seen in totemistic customs is denied by others, while there is much disagreement
as to the probability of their having been widespread in Europe. Still, whatever
may be the truth about totemism, there is much that points to the sometime
existence in Europe of sacrifices that were not offerings, but solemn feasts of
communion in the flesh and blood of a worshipful animal. [7-35] That the idea of sacrificial communion preceded the
sacrifice-gift is suggested by the fact that in many customs which appear to be
sacrificial survivals the body of the victim has some kind of sacramental
efficacy; it conveys a blessing to that which is brought into contact with it.
The actual eating and drinking of the flesh and blood is the most perfect mode
of contact, but the same end seems to have been aimed at in such customs as the
sprinkling of worshippers with blood, the carrying of the victim in procession
from house to house, the burying of flesh in furrows to make the crops grow, and
the wearing of hides, heads, or horns of sacrificed beasts. [7-36] We shall meet, during the Christmas season, with
various practices that seem to have originated either in a sacrificial feast or
in some such sacramental rites as have just been described. So peculiarly
prominent are animal masks, apparently derived from hide-, head-, and
horn-wearing, that we may dwell upon them a little at this point.

We have already seen how much trouble the Kalends custom of beast-masking
gave the ecclesiastics. Its probable origin is thus suggested by Robertson
Smith:—

“It is... appropriate that the worshipper should dress himself in  the skin of a victim, and so, as it were, envelop himself
in its sanctity. To rude nations dress is not merely a physical comfort, but a
fixed part of social religion, a thing by which a man constantly bears on his
body the token of his religion, and which is itself a charm and a means of
divine protection.... When the dress of sacrificial skin, which at once
declared a man's religion and his sacred kindred, ceased to be used in
ordinary life, it was still retained in holy and especially in piacular
functions;... examples are afforded by the Dionysiac mysteries and other
Greek rites, and by almost every rude religion; while in later cults the old
rite survives at least in the religious use of animal masks.” [84] [7-37]

If we accept the animal-worship and sacrificial communion theory, many a
Christmas custom will carry us back in thought to a stage of religion far
earlier than the Greek and Roman classics or the Celtic and Teutonic mythology
of the conversion period: we shall be taken back to a time before men had come
to have anthropomorphic gods, when they were not conscious of their superiority
to the beasts of the field, but regarded these beings, mysterious in their
actions, extraordinary in their powers, as incarnations of potent spirits. At
this stage of thought, it would seem, there were as yet no definite divinities
with personal names and characters, but the world was full of spirits immanent
in animal or plant or chosen human being, and able to pass from one incarnation
to another. Or indeed it may be that animal sacrifice originated at a stage of
religion before the idea of definite “spirits” had arisen, when man was
conscious rather of a vague force like the Melanesian mana, in himself
and in almost everything, and “constantly trembling on the verge of
personality.” [7-38] “Mana ” better than “god” or “spirit” may
express that with which the partaker in the communal feast originally sought
contact. “When you sacrifice,” to quote some words of Miss Jane Harrison, “you
build as it were a bridge between your mana, your will, your desire,
which is weak and impotent, and  that unseen outside mana which you believe to be
strong and efficacious. In the fruits of the earth which grow by some unseen
power there is much mana; you want that mana. In the loud-roaring
bull and the thunder is much mana; you want that mana. It would be
well to get some, to eat a piece of that bull raw, but it is dangerous, not a
thing to do unawares alone; so you consecrate the first-fruits, you sacrifice
the bull and then in safety you—communicate.” [7-39] “Sanctity”—the quality of awfulness and
mystery—rather than divinity or personality, may have been what primitive man
saw in the beasts and birds which he venerated in “their silent, aloof, goings,
in the perfection of their limited doings.” [7-40] When we use the word “spirit” in connection with the
pagan sacramental practices of Christmastide, it is well to bear in mind the
possibility that at the origin of these customs there may have been no notion of
communion with strictly personal beings, but rather some such mana idea
as has been suggested above.

It is probable that animal-cults had their origin at a stage of human life
preceding agriculture, when man lived not upon cultivated plants or tamed
beasts, but upon roots and fruits and the products of the chase. Some scholars,
indeed, hold that the domestication of animals for practical use was an outcome
of the sacred, inviolable character of certain creatures: they may originally
have been spared not for reasons of convenience but because it was deemed a
crime to kill them—except upon certain solemn occasions—and may have become
friendly towards man through living by his side. [7-41] On the other hand it is possible that totems were
originally staple articles of food, that they were sacred because they were
eaten with satisfaction, and that the very awe and respect attached to them
because of their life-giving powers tended to remove them from common use and
limit their consumption to rare ceremonial occasions.

Closely akin to the worship of animals is that of plants, and especially
trees, and there is much evidence pointing to sacramental cults in connection
with the plant-world. [7-42] Some cakes and special vegetable dishes eaten on
festal days may be survivals of sacramental feasts parallel to those upon the
flesh and blood of  an animal victim. Benediction by external contact, again,
is suggested by the widespread use in various ways of branches or sprigs or
whole trees. The Christmas-tree and evergreen decorations are the most obvious
examples; we shall see others in the course of our survey, and in connection
with plants as well as with animals we shall meet with processions intended to
convey a blessing to every house by carrying about the sacred elements—to
borrow a term from Christian theology. Even the familiar practice of going
carol-singing may be a Christianized form of some such perambulation.

It is possible that men and women had originally separate cults. The cult of
animals, according to a theory set forth by Mr. Chambers, would at first belong
to the men, who as hunters worshipped the beasts they slew, apologizing to them,
as some primitive people do to-day, for the slaughter they were obliged to
commit. Other animals, apparently, were held too sacred to be slain, except upon
rare and solemn occasions, and hence, as we have seen, may have arisen
domestication and the pastoral life which, with its religious rites, was the
affair of the men. To women, on the other hand, belonged agriculture; the cult
of Mother Earth and the vegetation-spirits seems to have been originally theirs.
Later the two cults would coalesce, but a hint of the time when certain rites
were practised only by women may be found in that dressing up of men in female
garments which appears not merely in the old Kalends customs but in some modern
survivals. [85] [7-43]

Apart from any special theory of the origin of sacrifice, we may note the
association at Christmas of physical feasting with religious rejoicing. In this
the modern European is the heir of an agelong tradition. “Everywhere,” says
Robertson Smith,  “we find that a sacrifice ordinarily involves a feast, and
that a feast cannot be provided without a sacrifice. For a feast is not complete
without flesh, and in early times the rule that all slaughter is sacrifice was
not confined to the Semites. The identity of religious occasions and festal
seasons may indeed be taken as the determining characteristic of the type of
ancient religion generally; when men meet their god they feast and are glad
together, and whenever they feast and are glad they desire that the god should
be of the party.” [7-45] To the paganism that preceded Christianity we must
look for the origin of that Christmas feasting which has not seldom been a
matter of scandal for the severer type of churchman.

[Transcriber's Note: The marker for note  [7-44] was not present in the page scan]

A letter addressed in 601 by Pope Gregory the Great to Abbot Mellitus, giving
him instructions to be handed on to Augustine of Canterbury, throws a vivid
light on the process by which heathen sacrificial feasts were turned into
Christian festivals. “Because,” the Pope says of the Anglo-Saxons, “they are
wont to slay many oxen in sacrifices to demons, some solemnity should be put in
the place of this, so that on the day of the dedication of the churches, or the
nativities of the holy martyrs whose relics are placed there, they may make for
themselves tabernacles of branches of trees around those churches which have
been changed from heathen temples, and may celebrate the solemnity with
religious feasting. Nor let them now sacrifice animals to the Devil, but to the
praise of God kill animals for their own eating, and render thanks to the Giver
of all for their abundance; so that while some outward joys are retained for
them, they may more readily respond to inward joys. For from obdurate minds it
is undoubtedly impossible to cut off everything at once, because he who strives
to ascend to the highest place rises by degrees or steps and not by leaps.” [7-46]

We see here very plainly the mind of the ecclesiastical compromiser. Direct
sacrifice to heathen gods the Church of course could not dream of tolerating; it
had been the very centre of her attack since the days of St. Paul, and refusal
to take part in it had cost the martyrs their lives. Yet the festivity and
merrymaking to which it gave occasion were to be left to the  people, for a time at all events. The policy had its
advantages, it made the Church festivals popular; but it had also its dangers,
it encouraged the intrusion of a pagan fleshly element into their austere and
chastened joys. A certain orgiastic licence crept in, an unbridling of the
physical appetites, which has ever been a source of sorrow and anger to the most
earnest Christians and even led the Puritans of the seventeenth century to
condemn all festivals as diabolical.

Before we leave the subject of sacrificial survivals, it must be added that
certain Christmas customs may come, little as those who practise them suspect
it, from that darkest of religious rites, human sacrifice. Reference has already
been made to Dr. Frazer's view of the Saturnalian king and his awful origin. We
shall meet with various similar figures during the Christmas season—the “King
of the Bean,” for instance, and the “Bishop of Fools.” If the theories about
human sacrifice set forth in “The Golden Bough” be accepted, we may regard these
personages as having once been mock kings chosen to suffer instead of the real
kings, who had at first to perish by a violent death in order to preserve from
the decay of age the divine life incarnate in them. Such mock monarchs,
according to Dr. Frazer, were exalted for a brief season to the glory and luxury
of kingship ere their doom fell upon them; [7-47] in the Christmas “kings” the splendour alone has
survived, the dark side is forgotten.

II. The Cult of the Dead and the Family

Hearth.

Round the winter festival cluster certain customs apparently connected with
distinctively domestic religion, rather than with such public and communal cults
as we have considered under the heading of Sacrifice and Sacrament. A festival
of the family—that is, perhaps, what Christmas most prominently is to-day: it
is the great season for gatherings “round the old fireside”; it is a joyous time
for the children of the house, and the memory of the departed is vivid then, if
unexpressed. Further, by the Yule log customs and certain other ceremonies still
practised in the remoter corners of Europe, we are carried back to a stage of
thought at which the dead were conceived as hovering about or  visiting the abodes of the living. Ancestral spirits, it
seems, were once believed to be immanent in the fire that burned on the hearth,
and had to be propitiated with libations, while elsewhere the souls of the dead
were thought to return to their old homes at the New Year, and meat and drink
had to be set out for them. The Church's establishment of All Souls’ Day did
much to keep practices of tendance of the departed to early November, but
sometimes these have wandered to later dates and especially to Christmas. In
folk-practices directed towards the dead two tendencies are to be found: on the
one hand affection or at all events consideration for the departed persists, and
efforts are made to make them comfortable; on the other, they are regarded with
dread, and the sight of them is avoided by the living.

In the passage quoted from Caesarius of Arles there was mention of the laying
of tables with abundance of food at the Kalends. The same practice is condemned
by St. Jerome in the fifth century, and is by him specially connected with
Egypt. [7-48] He, like Caesarius and others, regards it as a kind
of charm to ensure abundance during the coming year, but it is very possible
that its real purpose was different, that the food was an offering to
supernatural beings, the guardians and representatives of the dead. [7-49] Burchardus of Worms in the early eleventh century
says definitely that in his time tables were laid with food and drink and three
knives for “those three Sisters whom the ancients in their folly called
Parcae.” [7-50] The Parcae were apparently identified with the
three “weird” Sisters known in England and in other Teutonic regions, and seem
to have some connection with the fairies. As we shall see later on, it is still
in some places the custom to lay out tables for supernatural beings, whether, as
at All Souls’ tide, explicitly for the dead, or for Frau Perchta, or for the
Virgin or some other Christian figure. Possibly the name Modranicht
(night of mothers), which Bede gives to Christmas Eve, [7-51] may be connected with this practice.

Not remote, probably, in origin from a belief in “ghosts” is the driving away
of spirits that sometimes takes place about  Christmas-time. Many peoples, as Dr. Frazer has shown, have
an annual expulsion of goblins, ghosts, devils, witches, and evil influences,
commonly at the end of the Old or beginning of the New Year. Sometimes the
beings so driven away are definitely the spirits of the departed. An appalling
racket and a great flare of torches are common features of these expulsions, and
we shall meet with similar customs during the Christmas season. Such
purifications, according to Dr. Frazer, are often preceded or followed by
periods of licence, for when the burden of evil is about to be, or has just
been, removed, it is felt that a little temporary freedom from moral restraints
may be allowed with impunity. [7-52] Hence possibly, in part, the licence which has often
attended the Christmas season.

III. Omens and Charms for the New Year.

Customs of augury are to be met with at various dates, which may mark the
gradual shifting of the New Year festival from early November to January 1,
while actual charms to secure prosperity are commonest at Christmas itself or at
the modern New Year. Magical rather than religious in character, they are
attempts to discover or influence the future by a sort of crude scientific
method based on supposed analogies. Beneath the charms lie the primitive ideas
that like produces like and that things which have once been in contact continue
to act upon one another after they are separated in space. [7-53] The same ideas obviously underlie many of the
sacramental practices alluded to a few pages back, and these are often of the
nature of charms. Probably, too, among New Year charms should be included such
institutions as the bonfires on Hallowe'en in Celtic countries, on Guy Fawkes
Day in England, and at Martinmas in Germany, for it would seem that they are
intended to secure by imitation a due supply of sunshine. [7-54] The principle that “well begun is well ended”—or, as
the Germans have it, “Anfang gut, alles gut ”—is fundamental in New
Year practices: hence the custom of giving presents as auguries of wealth during
the coming year; hence perhaps partly the heavy eating and drinking—a kind of
charm to ensure abundance.

Enough has already been said about the attitude of the
early Church towards traditional folk-customs. Of the position taken up by the
later mediaeval clergy we get an interesting glimpse in the “Largum Sero” of a
certain monk Alsso of Brĕvnov, an account of Christmas practices in Bohemia
written about the year 1400. It supplies a link between modern customs and the
Kalends prohibitions of the Dark Ages. Alsso tells of a number of laudable
Christmas Eve practices, gives elaborate Christian interpretations of them, and
contrasts them with things done by bad Catholics with ungodly intention. Here
are some of his complaints:—

Presents, instead of being given, as they should be, in memory of God's
great Gift to man, are sent because he who does not give freely will be
unlucky in the coming year. Money, instead of being given to the poor, as is
seemly, is laid on the table to augur wealth, and people open their purses
that luck may enter. Instead of using fruit as a symbol of Christ the Precious
Fruit, men cut it open to predict the future [probably from the pips]. It is a
laudable custom to make great white loaves at Christmas as symbols of the True
Bread, but evil men set out such loaves that the gods may eat of
them.

Alsso's assumption is that the bad Catholics are diabolically perverting
venerable Christmas customs, but there can be little doubt that precisely the
opposite was really the case—the Christian symbolism was merely a gloss upon
pagan practices. In one instance Alsso admits that the Church had adopted and
transformed a heathen usage: the old calendisationes or processions with
an idol Bel had been changed into processions of clergy and choir-boys with the
crucifix. Round the villages on the Eve and during the Octave of Christmas went
these messengers of God, robed in white raiment as befitted the servants of the
Lord of purity; they would chant joyful anthems of the Nativity, and receive in
return some money from the people—they were, in fact, carol-singers. Moreover
with their incense they would drive out the Devil from every corner. [7-55]

Alsso's attitude is one of compromise, or at least many of the old heathen
customs are allowed by him, when reinterpreted in a  Christian sense. Such seems to have been the general
tendency of the later Catholic Church, and also of Anglicanism in so far as it
continued the Catholic tradition. It will be seen, however, from what has
already been said, that the English Puritans were but following early Christian
precedents when they attacked the paganism that manifested itself at
Christmas.

A strong Puritan onslaught is to be found in the “Anatomie of Abuses” by the
Calvinist, Philip Stubbes, first published in 1583. “Especially,” he says, “in
Christmas tyme there is nothing els vsed but cardes, dice, tables, maskyng,
mumming, bowling, and suche like fooleries; and the reason is, that they think
they haue a commission and prerogatiue that tyme to doe what they list, and to
followe what vanitie they will. But (alas!) doe they thinke that they are
preuiledged at that time to doe euill? The holier the time is (if one time were
holier than an other, as it is not), the holier ought their exercises to bee.
Can any tyme dispence with them, or giue them libertie to sinne? No, no; the
soule which sinneth shall dye, at what tyme soeuer it offendeth....
Notwithstandyng, who knoweth not that more mischeef is that tyme committed than
in all the yere besides?” [7-56]

When the Puritans had gained the upper hand they proceeded to the suppression
not only of abuses, but of the festival itself. An excellent opportunity for
turning the feast into a fast—as the early Church had done, it will be
remembered, with the Kalends festival—came in 1644. In that year Christmas Day
happened to fall upon the last Wednesday of the month, a day appointed by the
Lords and Commons for a Fast and Humiliation. In its zeal against carnal
pleasures Parliament published the following “Ordinance for the better
observation of the Feast of the Nativity of Christ”:—

“Whereas some doubts have been raised whether the next Fast shall be
celebrated, because it falleth on the day which, heretofore, was usually
called the Feast of the Nativity of our Saviour; the lords and commons do
order and ordain that public notice be given, that the Fast appointed to be
kept on the last Wednesday in every month, ought to be observed until it be
otherwise ordered by both houses;  and that this day particularly is to be kept with the
more solemn humiliation because it may call to remembrance our sins and the
sins of our forefathers, who have turned this Feast, pretending the memory of
Christ, into an extreme forgetfulness of him, by giving liberty to carnal and
sensual delights; being contrary to the life which Christ himself led here
upon earth, and to the spiritual life of Christ in our souls; for the
sanctifying and saving whereof Christ was pleased both to take a human life,
and to lay it down again.” [7-57]

But the English people's love of Christmas could not be destroyed. “These
poor simple creatures are made after superstitious festivals, after unholy
holidays,” said a speaker in the House of Commons. “I have known some that have
preferred Christmas Day before the Lord's Day,” said Calamy in a sermon to the
Lords in Westminster Abbey, “I have known those that would be sure to receive
the Sacrament on Christmas Day though they did not receive it all the year
after. This was the superstition of this day, and the profaneness was as great.
There were some that did not play cards all the year long, yet they must play at
Christmas.” Various protests were made against the suppression of the festival.
Though Parliament sat every Christmas Day from 1644 to 1656, the shops in London
in 1644 were all shut, and in 1646 the people who opened their shops were so
roughly used that next year they petitioned Parliament to protect them in
future. In 1647 the shops were indeed all closed, but evergreen decorations were
put up in the City, and the Lord Mayor and City Marshal had to ride about
setting fire to them. There were even riots in country places, notably at
Canterbury. With the Restoration Christmas naturally came back to full
recognition, though it may be doubted whether it has ever been quite the same
thing since the Puritan Revolution. [7-58]

Protestantism, in proportion to its thoroughness and the strength of its
Puritan elements, has everywhere tended to destroy old pagan traditions and the
festivals to which they cling. Calvinism has naturally been more destructive
than Lutheranism, which in the Scandinavian countries has left standing many of
the externals of Catholicism and also many Christmas customs that are purely
pagan, while in Germany it has tolerated and even hallowed the  ritual of the Christmas-tree. But more powerful than
religious influences, in rooting out the old customs, have been modern education
and the growth of modern industry, breaking up the old traditional country life,
and putting in its place the mobile, restless life of the great town. Many of
the customs we shall have to consider belong essentially to the country, and
have no relation to the life of the modern city. When communal in their
character, a man could not perform them in separation from his rustic
neighbours. Practices domestic in their purpose may indeed be transferred to the
modern city, but it is the experience of folk-lorists that they seldom descend
to the second generation.

It is in regions like Bavaria, Tyrol, Styria, or the Slav parts of the
Austrian Empire, or Roumania and Servia, that the richest store of festival
customs is to be found nowadays. Here the old agricultural life has been less
interfered with, and at the same time the Church, whether Roman or Greek, has
succeeded in keeping modern ideas away from the people and in maintaining a
popular piety that is largely polytheistic in its worship of the saints, and
embodies a great amount of traditional paganism. In our half-suburbanized
England but little now remains of these vestiges of primitive religion and magic
whose interest and importance were only realized by students in the later
nineteenth century, when the wave of “progress” was fast sweeping them away.

Old traditions have a way of turning up unexpectedly in remote corners, and
it is hard to say for certain that any custom is altogether extinct; every year,
however, does its work of destruction, and it may well be that some of the
practices here described in the present tense have passed into the Limbo of
discarded things.

Chapter VII — All Hallow Tide to Martinmas

All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days, their Relation to a New Year Festival—All
Souls’ Eve and Tendance of the Departed—Soul Cakes in England and on the
Continent—Pagan Parallels of All Souls’—Hallowe'en Charms and
Omens—Hallowe'en Fires—Guy Fawkes Day—“Old Hob,” the Schimmelreiter,
and other Animal Masks—Martinmas and its Slaughter—Martinmas Drinking—St.
Martin's Fires in Germany—Winter Visitors in the Low Countries and
Germany—St. Martin as Gift-bringer—St. Martin's Rod.

All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days.

In the reign of Charles I. the young gentlemen of the Middle Temple were
accustomed to reckon All Hallow Tide (November 1) the beginning of
Christmas. [8-1] We may here do likewise and start our survey of winter
festivals with November, in the earlier half of which, apparently, fell the
Celtic and Teutonic New Year's Days. It is impossible to fix precise dates, but
there is reason for thinking that the Celtic year began about
November 1, [86] [8-2] and the Teutonic about November 11. [8-3]

On November 1 falls one of the greater festivals of the western Church,
All Saints’—or, to give it its old English name, All Hallows’—and on the
morrow is the solemn commemoration of the departed—All Souls’. In these two
anniversaries the Church has  preserved at or near the original date one part of the old
beginning-of-winter festival—the part concerned with the cult of the dead. Some
of the practices belonging to this side of the feast have been transferred to
the season of Christmas and the Twelve Days, but these have often lost their
original meaning, and it is to All Souls’ Day that we must look for the most
conscious survivals of that care for the departed which is so marked a feature
of primitive religion. Early November, when the leaves are falling, and all
around speaks of mortality, is a fitting time for the commemoration of the
dead.

The first clear testimony to All Souls’ Day is found at the end of the tenth
century, and in France. All Saints’ Day, however, was certainly observed in
England, France, and Germany in the eighth century, [8-5] and probably represents an attempt on the part of the
Church to turn the minds of the faithful away from the pagan belief in and
tendance of “ghosts” to the contemplation of the saints in the glory of
Paradise. It would seem that this attempt failed, that the people needed a way
of actually doing something for their own dead, and that All Souls’ Day with its
solemn Mass and prayers for the departed was intended to supply this need and
replace the traditional practices. [8-6] Here again the attempt was only partly successful, for
side by side with the Church's rites there survived a number of usages related
not to any Christian doctrine of the after-life, but to the pagan idea,
widespread among many peoples, that on one day or night of the year the souls of
the dead return to their old homes and must be entertained.

All Souls’ Day then appeals to instincts older than Christianity. How strong
is the hold of ancient custom even upon the sceptical and irreligious is shown
very strikingly in Roman Catholic countries: even those who never go to church
visit the graves of their relations on All Souls’ Eve to deck them with
flowers.

The special liturgical features of the Church's celebration are the Vespers,
Matins, and Lauds of the Dead on the evening of November 1, and the solemn
Requiem Mass on November 2, with the majestic “Dies irae” and the
oft-recurrent versicle, “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua
luceat  eis,” that most beautiful of prayers. The priest and altar
are vested in black, and a catafalque with burning tapers round it stands in the
body of the church. For the popular customs on the Eve we may quote Dr. Tylor's
general description:—

“In Italy the day is given to feasting and drinking in honour of the dead,
while skulls and skeletons in sugar and paste form appropriate children's
toys. In Tyrol, the poor souls released from purgatory fire for the night may
come and smear their burns with the melted fat of the ‘soul light’ on the
hearth, or cakes are left for them on the table, and the room is kept warm for
their comfort. Even in Paris the souls of the departed come to partake of the
food of the living. In Brittany the crowd pours into the churchyard at
evening, to kneel barefoot at the grave of dead kinsfolk, to fill the hollow
of the tombstone with holy water, or to pour libations of milk upon it. All
night the church bells clang, and sometimes a solemn procession of the clergy
goes round to bless the graves. In no household that night is the cloth
removed, for the supper must be left for the souls to come and take their
part, nor must the fire be put out, where they will come to warm themselves.
And at last, as the inmates retire to rest, there is heard at the door a
doleful chant—it is the souls, who, borrowing the voices of the parish poor,
have come to ask the prayers of the living.” [8-7]

To this may be added some further accounts of All Souls’ Eve as the one night
in the year when the spirits of the departed are thought to revisit their old
homes.

In the Vosges mountains while the bells are ringing in All Souls’ Eve it is a
custom to uncover the beds and open the windows in order that the poor souls may
enter and rest. Prayer is made for the dead until late in the night, and when
the last “De profundis” has been said “the head of the family gently covers up
the beds, sprinkles them with holy water, and shuts the windows.” [8-8]

The Esthonians on All Souls’ Day provide a meal for the dead and invite them
by name. The souls arrive at the first cock-crow and depart at the second, being
lighted out of the house by the head of the family, who waves a white cloth
after them and bids them come again next year. [8-9]

In Brittany, as we have seen, the dead are thought to return at  this season. It is believed that on the night between All
Saints’ and All Souls’ the church is lighted up and the departed attend a
nocturnal Mass celebrated by a phantom priest. All through the week, in one
district, people are afraid to go out after nightfall lest they should see some
dead person. [8-10] In Tyrol it is believed that the “poor souls” are
present in the howling winds that often blow at this time. [8-11]

In the Abruzzi on All Souls’ Eve “before people go to sleep they place on the
table a lighted lamp or candle and a frugal meal of bread and water. The dead
issue from their graves and stalk in procession through every street of the
village.... First pass the souls of the good, and then the souls of the murdered
and the damned.” [8-12]

In Sicily a strange belief is connected with All Souls’ Day (jornu di li
morti): the family dead are supposed, like Santa Klaus in the North, to
bring presents to children; the dead relations have become the good fairies of
the little ones. On the night between November 1 and 2 little Sicilians
believe that the departed leave their dread abode and come to town to steal from
rich shopkeepers sweets and toys and new clothes. These they give to their child
relations who have been “good” and have prayed on their behalf. Often they are
clothed in white and wear silken shoes, to elude the vigilance of the
shopkeepers. They do not always enter the houses; sometimes the presents are
left in the children's shoes put outside doors and windows. In the morning the
pretty gifts are attributed by the children to the morti in whose coming
their parents have taught them to believe. [8-13]

A very widespread custom at this season is to burn candles, perhaps in order
to lighten the darkness for the poor souls. In Catholic Ireland candles shine in
the windows on the Vigil of All Souls’, [8-14] in Belgium a holy candle is burnt all night, or
people walk in procession with lighted tapers, while in many Roman Catholic
countries, and even in the Protestant villages of Baden, the graves are decked
with lights as well as flowers. [8-15]

Another practice on All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days, curiously  common formerly in Protestant England, is that of making
and giving “soul-cakes.” These and the quest of them by children were customary
in various English counties and in Scotland. [8-16] The youngsters would beg not only for the cakes but
also sometimes for such things as “apples and strong beer,” presumably to make a
“wassail-bowl” of “lambswool,” hot spiced ale with roast apples in it. [8-17] Here is a curious rhyme which they sang in Shropshire
as they went round to their neighbours, collecting contributions:—

“Soul! soul! for a soul-cake!
I pray, good missis, a soul-cake!
An apple or
pear, a plum or a cherry,
Any good thing to make us
merry.
One for Peter, two for Paul,
Three for Him who made us all.
Up with the
kettle, and down with the pan,
Give us good alms, and
we'll be gone.”
[8-18]

Shropshire is a county peculiarly rich in “souling” traditions, and one old
lady had cakes made to give away to the souling-children up to the time of her
death in 1884. At that period the custom of “souling” had greatly declined in
the county, and where it still existed the rewards were usually apples or money.
Grown men, as well as children, sometimes went round, and the ditties sung often
contained verses of good-wishes for the household practically identical with
those sung by wassailers at Christmas. [8-19]

The name “soul-cake” of course suggests that the cakes were in some way
associated with the departed, whether given as a reward for prayers for souls in
Purgatory, or as a charity for the benefit of the “poor souls,” or baked that
the dead might feast upon them. [87] It seems most probable that they were relics of a
feast once laid out for the souls. On the other hand it is just possible that
they were originally a sacrament of the corn-spirit.  A North Welsh tradition recorded by Pennant may conceivably
have preserved a vague memory of some agricultural connection: he tells us that
on receiving soul-cakes the poor people used to pray to God to bless the next
crop of wheat. [8-20]

Not in Great Britain alone are soul-cakes found; they are met with in
Belgium, southern Germany, and Austria. In western Flanders children set up on
All Souls’ Eve little street altars, putting a crucifix or Madonna with candles
on a chair or stool, and begging passers-by for money “for cakes for the souls
in Purgatory.” On All Souls’ morning it is customary, all over the Flemish part
of Belgium, to bake little cakes of finest white flour, called “soul-bread.”
They are eaten hot, and a prayer is said at the same time for the souls in
Purgatory. It is believed that a soul is delivered for every cake eaten. At
Antwerp the cakes are coloured yellow with saffron to suggest the Purgatorial
flames. In southern Germany and Austria little white loaves of a special kind
are baked; they are generally oval in form, and are usually called by some name
into which the word “soul” enters. In Tyrol they are given to children by their
godparents; those for the boys have the shape of horses or hares, those for the
girls, of hens. In Tyrol the cakes left over at supper remain on the table and
are said to “belong to the poor souls.” [8-21]

In Friuli in the north-east of Italy there is a custom closely corresponding
to our “soul-cakes.” On All Souls’ Day every family gives away a quantity of
bread. This is not regarded as a charity; all the people of the village come to
receive it and before eating it pray for the departed of the donor's family. The
most prosperous people are not ashamed to knock at the door and ask for this
pane dei morti. [8-22]

In Tyrol All Souls’ is a day of licensed begging, which has become a serious
abuse. A noisy rabble of ragged and disorderly folk, with bags and baskets to
receive gifts, wanders from village to village, claiming as a right the presents
of provisions that were originally a freewill offering for the benefit of the
departed, and angrily abusing those who refuse to give. [8-23]

The New Year is the time for a festival of the dead in many parts of the
world. [8-24] I may quote Dr. Frazer's account of what  goes on in Tonquin; it shows a remarkable likeness to some
European customs [88]:—

“In Tonquin, as in Sumba, the dead revisit their kinsfolk and their old
homes at the New Year. From the hour of midnight, when the New Year begins, no
one dares to shut the door of his house for fear of excluding the ghosts, who
begin to arrive at that time. Preparations have been made to welcome and
refresh them after their long journey. Beds and mats are ready for their weary
bodies to repose upon, water to wash their dusty feet, slippers to comfort
them, and canes to support their feeble steps.” [8-25]

In Lithuania, the last country in Europe to be converted to Christianity,
heathen traditions lingered long, and sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
travellers give accounts of a pagan New Year's feast which has great interest.
In October, according to one account, on November 2, according to another,
the whole family met together, strewed the tables with straw and put sacks on
the straw. Bread and two jugs of beer were then placed on the table, and one of
every kind of domestic animal was roasted before the fire after a prayer to the
god Zimiennik (possibly an ancestral spirit), asking for protection through the
year and offering the animals. Portions were thrown to the corners of the room
with the words “Accept our burnt sacrifice, O Zimiennik, and kindly partake
thereof.” Then followed a great feast. Further, the spirits of the dead were
invited to leave their graves and visit the bath-house, where platters of food
were spread out and left for three days. At the end of this time the remains of
the repast were set out over the graves and libations poured. [8-26]

The beginning of November is not solely a time of memory
of the dead; customs of other sorts linger, or until lately used to linger,
about it, especially in Scotland, northern England, Ireland, Cornwall, Wales,
and the West Midlands. One may conjecture that these are survivals from the
Celtic New Year's Day, for most of them are of the nature of omens or charms.
Apples and nuts are prominent on Hallowe'en, the Eve of All  Saints; [89] they may be regarded either as a kind of sacrament of
the vegetation-spirit, or as simply intended by homoeopathic magic to bring
fulness and fruitfulness to their recipients. A custom once common in the north
of England [8-27] and in Wales [8-28] was to catch at apples with the mouth, the fruit
being suspended on a string, or on one end of a large transverse beam with a
lighted candle at the other end. In the north apples and nuts were the feature
of the evening feast, hence the name “Nutcrack night.” [8-29]

Again, at St. Ives in Cornwall every child is given a big apple on
Allhallows’ Eve—“Allan Day” as it is called. [8-30] Nuts and apples were also used as means of
forecasting the future. In Scotland for instance nuts were put into the fire and
named after particular lads and lasses. “As they burn quietly together or start
from beside one another, the course and issue of the courtship will be.” [8-31] On Hallowe'en in Nottinghamshire if a girl had two
lovers and wanted to know which would be the more constant, she took two
apple-pips, stuck one on each cheek (naming them after her lovers) and waited
for one to fall off. The poet Gay alludes to this custom:—

“See from the core two kernels now I
take,
This on my cheek for Lubberkin is
worn,
And Booby Clod on t'other side is
borne;
But Booby Clod soon falls upon the
ground,
A certain token that his love's
unsound;
While Lubberkin sticks firmly to the
last;
Oh! were his lips to mine but joined so fast.”
[8-32]

In Nottinghamshire apples are roasted and the parings thrown over the left
shoulder. “Notice is taken of the shapes which the parings assume when they fall
to the ground. Whatever letter a paring resembles will be the initial letter of
the Christian name of the man or woman whom you will marry.” [8-33]

Hallowe'en is indeed in the British Isles the favourite
time for forecasting the future, and various methods are employed for this
purpose.

A girl may cross her shoes upon her bedroom floor in the shape of a T and say
these lines:—

“I cross my shoes in the shape of a
T,
Hoping this night my true love to
see,
Not in his best or worst array,
But in the clothes of every day.”

Then let her get into bed backwards without speaking any more that night, and
she will see her future husband in her dreams. [8-34]

“On All Hallowe'en or New Year's Eve,” says Mr. W. Henderson, “a Border
maiden may wash her sark, and hang it over a chair to dry, taking care to tell
no one what she is about. If she lie awake long enough, she will see the form of
her future spouse enter the room and turn the sark. We are told of one young
girl who, after fulfilling this rite, looked out of bed and saw a coffin behind
the sark; it remained visible for some time and then disappeared. The girl rose
up in agony and told her family what had occurred, and the next morning she
heard of her lover's death.” [8-35]

In Scotland [8-36] and Ireland [8-37] other methods of foreseeing the future are practised
on Hallowe'en; we need not consider them here, for we shall have quite enough of
such auguries later on. (Some Scottish customs are introduced by Burns into his
poem “Hallowe'en.”) I may, however, allude to the custom formerly prevalent in
Wales for women to congregate in the church on this “Night of the Winter
Kalends,” in order to discover who of the parishioners would die during the
year. [8-38] East of the Welsh border, at Dorstone in
Herefordshire, there was a belief that on All Hallows’ Eve at midnight those who
were bold enough to look through the windows would see the church lighted with
an unearthly glow, and Satan in monk's habit fulminating anathemas from the
pulpit and calling out the names of those who were to render up their souls. [8-39]

Again, there are numerous Hallowe'en fire customs, probably
sun-charms for the New Year, a kind of homoeopathic magic intended to assist the
sun in his struggle with the powers of darkness. To this day great bonfires are
kindled in the Highlands, and formerly brands were carried about and the new
fire was lit in each house. [8-40] It would seem that the Yule log customs (see  X) are connected with this new lighting of the house-fire, transferred to
Christmas.

In Ireland fire was lighted at this time at a place called Tlachtga, from
which all the hearths in Ireland are said to have been annually supplied. [8-41] In Wales the habit of lighting bonfires on the hills
is perhaps not yet extinct. [8-42] Within living memory when the flames were out
somebody would raise the cry, “May the tailless black sow seize the hindmost,”
and everyone present would run for his life. [8-43] This may point to a former human sacrifice, possibly
of a victim laden with the accumulated evils of the past year. [8-44]

In North Wales, according to another account, each family used to make a
great bonfire in a conspicuous place near the house. Every person threw into the
ashes a white stone, marked; the stones were searched for in the morning, and if
any one were missing the person who had thrown it in would die, it was believed,
during the year. [8-45] The same belief and practice were found at Callander
in Perthshire. [8-46]

Though, probably, the Hallowe'en fire rites had originally some connection
with the sun, the conscious intention of those who practised them in modern
times was often to ward off witchcraft. With this object in one place the master
of the family used to carry a bunch of burning straw about the corn, in Scotland
the red end of a fiery stick was waved in the air, in Lancashire a lighted
candle was borne about the fells, and in the Isle of Man fires were kindled. [8-47]

Guy Fawkes Day.

Probably the burning of Guy Fawkes on November 5 is a survival of a New
Year bonfire. There is every reason to think that the commemoration of the
deliverance from “gunpowder  treason and plot” is but a modern meaning attached to an
ancient traditional practice, for the burning of the effigy has many parallels
in folk-custom. Dr. Frazer [8-48] regards such effigies as representatives of the
spirit of vegetation—by burning them in a fire that represented the sun men
thought they secured sunshine for trees and crops. Later, when the ideas on
which the custom was based had faded away, people came to identify these images
with persons whom they regarded with aversion, such as Judas Iscariot, Luther
(in Catholic Tyrol), and, apparently, Guy Fawkes in England. At Ludlow in
Shropshire, it is interesting to note, if any well-known local man had aroused
the enmity of the populace his effigy was substituted for, or added to, that of
Guy Fawkes. Bonfire Day at Ludlow is marked by a torchlight procession and a
huge conflagration. [8-49] At Hampstead the Guy Fawkes fire and procession are
still in great force. The thing has become a regular carnival, and on a foggy
November night the procession along the steep curving Heath Street, with the
glare of the torches lighting up the faces of dense crowds, is a strangely
picturesque spectacle. [90]

Animal Masks.

On All Souls’ Day in Cheshire there began to be carried about a curious
construction called “Old Hob,” a horse's head enveloped in a sheet; it was taken
from door to door, and accompanied by the singing of begging rhymes. [8-50] Old Hob, who continued to appear until Christmas, is
an English parallel to the German Schimmel or white horse. We have here
to do with one of those strange animal forms which are apparently relics of
sacrificial customs. They come on various days in the winter festival season,
and also at other times, and may as well be considered at this point. In some
cases they are definitely imitations of animals, and may have replaced real
sacrificial beasts taken about in procession, in others they are simply men
wearing the head, horn, hide, or tail of a beast, like the worshippers at many
 a heathen sacrifice to-day. (Of the rationale of
masking something has already been said in  VI)

The mingling of Roman and non-Roman customs makes it very hard to separate
the different elements in the winter festivals. In regard particularly to animal
masks it is difficult to pronounce in favour of one racial origin rather than
another; we may, however, infer with some probability that when a custom is
attached not to Christmas or the January Kalends but to one of the November or
early December feasts, it is not of Roman origin. For, as the centuries have
passed, Christmas and the Kalends—the Roman festivals ecclesiastical and
secular—have increasingly tended to supplant the old northern festal times, and
a transference of, for instance, a Teutonic custom from Martinmas to Christmas
or January 1, is far more conceivable than the attraction of a Roman
practice to one of the earlier and waning festivals.

Let us take first the horse-forms, seemingly connected with that sacrificial
use of the horse among the Teutons to which Tacitus and other writers
testify. [8-51] “Old Hob” is doubtless one form of the hobby horse,
so familiar in old English festival customs. His German parallel, the
Schimmel, is mostly formed thus in the north: a sieve with a long pole to
whose end a horse's head is fastened, is tied beneath the chest of a young man,
who goes on all fours, and some white cloths are thrown over the whole. In
Silesia the Schimmel is formed by three or four youths. The rider is
generally veiled, and often wears on his head a pot with glowing coals shining
forth through openings that represent eyes and a mouth. [8-52] In Pomerania the thing is called simply
Schimmel, [8-53] in other parts emphasis is laid upon the rider, and
the name Schimmelreiter is given. Some mythologists have seen in this
rider on a white horse an impersonation of Woden on his great charger; but it is
more likely that the practice simply originated in the taking round of a real
sacrificial horse. [8-54] The Schimmelreiter is often accompanied by a
“bear,” a youth dressed in straw who plays the part of a bear tied to a pole. [8-55] He may be connected with some such veneration of the
animal as is suggested by the custom still surviving at Berne, of keeping bears
at the public expense.

To return to Great Britain, here is an account of a so-called  “hodening” ceremony once performed at Christmas-time at
Ramsgate: “A party of young people procure the head of a dead horse, which is
affixed to a pole about four feet in length, a string is tied to the lower jaw,
a horse-cloth is then attached to the whole, under which one of the party gets,
and by frequently pulling the string keeps up a loud snapping noise and is
accompanied by the rest of the party grotesquely habited and ringing hand-bells.
They thus proceed from house to house, sounding their bells and singing carols
and songs.” [8-56]

Again, in Wales a creature called “the Mari Llwyd” was known at Christmas. A
horse's skull is “dressed up with ribbons, and supported on a pole by a man who
is concealed under a large white cloth. There is a contrivance for opening and
shutting the jaws, and the figure pursues and bites everybody it can lay hold
of, and does not release them except on payment of a fine.” [8-57] The movable jaws here give the thing a likeness to
certain Continental figures representing other kinds of animals and probably
witnessing to their former sacrificial use. On the island of Usedom appears the
Klapperbock, a youth who carries a pole with the hide of a buck thrown
over it and a wooden head at the end. The lower jaw moves up and down and
clatters, and he charges at children who do not know their prayers by heart. [8-58] In Upper Styria we meet the Habergaiss. Four
men hold on to one another and are covered with white blankets. The foremost one
holds up a wooden goat's head with a movable lower jaw that rattles, and he
butts children. [8-59] At Ilsenburg in the Harz is found the
Habersack, formed by a person taking a pole ending in a fork, and putting
a broom between the prongs so that the appearance of a head with horns is
obtained. The carrier is concealed by a sheet. [8-60]

In connection with horns we must not forget the “horn-dance” at Abbots
Bromley in Staffordshire, held now in September, but formerly at Christmas. Six
of the performers wear sets of horns kept from year to year in the church. [8-61] Plot, in his “Natural History of Staffordshire”
(1686, p. 434) calls it a “Hobby-horse Dance from a person who carried
the image of a horse between his legs, made of thin boards.” [8-62]

In Denmark, Sweden, and Norway creatures resembling both
the Schimmelreiter and the Klapperbock are or were to be met with
at Christmas. The name Julebuk (yule buck) is used for various objects:
sometimes for a person dressed up in hide and horns, or with a buck's head, who
“goes for” little boys and girls; sometimes for a straw puppet set up or tossed
about from hand to hand; sometimes for a cake in the form of a buck. People seem
to have had a bad conscience about these things, for there are stories
connecting them with the Devil. A girl, for instance, who danced at midnight
with a straw Julebuk, found that her partner was no puppet but the Evil
One himself. Again, a fellow who had dressed himself in black and put horns on
his head, claws on his hands, and fiery tow in his mouth, was carried off by the
Prince of Darkness whose form he had mimicked. [8-63] The association of animal maskings with the infernal
powers is doubtless the work of the Church. To the zealous missionary the old
heathen ritual was no mere foolish superstition but a service of intensely real
and awful beings, the very devils of hell, and one may even conjecture that the
traditional Christian devil-type, half animal half human, was indirectly derived
from skin-clad worshippers at pagan festivals.

Martinmas.

Between All Souls’ Day and Martinmas (November 11) there are no
folk-festivals of great importance, though on St. Hubert's Day, November 3,
in Flemish Belgium special little cakes are made, adorned with the horn of the
saint, the patron of hunting, and are eaten not only by human beings but by
dogs, cats, and other domestic animals. [8-64] The English Guy Fawkes Day has already been
considered, while November 9, Lord Mayor's Day, the beginning of the
municipal year, may remind us of the old Teutonic New Year.

Round Martinmas popular customs cluster thickly, as might be expected, since
it marks as nearly as possible the date of the old beginning-of-winter festival,
the feast perhaps at which Germanicus surprised the Marsi in A.D. 14. [8-65]

The most obvious feature of Martinmas is its physical feasting.  Economic causes, as we saw in  VI, must have made the middle of November a great killing season among the
old Germans, for the snow which then began rendered it impossible longer to
pasture the beasts, and there was not fodder enough to keep the whole herd
through the winter. Thus it was a time of feasting on flesh, and of animal
sacrifices, as is suggested by the Anglo-Saxon name given to November by Bede,
Blot-monath, sacrifice-month. [8-66]

Christmas does not seem to have quickly superseded the middle of November as
a popular feast in Teutonic countries; rather one finds an outcome of the
conciliatory policy pursued by Gregory the Great (see  VI) in the development of Martinmas. Founded in the fifth century, it was
made a great Church festival by Pope Martin I. (649-654), [8-67] and it may well have been intended to absorb and
Christianize the New Year festivities of the Teutonic peoples. The veneration of
St. Martin spread rapidly in the churches of northern Europe, and he came to be
regarded as one of the very chief of the saints. [8-68] His day is no longer a Church feast of high rank, but
its importance as a folk festival is great.

The tradition of slaughter is preserved in the British custom of killing
cattle on St. Martin's Day—“Martlemas beef” [8-69] —and in the German eating of St. Martin's geese and
swine. [8-70] The St. Martin's goose, indeed, is in Germany as much
a feature of the festival as the English Michaelmas goose is of the September
feast of the angels.

In Denmark too a goose is eaten at Martinmas, and from its breast-bone the
character of the coming winter can be foreseen. The white in it is a sign of
snow, the brown of very great cold. Similar ideas can be traced in Germany,
though there is not always agreement as to what the white and the brown
betoken. [8-71]

At St. Peter's, Athlone, Ireland, a very obviously sacrificial custom lasted
on into the nineteenth century. Every household would kill an animal of some
kind, and sprinkle the threshold with its blood. A cow or sheep, a goose or
turkey, or merely a cock or hen, was used according to the means of the
family. [8-72] It seems that the animal was actually offered to St.
Martin, apparently as  the successor of some god, and bad luck came if the custom
were not observed. Probably these rites were transferred to Martinmas from the
old Celtic festival of Samhain. Again, in a strange Irish legend the
saint himself is said to have been cut up and eaten in the form of an ox. [8-73]

In the wine-producing regions of Germany Martinmas was the day for the first
drinking of the new wine, and the feasting in general on his day gave the saint
the reputation of a guzzler and a glutton; it even became customary to speak of
a person who had squandered his substance in riotous living as a
Martinsmann. [8-74] As we have seen survivals of sacrifice in the
Martinmas slaughter, so we may regard the Martinsminne or toast as
originating in a sacrifice of liquor. [8-75] In the Böhmerwald it is believed that wine taken at
Martinmas brings strength and beauty, and the lads and girls gather in the inns
to drink, while a common German proverb runs:—

“Heb an Martini,
Trink Wein per circulum anni.”
[91]

[8-76]

Here, by the way, is a faint suggestion that Martinmas is regarded as the
beginning of the year; as such it certainly appears in a number of legal
customs, English, French, and German, which existed in the Middle Ages and in
some cases in quite recent times. It was often at Martinmas that leases ended,
rents had to be paid, and farm-servants changed their places. [8-77]

There is a survival, perhaps, of a cereal sacrifice or sacrament in the
so-called “Martin's horns,” horseshoe pastries given at Martinmas in many parts
of Germany. [8-78] Another kind of sacrifice is suggested by a Dutch
custom of throwing baskets of fruit into Martinmas bonfires, and by a German
custom of casting in empty fruit-baskets. [8-79] In Venetia the peasants keep over from the vintage a
few grapes to form part of their Martinmas supper, and as far south as Sicily it
is considered essential to taste the new wine at this festival. [8-80]

Bonfires appear at Martinmas in Germany, as at All Hallows tide in the
British Isles. On St. Martin's Eve in the Rhine  Valley between Cologne and Coblentz, numbers of little
fires burn on the heights and by the river-bank, [8-81] the young people leap through the flames and dance
about them, and the ashes are strewn on the fields to make them fertile. [8-82] Survivals of fire-customs are found also in other
regions. In Belgium, Holland, and north-west Germany processions of children
with paper or turnip lanterns take place on St. Martin's Eve. In the Eichsfeld
district the little river Geislede glows with the light of candles placed in
floating nutshells. Even the practice of leaping through the fire survives in a
modified form, for in northern Germany it is not uncommon for people on St.
Martin's Day or Eve to jump over lighted candles set on the parlour floor. [8-83] In the fifteenth century the Martinmas fires were so
many that the festival actually got the name of Funkentag (Spark Day). [8-84]

On St. Martin's Eve in Germany and the Low Countries we
begin to meet those winter visitors, bright saints and angels on the one hand,
mock-terrible bogeys and monsters on the other, who add so much to the romance
and mystery of the children's Christmas. Such visitors are to be found in many
countries, but it is in the lands of German speech that they take on the most
vivid and picturesque forms. St. Martin, St. Nicholas, Christkind, Knecht
Ruprecht, and the rest are very real and personal beings to the children, and
are awaited with pleasant expectation or mild dread. Often they are beheld not
merely with the imagination but with the bodily eye, when father or friend is
wondrously transformed into a supernatural figure.

What are the origins of these holy or monstrous beings? It is hard to say
with certainty, for many elements, pagan and Christian, seem here to be closely
blended. It is pretty clear, however, that the grotesque half-animal shapes are
direct relics of heathendom, and it is highly probable that the forms of saints
or angels—even, perhaps, of the Christ Child Himself—represent attempts of the
Church to transform and sanctify alien things which she could not suppress. What
some of these may have been we shall tentatively guess as we go along. Though no
grown-up person would take the mimic Martin or Nicholas  seriously nowadays, there seem to be at the root of them
things once regarded as of vital moment. Just as fairy-tales, originally serious
attempts to explain natural facts, have now become reading for children, so
ritual practices which our ancestors deemed of vast importance for human welfare
have become mere games to amuse the young.

On St. Martin's Eve, to come back from speculation to the facts of popular
custom, the saint appears in the nurseries of Antwerp and other Flemish towns.
He is a man dressed up as a bishop, with a pastoral staff in his hand. His
business is to ask if the children have been “good,” and if the result of his
inquiries is satisfactory he throws down apples, nuts, and cakes. If not, it is
rods that he leaves behind. At Ypres he does not visibly appear, but children
hang up stockings filled with hay, and next morning find presents in them, left
by the saint in gratitude for the fodder provided for his horse. He is there
imagined as a rider on a white horse, and the same conception prevails in
Austrian Silesia, where he brings the “Martin's horns” already mentioned. [8-85] In Silesia when it snows at Martinmas people say that
the saint is coming on his white horse, and there, it may be noted, the
Schimmelreiter appears at the same season. [8-86] In certain respects, it has been suggested, St.
Martin may have taken the place of Woden. [8-87] It is perhaps not without significance that, like the
god, he is a military hero, and conceived as a rider on horseback. At Düsseldorf
he used to be represented in his festival procession by a man riding on another
fellow's back. [8-88]

At Mechlin and other places children go round from house to house, singing
and collecting gifts. Often four boys with paper caps on their heads, dressed as
Turks, carry a sort of litter whereon St. Martin sits. He has a long white beard
of flax and a paper mitre and stole, and holds a large wooden spoon to receive
apples and other eatables that are given to the children, as well as a leather
purse for offerings of money. [8-89]

In the Ansbach region a different type of being used to appear—Pelzmärten
(Skin Martin) by name; he ran about and frightened the children, before he threw
them their apples and nuts. In several places in Swabia, too, Pelzmärte was
known;  he had a black face, a cow-bell hung on his person, and he
distributed blows as well as nuts and apples. [8-90] In him there is obviously more of the pagan mummer
than the Christian bishop.

In Belgium St. Martin is chiefly known as the bringer of apples and nuts for
children; in Bavaria and Austria he has a different aspect: a gerte or
rod, supposed to promote fruitfulness among cattle and prosperity in general, is
connected with his day. The rods are taken round by the neatherds to the
farmers, and one is given to each—two to rich proprietors; they are to be used,
when spring comes, to drive out the cattle for the first time. In Bavaria they
are formed by a birch-bough with all the leaves and twigs stripped off—except
at the top, to which oak-leaves and juniper-twigs are fastened. At Etzendorf a
curious old rhyme shows that the herdsman with the rod is regarded as the
representative of St. Martin. [8-91]

Can we connect this custom with the saint who brings presents to
youngsters? [92] There seems to be a point of contact when we note that
at Antwerp St. Martin throws down rods for naughty children as well as nuts and
apples for good ones, and that Pelzmärte in Swabia has blows to bestow as well
as gifts. St. Martin's main functions—and, as we shall see, St. Nicholas has
the same—are to beat the bad children and reward the good with apples, nuts,
and cakes. Can it be that the ethical distinction is of comparatively recent
origin, an invention perhaps for children when the customs came to be performed
solely for their benefit, and that the beating and the gifts were originally
shared by all alike and were of a sacramental character? We shall meet with more
whipping customs later on, they are common enough in folk-ritual, and are not
punishments, but kindly services; their purpose is to drive away evil
influences, and to bring to the flogged one the life-giving virtues of the tree
from which the twigs or boughs are taken. [8-92] Both the flogging and the eating of fruit may,
indeed, be means of contact with the vegetation-spirit, the one in  an external, the other in a more internal way. Or possibly
the rod and the fruit may once have been conjoined, the beating being performed
with fruit-laden boughs in order to produce prosperity. It is noteworthy that at
Etzendorf so many head of cattle and loads of hay are augured for the farmer as
there are juniper-berries and twigs on St. Martin's gerte. [8-94]

Attempts to account for the figures of SS. Martin and Nicholas in northern
folk-customs have been made along various lines. Some scholars regard them as
Christianizations of the pagan god Woden; but they might also be taken as akin
to the “first-foots” whom we shall meet on January 1—visitors who bring
good luck—or as maskers connected with animal sacrifices (Pelzmärte suggests
this), or again as related to the Boy Bishop, the Lord of Misrule and the
Twelfth Night King. May I suggest that some at least of their aspects could be
explained on the supposition that they represent administrants of primitive
vegetation sacraments, and that these administrants, once ordinary human beings,
have taken on the name and attributes of the saint who under the Christian
dispensation presides over the festival? In any case it is a strange irony of
history that around the festival of Martin of Tours, the zealous soldier of
Christ and deadly foe of heathenism, should have gathered so much that is
unmistakably pagan.

Chapter VIII — St. Clement to St. Thomas

St. Clement's Day Quests and Processions—St. Catherine's Day as Spinsters’
Festival—St. Andrew's Eve Auguries—The Klöpfelnächte—St. Nicholas's
Day, the Saint as Gift-bringer, and his Attendants—Election of the Boy
Bishop—St. Nicholas's Day at Bari—St. Lucia's Day in Sweden, Sicily, and
Central Europe—St. Thomas's Day as School Festival—Its Uncanny Eve—“Going
a-Thomassin’.”

St. Clement's Day.

The next folk-feast after Martinmas is St. Clement's Day, November 23,
once reckoned the first day of winter in England. [9-1] It marks apparently one of the stages in the progress
of the winter feast towards its present solstitial date. In England some
interesting popular customs existed on this day. In Staffordshire children used
to go round to the village houses begging for gifts, with rhymes resembling in
many ways the “souling” verses I have already quoted. Here is one of the
Staffordshire “clemencing” songs:—

“Clemany! Clemany! Clemany
mine!
A good red apple and a pint of
wine,
Some of your mutton and some of your
veal,
If it is good, pray give me a
deal;
If it is not, pray give me some
salt.
Butler, butler, fill your bowl;
If thou fill'st it of the best,
The Lord'll
send your soul to rest;
If thou fill'st it of the
small,
Down goes butler, bowl and all.
Pray, good mistress, send to me
One for Peter, one for Paul,
One for Him who
made us all;
Apple, pear, plum, or
cherry,
Any good thing to make us
merry;
A bouncing buck and a velvet
chair,
Clement comes but once a year;
Off with the pot and on with the pan,
A good
red apple and I'll be gone.”
[9-2]

In Worcestershire on St. Clement's Day the boys chanted similar rhymes, and
at the close of their collection they would roast the apples received and throw
them into ale or cider. [9-3] In the north of England men used to go about begging
drink, and at Ripon Minster the choristers went round the church offering
everyone a rosy apple with a sprig of box on it. [9-4] The Cambridge bakers held their annual supper on this
day, [9-5] at Tenby the fishermen were given a supper, [9-6] while the blacksmiths’ apprentices at Woolwich had a
remarkable ceremony, akin perhaps to the Boy Bishop customs. One of their number
was chosen to play the part of “Old Clem,” was attired in a great coat, and wore
a mask, a long white beard, and an oakum wig. Seated in a large wooden chair,
and surrounded by attendants bearing banners, torches, and weapons, he was borne
about the town on the shoulders of six men, visiting numerous public-houses and
the blacksmiths and officers of the dockyard. Before him he had a wooden anvil,
and in his hands a pair of tongs and a wooden hammer, the insignia of the
blacksmith's trade. [9-7]

St. Catherine's Day.

November 25 is St. Catherine's Day, and at Woolwich Arsenal a similar
ceremony was then performed: a man was dressed in female attire, with a large
wheel by his side to represent the saint, and was taken round the town [9-8] in a wooden chair. At Chatham there was a torchlight
procession on St. Catherine's Day, and a woman in white muslin with a gilt crown
was carried about in a chair. She was said to represent not the saint, but Queen
Catherine. [9-9]

St. Catherine's Day was formerly a festival for the
lacemakers of Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, and Bedfordshire. She was the
patroness of spinsters in the literal as well as the modern sense of the word,
and at Peterborough the workhouse girls used to go in procession round the city
on her day, dressed in white with coloured ribbons; the tallest was chosen as
Queen and bore a crown and sceptre. As they went to beg money of the chief
inhabitants they sang a quaint ballad which begins thus:—

“Here comes Queen Catherine, as fine as any
queen,
With a coach and six horses a-coming to be
seen,
And a-spinning we will go, will go, will
go,
And a-spinning we will go.”
[9-10]

We may perhaps see in this Saint or Queen Catherine a female counterpart of
the Boy Bishop, who began his career on St. Nicholas's Day. Catherine, it must
be remembered, is the patron saint of girls as Nicholas is of boys. In Belgium
her day is still a festival for the “young person” both in schools and in
families. [9-11] Even in modern Paris the dressmaker-girls celebrate
it, and in a very charming way, too.

“At midday the girls of every workroom present little mob-caps trimmed with
yellow ribbons to those of their number who are over twenty-five and still
unmarried. Then they themselves put on becoming little caps with yellow flowers
and yellow ribbons and a sprig of orange blossom on them, and out they go
arm-in-arm to parade the streets and collect a tribute of flowers from every man
they meet.... Instead of working all the afternoon, the midinettes entertain all
their friends (no men admitted, though, for it is the day of St. Catherine) to
concerts and even to dramatic performances in the workrooms, where the
work-tables are turned into stages, and the employers provide supper.” [9-12]

St. Andrew's Day.

The last day of November is the feast of St. Andrew. Of English customs on
this day the most interesting perhaps are those connected with the “Tander” or
“Tandrew” merrymakings  of the Northamptonshire lacemakers. A day of general
licence used to end in masquerading. Women went about in male attire and men and
boys in female dress. [9-13] In Kent and Sussex squirrel-hunting was practised on
this day [9-14] —a survival apparently of some old sacrificial
custom comparable with the hunting of the wren at Christmas (see  XII).

In Germany St. Andrew's Eve is a great occasion for prognostications of the
future. Indeed, like Hallowe'en in Great Britain, Andreasabend in Germany
seems to have preserved the customs of augury connected with the old November
New Year festival. [9-15] To a large extent the practices are performed by
girls anxious to know what sort of husband they will get. Many and various are
the methods.

Sometimes it suffices to repeat some such rhyme as the following before going
to sleep, and the future husband will appear in a dream:—

“St. Andrew's Eve is to-day,
Sleep all people,
Sleep all children of
men,
Who are between heaven and earth,
Except this only man,
Who may be mine in
marriage.”
[9-16]

Again, at nightfall let a girl shut herself up naked in her bedroom, take two
beakers, and into one pour clear water, into the other wine. These let her place
on the table, which is to be covered with white, and let the following words be
said:—

“My dear St. Andrew!
Let now appear before me
My heart's most
dearly beloved.
If he shall be rich,
He will pour a cup of wine;
If he is to be
poor,
Let him pour a cup of
water.”

This done, the form of the future husband will enter and drink  of one of the cups. If he is poor, he will take the water;
if rich, the wine. [9-17]

One of the most common practices is to pour molten lead or tin through a key
into cold water, and to discover the calling of the future husband by the form
it takes, which will represent the tools of his trade. The white of an egg is
sometimes used for the same purpose. [9-18] Another very widespread custom is to put nutshells to
float on water with little candles burning in them. There are twice as many
shells as there are girls present; each girl has her shell, and to the others
the names of possible suitors are given. The man and the girl whose shells come
together will marry one another. Sometimes the same method is practised with
little cups of silver foil. [9-19]

On the border of Saxony and Bohemia, a maiden who wishes to know the bodily
build of her future husband goes in the darkness to a stack of wood and draws
out a piece. If the wood is smooth and straight the man will be slim and well
built; if it is crooked, or knotted, he will be ill-developed or even a
hunchback. [9-20]

These are but a few of the many ways in which girls seek to peer into the
future and learn something about the most important event in their lives. Far
less numerous, but not altogether absent on this night, are other kinds of
prognostication. A person, for instance, who wishes to know whether he will die
in the coming year, must on St. Andrew's Eve before going to bed make on the
table a little pointed heap of flour. If by the morning it has fallen asunder,
the maker will die. [9-21]

The association of St. Andrew's Eve with the foreseeing of the future is not
confined to the German race; it is found also on Slavonic and Roumanian ground.
In Croatia he who fasts then will behold his future wife in a dream, [9-22] and among the Roumanians mothers anxious about their
children's luck break small sprays from fruit-trees, bind them together in
bunches, one for each child, and put them in a glass of water. The branch of the
lucky one will blossom. [9-23]

In Roumania St. Andrew's Eve is a creepy time, for on it vampires are
supposed to rise from their graves, and with coffins  on their heads walk about the houses in which they once
lived. Before nightfall every woman takes some garlic and anoints with it the
door locks and window casements; this will keep away the vampires. At the
cross-roads there is a great fight of these loathsome beings until the first
cock crows; and not only the dead take part in this, but also some living men
who are vampires from their birth. Sometimes it is only the souls of these
living vampires that join in the fight; the soul comes out through the mouth in
the form of a bluish flame, takes the shape of an animal, and runs to the
crossway. If the body meanwhile is moved from its place the person dies, for the
soul cannot find its way back. [9-24]

St. Andrew's Day is sometimes the last, sometimes the first important
festival of the western Church's year. It is regarded in parts of Germany as the
beginning of winter, as witness the saying:—

“Sünten-Dres-Misse,
es de Winter gewisse.”
[93]

[9-25]

The nights are now almost at their longest, and as November passes away,
giving place to the last month of the year, Christmas is felt to be near at
hand.

In northern Bohemia it is customary for peasant girls to keep for themselves
all the yarn they spin on St. Andrew's Eve, and the Hausfrau gives them
also some flax and a little money. With this they buy coffee and other
refreshments for the lads who come to visit the parlours where in the long
winter evenings the women sit spinning. These evenings, when many gather
together in a brightly lighted room and sing songs and tell stories while they
spin, are cheerful enough, and spice is added by the visits of the village lads,
who in some places come to see the girls home. [9-26]

The Klöpfelnächte.

On the Thursday nights in Advent it is customary in southern Germany for
children or grown-up people to go from house  to house, singing hymns and knocking on the doors with rods
or little hammers, or throwing peas, lentils, and the like against the windows.
Hence these evenings have gained the name of Klöpfel or
Knöpflinsnächte (Knocking Nights). [9-27] The practice is described by Naogeorgus in the
sixteenth century:—

“Three weekes before the day whereon was borne
the Lord of Grace,
And on the Thursdaye Boyes and
Girles do runne in every place,
And bounce and beate at
every doore, with blowes and lustie snaps,
And crie,
the Advent of the Lorde not borne as yet perhaps.
And
wishing to the neighbours all, that in the houses dwell,
A happie yeare, and every thing to spring and prosper
well:
Here have they peares, and plumbs, and pence, ech
man gives willinglee,
For these three nightes are
alwayes thought, unfortunate to bee;
Wherein they are
afrayde of sprites and cankred witches’ spight,
And
dreadfull devils blacke and grim, that then have chiefest might.”
[9-28]

With it may be compared the Macedonian custom for village boys to go in
parties at nightfall on Christmas Eve, knocking at the cottage doors with
sticks, shouting Kolianda! Kolianda! and receiving presents, [9-29] and also one in vogue in Holland between Christmas
and the Epiphany. There “the children go out in couples, each boy carrying an
earthenware pot, over which a bladder is stretched, with a piece of stick tied
in the middle. When this stick is twirled about, a not very melodious grumbling
sound proceeds from the contrivance, which is known by the name of ‘Rommelpot.’
By going about in this manner the children are able to collect some few
pence.” [9-30]

Can such practices have originated in attempts to drive out evil spirits from
the houses by noise? Similar methods are used for that purpose by various
European and other peoples. [9-31] Anyhow something mysterious hangs about the
Klöpfelnächte. They are occasions for girls to learn about their future
husbands, and upon them in Swabia goes about Pelzmärte, whom we already know. [9-32]

In Tyrol curious mummeries are then performed. At Pillersee
in the Lower Innthal two youths combine to form a mimic ass, upon which a third
rides, and they are followed by a motley train. The ass falls sick and has to be
cured by a “vet,” and all kinds of satirical jokes are made about things that
have happened in the parish during the year. Elsewhere two men dress up in straw
as husband and wife, and go out with a masked company. The pair wrangle with one
another and carry on a play of wits with the peasants whose house they are
visiting. Sometimes the satire is so cutting that permanent enmities ensue, and
for this reason the practice is gradually being dropped. [9-33]

St. Nicholas's Day.

On December 6 we reach the most distinctive children's festival of the
whole year, St. Nicholas's Day. In England it has gone out of mind, and in the
flat north of Germany Protestantism has largely rooted it out, as savouring too
much of saint-worship, and transferred its festivities to the more Evangelical
season of Christmas. [9-34] In western and southern Germany, however, and in
Austria, Switzerland, and the Low Countries, it is still a day of joy for
children, though in some regions even there its radiance tends to pale before
the greater glory of the Christmas-tree.

It is not easy either to get at the historic facts about St. Nicholas, the
fourth-century bishop of Myra in Asia Minor, or to ascertain why he became the
patron saint of boys. The legends of his infant piety and his later wondrous
works for the benefit of young people may either have given rise, or be
themselves due to, his connection with children. [9-35] In eastern Europe and southern Italy he is above all
things the saint of seafaring men, and among the Greeks his cult has perhaps
replaced that of Artemis as a sea divinity. [9-36] This aspect of him does not, however, appear in the
German festival customs with which we are here chiefly concerned.

It has already been hinted that in some respects St. Nicholas is a duplicate
of St. Martin. His feast, indeed, is probably a later beginning-of-winter
festival, dating from the period when  improved methods of agriculture and other causes made early
December, rather than mid-November, the time for the great annual slaughter and
its attendant rejoicings. Like St. Martin he brings sweet things for the good
children and rods for the bad.

St. Nicholas's Eve is a time of festive stir in Holland and Belgium; the
shops are full of pleasant little gifts: many-shaped biscuits, gilt
gingerbreads, sometimes representing the saint, sugar images, toys, and other
trifles. In many places, when evening comes on, people dress up as St. Nicholas,
with mitre and pastoral staff, enquire about the behaviour of the children, and
if it has been good pronounce a benediction and promise them a reward next
morning. Before they go to bed the children put out their shoes, with hay,
straw, or a carrot in them for the saint's white horse or ass. When they wake in
the morning, if they have been “good” the fodder is gone and sweet things or
toys are in its place; if they have misbehaved themselves the provender is
untouched and no gift but a rod is there. [9-37]

In various parts of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria St. Nicholas is mimed
by a man dressed up as a bishop. [9-38] In Tyrol children pray to the saint on his Eve and
leave out hay for his white horse and a glass of schnaps for his servant.
And he comes in all the splendour of a church-image, a reverend grey-haired
figure with flowing beard, gold-broidered cope, glittering mitre, and pastoral
staff. Children who know their catechism are rewarded with sweet things out of
the basket carried by his servant; those who cannot answer are reproved, and St.
Nicholas points to a terrible form that stands behind him with a rod—the
hideous Klaubauf, a shaggy monster with horns, black face, fiery eyes, long red
tongue, and chains that clank as he moves. [9-39]

In Lower Austria the saint is followed by a similar figure called Krampus or
Grampus; [9-40] in Styria this horrible attendant is named Bartel; [9-41] all are no doubt related to such monsters as the
Klapperbock (see  VII). Their heathen origin is evident though it is difficult to trace their
exact pedigree. Sometimes St. Nicholas himself appears in a non-churchly form
like Pelzmärte, with a bell, [9-42] or with a sack of ashes which gains him the name of
Aschenklas. [9-43]

Not only by hideous figures is St. Nicholas attended.
Sometimes, as at Warnsdorf near Rumburg, there come with him the forms of Christ
Himself, St. Peter, an angel, and the famous Knecht Ruprecht, whom we shall meet
again on Christmas Eve. They are represented by children, and a little drama is
performed, one personage coming in after the other and calling for the next in
the manner of the English mummers’ play. St. Nicholas, St. Peter, and Ruprecht
accuse the children of all kinds of naughtiness, the “Heiliger Christ”
intercedes and at last throws nuts down and receives money from the parents. [9-44] In Tyrol there are St. Nicholas plays of a more comic
nature, performed publicly by large companies of players and introducing a
number of humorous characters and much rude popular wit. [9-45]

Sometimes a female bogey used to appear: Budelfrau in Lower Austria, Berchtel
in Swabia, Buzebergt in the neighbourhood of Augsburg. [9-46] The last two are plainly variants of Berchte, who is
specially connected with the Epiphany. Berchtel used to punish the naughty
children with a rod, and reward the good with nuts and apples; Buzebergt wore
black rags, had her face blackened and her hair hanging unkempt, and carried a
pot of starch which she smeared upon people's faces. [9-47]

As Santa Klaus St. Nicholas is of course known to every English child, but
rather as a sort of incarnation of Christmas than as a saint with a day of his
own. Santa Klaus, probably, has come to us viâ the United States, whither
the Dutch took him, and where he has still immense popularity.

In the Middle Ages in England as elsewhere the Eve of St. Nicholas was a day
of great excitement for boys. It was then that the small choristers and servers
in cathedral and other churches generally elected their “Boy Bishop” or
“Nicholas.” [9-48] He had in some places to officiate at First Vespers
and at the services on the festival itself. As a rule, however, the feast of the
Holy Innocents, December 28, was probably the most important day in the Boy
Bishop's career, and we may therefore postpone our consideration of him. We will
here only note his connection with the festival of the patron saint of boys, a
connection perhaps implying a common origin for him and  for the St. Nicholases who in bishops’ vestments make their
present-giving rounds.

The festival of St. Nicholas is naturally celebrated with most splendour at
the place where his body lies, the seaport of Bari in south-eastern Italy. The
holy bones are preserved in a sepulchre beneath a crypt of rich Saracenic
architecture, above which rises a magnificent church. Legend relates that in the
eleventh century they were stolen by certain merchants of Bari from the saint's
own cathedral at Myra in Asia Minor. The tomb of St. Nicholas is a famous centre
for pilgrimages, and on the 6th of December many thousands of the faithful,
bearing staves bound with olive and pine, visit it. An interesting ceremony on
the festival is the taking of the saint's image out to sea by the sailors of the
port. They return with it at nightfall, and a great procession escorts it back
to the cathedral with torches and fireworks and chanting. [9-49] Here may be seen the other, the seafaring, aspect of
St. Nicholas; by this mariners’ cult we are taken far away from the
present-giving saint who delights the small children of the North.

St. Lucia's Day.

The only folk-festivals of note between St. Nicholas's Day and Christmas are
those of St. Lucia (December 13) and St. Thomas the Apostle
(December 21).

In Sweden St. Lucia's Day was formerly marked by some interesting practices.
It was, so to speak, the entrance to the Christmas festival, and was called
“little Yule.” [9-50] At the first cock-crow, between 1 and 4 a.m., the
prettiest girl in the house used to go among the sleeping folk, dressed in a
white robe, a red sash, and a wire crown covered with whortleberry-twigs and
having nine lighted candles fastened in it. She awakened the sleepers and
regaled them with a sweet drink or with coffee, [94] sang a special song, and was named “Lussi” or
“Lussibruden” (Lucy bride). When everyone was dressed, breakfast was taken, the
room being lighted by many candles. The domestic animals  were not forgotten on this day, but were given special
portions. A peculiar feature of the Swedish custom is the presence of lights on
Lussi's crown. Lights indeed are the special mark of the festival; it was
customary to shoot and fish on St. Lucy's Day by torchlight, the parlours, as
has been said, were brilliantly illuminated in the early morning, in West
Gothland Lussi went round the village preceded by torchbearers, and in one
parish she was represented by a cow with a crown of lights on her head. In
schools the day was celebrated with illuminations. [9-51]

What is the explanation of this feast of lights? There is nothing in the
legend of the saint to account for it; her name, however, at once suggests
lux—light. It is possible, as Dr. Feilberg supposes, that the name gave
rise to the special use of lights among the Latin-learned monks who brought
Christianity to Sweden, and that the custom spread from them to the common
people. A peculiar fitness would be found in it because St. Lucia's Day
according to the Old Style was the shortest day of the year, the turning-point
of the sun's light. [9-52]

In Sicily also St. Lucia's festival is a feast of lights. After sunset on the
Eve a long procession of men, lads, and children, each flourishing a thick bunch
of long straws all afire, rushes wildly down the streets of the mountain village
of Montedoro, as if fleeing from some danger, and shouting hoarsely. “The
darkness of the night,” says an eye-witness, “was lighted up by this savage
procession of dancing, flaming torches, whilst bonfires in all the side streets
gave the illusion that the whole village was burning.” At the end of the
procession came the image of Santa Lucia, holding a dish which contained her
eyes. [95] In the midst of the piazza a great mountain of
straw had been prepared; on this everyone threw his own burning torch, and the
saint was placed in a spot from which she could survey the vast bonfire. [9-53]

In central Europe we see St. Lucia in other aspects. In the Böhmerwald she
goes round the village in the form of a nanny-goat with horns, gives fruit to
the good children, and threatens to rip open the belly of the naughty. Here she
is evidently related  to the pagan monsters already described. In Tyrol she plays
a more graceful part: she brings presents for girls, an office which St.
Nicholas is there supposed to perform for boys only. [9-55]

In Lower Austria St. Lucia's Eve is a time when special danger from
witchcraft is feared and must be averted by prayer and incense. A procession is
made through each house to cense every room. On this evening, too, girls are
afraid to spin lest in the morning they should find their distaffs twisted, the
threads broken, and the yarn in confusion. (We shall meet with like
superstitions during the Twelve Nights.) At midnight the girls practise a
strange ceremony: they go to a willow-bordered brook, cut the bark of a tree
partly away, without detaching it, make with a knife a cross on the inner side
of the cut bark, moisten it with water, and carefully close up the opening. On
New Year's Day the cutting is opened, and the future is augured from the
markings found. The lads, on the other hand, look out at midnight for a
mysterious light, the Luzieschein, the forms of which indicate coming
events. [9-56]

In Denmark, too, St. Lucia's Eve is a time for seeing the future. Here is a
prayer of Danish maids: “Sweet St. Lucy let me know: whose cloth I shall lay,
whose bed I shall make, whose child I shall bear, whose darling I shall be,
whose arms I shall sleep in.” [9-57]

St. Thomas's Day.

Many and various are the customs and beliefs associated with the feast of St.
Thomas (December 21). In Denmark it was formerly a great children's day,
unique in the year, and rather resembling the mediaeval Boy Bishop festival. It
was the breaking-up day for schools; the children used to bring their master an
offering of candles and money, and in return he gave them a feast. In some
places it had an even more delightful side: for this one day in the year the
children were allowed the mastery in the school. Testimonials to their
scholarship and industry were made out, and elaborate titles were added to their
names, as exalted sometimes as “Pope,” “Emperor,” or “Empress.” Poor children
used to go about showing these  documents and collecting money. Games and larks of all
sorts went on in the schools without a word of reproof, and the children were
wont to burn their master's rod. [9-58]

In the neighbourhood of Antwerp children go early to school on St. Thomas's
Day, and lock the master out, until he promises to treat them with ale or other
drink. After this they buy a cock and hen, which are allowed to escape and have
to be caught by the boys or the girls respectively. The girl who catches the hen
is called “queen,” the boy who gets the cock, “king.” Elsewhere in Belgium
children lock out their parents, and servants their masters, while schoolboys
bind their teacher to his chair and carry him over to the inn. There he has to
buy back his liberty by treating his scholars with punch and cakes. Instead of
the chase for the fowls, it was up to 1850 the custom in the Ardennes for the
teacher to give the children hens and let them chop the heads off. [9-59] Some pagan sacrifice no doubt lies at the root of
this barbarous practice, which has many parallels in the folk-lore of western
and southern Europe. [9-60]

As for schoolboys’ larks with their teachers, the custom of “barring out the
master” existed in England, and was practised before Christmas [9-61] as well as at other times of the year, notably Shrove
Tuesday. At Bromfield in Cumberland on Shrove Tuesday there was a regular siege,
the school doors were strongly barricaded within, and the boy-defenders were
armed with pop-guns. If the master won, heavy tasks were imposed, but if, as
more often happened, he was defeated in his efforts to regain his authority, he
had to make terms with the boys as to the hours of work and play. [9-62]

St. Thomas's Eve is in certain regions one of the uncanniest nights in the
year. In some Bohemian villages the saint is believed to drive about at midnight
in a chariot of fire. In the churchyard there await him all the dead men whose
name is Thomas; they help him to alight and accompany him to the churchyard
cross, which glows red with supernatural radiance. There St. Thomas kneels and
prays, and then rises to bless his namesakes. This done, he vanishes beneath the
cross, and each Thomas returns to his grave. The saint here seems to have taken
over  the character of some pagan god, who, like the Teutonic
Odin or Woden, ruled the souls of the departed. In the houses the people listen
with awe for the sound of his chariot, and when it is heard make anxious prayer
to him for protection from all ill. Before retiring to rest the house-father
goes to the cowhouse with holy water and consecrated salt, asperges it from
without, and then entering, sprinkles every cow. Salt is also thrown on the head
of each animal with the words, “St. Thomas preserve thee from all sickness.” In
the Böhmerwald the cattle are fed on this night with consecrated bayberries,
bread, and salt, in order to avert disease. [9-63]

In Upper and Lower Austria St. Thomas's Eve is reckoned as one of the
so-called Rauchnächte (smoke-nights) when houses and farm-buildings must
be sanctified with incense and holy water, the other nights being the Eves of
Christmas, the New Year, and the Epiphany. [9-64]

In Germany St. Thomas's, like St. Andrew's Eve, is a time for forecasting the
future, and the methods already described are sometimes employed by girls who
wish to behold their future husbands. A widely diffused custom is that of
throwing shoes backwards over the shoulders. If the points are found turned
towards the door the thrower is destined to leave the house during the year; if
they are turned away from it another year will be spent there. In Westphalia a
belief prevails that you must eat and drink heartily on this night in order to
avert scarcity. [9-65]

In Lower Austria it is supposed that sluggards can cure themselves of
oversleeping by saying a special prayer before they go to bed on St. Thomas's
Eve, and in Westphalia in the mid-nineteenth century the same association of the
day with slumber was shown by the schoolchildren's custom of calling the child
who arrived last at school Domesesel (Thomas ass). In Holland, again, the
person who lies longest in bed on St. Thomas's Day is greeted with shouts of
“lazybones.” Probably the fact that December 21 is the shortest day is
enough to account for this. [9-66]

In England there was divination by means of “St. Thomas's onion.” Girls used
to peel an onion, wrap it in a handkerchief and put it under their heads at
night, with a prayer to the satin  to show them their true love in a dream. [9-67] The most notable English custom on this day, however,
was the peregrinations of poor people begging for money or provisions for
Christmas. Going “a-gooding,” or “a-Thomassin’,” or “a-mumping,” this was
called. Sometimes in return for the charity bestowed a sprig of holly or
mistletoe was given. [9-68] Possibly the sprig was originally a sacrament of the
healthful spirit of growth: it may be compared with the olive- or
cornel-branches carried about on New Year's Eve by Macedonian boys, [9-69] and also with the St. Martin's rod (see  VII).

One more English custom on December 21 must be mentioned—it points to a
sometime sacrifice—the bull-baiting practised until 1821 at Wokingham in
Berkshire. Its abolition in 1822 caused great resentment among the populace,
although the flesh continued to be duly distributed. [9-70]

We are now four days from the feast of the Nativity, and
many things commonly regarded as distinctive of Christmas have already come
under notice. We have met, for instance, with several kinds of present-giving,
with auguries for the New Year, with processions of carol-singers and
well-wishers, with ceremonial feasting that anticipates the Christmas eating and
drinking, and with various figures, saintly or monstrous, mimed or merely
imagined, which we shall find reappearing at the greatest of winter festivals.
These things would seem to have been attracted from earlier dates to the feast
of the Nativity, and the probability that Christmas has borrowed much from an
old November festival gradually shifted into December, is our justification for
having dwelt so long upon the feasts that precede the Twelve Days.

Chapter IX — Christmas Eve and the Twelve Days

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

Christmas Eve.

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

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

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

We can trace a deliberate substitution of the Christ Child for St. Nicholas
as the bringer of gifts. In the early seventeenth century a Protestant pastor is
found complaining that parents put presents in their children's beds and tell
them that St. Nicholas has brought them. “This,” he says, “is a bad custom,
because it points children to the saint, while yet we know that not St. Nicholas
but the holy Christ Child gives us all good things for body and soul, and He
alone it is whom we ought to call upon.” [10-1]

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

In Alsace the girl who represents Christkind has her face “made up” with
flour, wears a crown of gold paper with lighted candles in it—a parallel to the
headgear of the Swedish Lussi; in one hand she holds a silver bell, in the
other, a basket of sweetmeats. She is followed by the terrible Hans Trapp,
dressed in a bearskin, with blackened face, long beard, and threatening rod. He
“goes for” the naughty children, who are only saved by the intercession of
Christkind. [10-2]

In the Mittelmark the name of de hêle (holy) Christ is
strangely  given to a skin- or straw-clad man, elsewhere called Knecht
Ruprecht, Klas, or Joseph. [10-3] In the Ruppin district a man dresses up in white with
ribbons, carries a large pouch, and is called Christmann or
Christpuppe. He is accompanied by a Schimmelreiter and by other
fellows who are attired as women, have blackened faces, and are named
Feien (we may see in them a likeness to the Kalends maskers condemned by
the early Church). The procession goes round from house to house. The
Schimmelreiter as he enters has to jump over a chair; this done, the
Christpuppe is admitted. The girls present begin to sing, and the
Schimmelreiter dances with one of them. Meanwhile the Christpuppe
makes the children repeat some verse of Scripture or a hymn; if they know it
well, he rewards them with gingerbreads from his wallet; if not, he beats them
with a bundle filled with ashes. Then both he and the Schimmelreiter
dance and pass on. Only when they are gone are the Feien allowed to
enter; they jump wildly about and frighten the children. [10-4]

Knecht Ruprecht, to whom allusion has already been made, is a prominent
figure in the German Christmas. On Christmas Eve in the north he goes about clad
in skins or straw and examines children; if they can say their prayers perfectly
he rewards them with apples, nuts and gingerbreads; if not, he punishes them. In
the Mittelmark, as we have seen, a personage corresponding to him is sometimes
called “the holy Christ”; in Mecklenburg he is “rû Klas” (rough Nicholas—note
his identification with the saint); in Brunswick, Hanover, and Holstein “Klas,”
“Klawes,” “Klas Bûr” and “Bullerklas”; and in Silesia “Joseph.” Sometimes he
wears bells and carries a long staff with a bag of ashes at the end—hence the
name “Aschenklas” occasionally given to him. [10-5] An ingenious theory connects this aspect of him with
the polaznik of the Slavs, who on Christmas Day in Crivoscian farms goes
to the hearth, takes up the ashes of the Yule log and dashes them against the
cauldron-hook above so that sparks fly (see  X). [10-6] As for the name “Ruprecht” the older mythologists
interpreted it as meaning “shining with glory,” hruodperaht, and
identified its owner with the god Woden. [10-7] Dr. Tille, however, regards him  as dating only from the seventeenth century. [10-8] It can hardly be said that any satisfactory account
has as yet been given of the origins of this personage, or of his relation to
St. Nicholas, Pelzmärte, and monstrous creatures like the
Klapperbock.

In the south-western part of Lower Austria, both St. Nicholas—a proper
bishop with mitre, staff, and ring—and Ruprecht appear on Christmas Eve, and
there is quite an elaborate ceremonial. The children welcome the saint with a
hymn; then he goes to a table and makes each child repeat a prayer and show his
lesson-books. Meanwhile Ruprecht in a hide, with glowing eyes and a long red
tongue, stands at the door to overawe the young people. Each child next kneels
before the saint and kisses his ring, whereupon Nicholas bids him put his shoes
out-of-doors and look in them when the clock strikes ten. After this the saint
lays on the table a rod dipped in lime, solemnly blesses the children,
sprinkling them with holy water, and noiselessly departs. The children steal out
into the garden, clear a space in the snow, and set out their shoes; when the
last stroke of ten has sounded they find them filled with nuts and apples and
all kinds of sweet things. [10-9]

In the Troppau district of Austrian Silesia, three figures go round on
Christmas Eve—Christkindel, the archangel Gabriel, and St. Peter—and perform a
little play before the presents they bring are given. Christkindel announces
that he has gifts for the good children, but the bad shall feel the rod. St.
Peter complains of the naughtiness of the youngsters: they play about in the
streets instead of going straight to school; they tear up their lesson-books and
do many other wicked things. However, the children's mother pleads for them, and
St. Peter relents and gives out the presents. [10-10]

In the Erzgebirge appear St. Peter and Ruprecht, who is clad in skin and
straw, has a mask over his face, a rod, a chain round his body, and a sack with
apples, nuts, and other gifts; and a somewhat similar performance is gone
through. [10-11]

If we go as far east as Russia we find a parallel to the girl Christkind in
Kolyáda, a white-robed maiden driven about in a sledge from house to house on
Christmas Eve. The young people who attended her sang carols, and presents were
given  them in return. Kolyáda is the name for Christmas
and appears to be derived from Kalendae, which probably entered the
Slavonic languages by way of Byzantium. The maiden is one of those beings who,
like the Italian Befana, have taken their names from the festival at which they
appear. [10-12]

No time in all the Twelve Nights and Days is so charged
with the supernatural as Christmas Eve. Doubtless this is due to the fact that
the Church has hallowed the night of December 24-5 above all others in the year.
It was to the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night that,
according to the Third Evangelist, came the angelic message of the Birth, and in
harmony with this is the unique Midnight Mass of the Roman Church, lending a
peculiar sanctity to the hour of its celebration. And yet many of the beliefs
associated with this night show a large admixture of paganism.

First, there is the idea that at midnight on Christmas Eve animals have the
power of speech. This superstition exists in various parts of Europe, and no one
can hear the beasts talk with impunity. The idea has given rise to some curious
and rather grim tales. Here is one from Brittany:—

“Once upon a time there was a woman who starved her cat and dog. At midnight
on Christmas Eve she heard the dog say to the cat, ‘It is quite time we lost our
mistress; she is a regular miser. To-night burglars are coming to steal her
money; and if she cries out they will break her head.’ ‘’Twill be a good deed,’
the cat replied. The woman in terror got up to go to a neighbour's house; as she
went out the burglars opened the door, and when she shouted for help they broke
her head.” [10-13]

Again a story is told of a farm servant in the German Alps who did not
believe that the beasts could speak, and hid in a stable on Christmas Eve to
learn what went on. At midnight he heard surprising things. “We shall have hard
work to do this day week,” said one horse. “Yes, the farmer's servant is heavy,”
answered the other. “And the way to the churchyard is long and steep,” said the
first. The servant was buried that day week. [10-14]

It may well have been the traditional association of the ox
and ass with the Nativity that fixed this superstition to Christmas Eve, but the
conception of the talking animals is probably pagan.

Related to this idea, but more Christian in form, is the belief that at
midnight all cattle rise in their stalls or kneel and adore the new-born King.
Readers of Mr. Hardy's “Tess” will remember how this is brought into a
delightful story told by a Wessex peasant. The idea is widespread in England and
on the Continent, [10-15] and has reached even the North American Indians.
Howison, in his “Sketches of Upper Canada,” relates that an Indian told him that
“on Christmas night all deer kneel and look up to Great Spirit.” [10-16] A somewhat similar belief about bees was held in the
north of England: they were said to assemble on Christmas Eve and hum a
Christmas hymn. [10-17] Bees seem in folk-lore in general to be specially
near to humanity in their feelings.

It is a widespread idea that at midnight on Christmas Eve all water turns to
wine. A Guernsey woman once determined to test this; at midnight she drew a
bucket from the well. Then came a voice:—

“Toute l'eau se tourne en vin,
Et tu es proche de ta fin.”

She fell down with a mortal disease, and died before the end of the year. In
Sark the superstition is that the water in streams and wells turns into blood,
and if you go to look you will die within the year. [10-18]

There is also a French belief that on Christmas Eve, while the genealogy of
Christ is being chanted at the Midnight Mass, hidden treasures are revealed. [10-19] In Russia all sorts of buried treasures are supposed
to be revealed on the evenings between Christmas and the Epiphany, and on the
eves of these festivals the heavens are opened, and the waters of springs and
rivers turn into wine. [10-20]

Another instance of the supernatural character of the night is found in a
Breton story of a blacksmith who went on working after the sacring bell had rung
at the Midnight Mass. To him  came a tall, stooping man with a scythe, who begged him to
put in a nail. He did so; and the visitor in return bade him send for a priest,
for this work would be his last. The figure disappeared, the blacksmith felt his
limbs fail him, and at cock-crow he died. He had mended the scythe of the
Ankou—Death the reaper. [10-21]

In the Scandinavian countries simple folk have a vivid sense of the nearness
of the supernatural on Christmas Eve. On Yule night no one should go out, for he
may meet uncanny beings of all kinds. In Sweden the Trolls are believed to
celebrate Christmas Eve with dancing and revelry. “On the heaths witches and
little Trolls ride, one on a wolf, another on a broom or a shovel, to their
assemblies, where they dance under their stones.... In the mount are then to be
heard mirth and music, dancing and drinking. On Christmas morn, during the time
between cock-crowing and daybreak, it is highly dangerous to be abroad.” [10-22]

Christmas Eve is also in Scandinavian folk-belief the time when the dead
revisit their old homes, as on All Souls’ Eve in Roman Catholic lands. The
living prepare for their coming with mingled dread and desire to make them
welcome. When the Christmas Eve festivities are over, and everyone has gone to
rest, the parlour is left tidy and adorned, with a great fire burning, candles
lighted, the table covered with a festive cloth and plentifully spread with
food, and a jug of Yule ale ready. Sometimes before going to bed people wipe the
chairs with a clean white towel; in the morning they are wiped again, and, if
earth is found, some kinsman, fresh from the grave, has sat there. Consideration
for the dead even leads people to prepare a warm bath in the belief that, like
living folks, the kinsmen will want a wash before their festal meal. [96] Or again beds were made ready for them while the
living slept on straw. Not always is it consciously the dead for whom these
preparations are made, sometimes they are said to be for the Trolls and
sometimes even for  the Saviour and His angels. [10-24] (We may compare with this Christian idea the
Tyrolese custom of leaving some milk for the Christ Child and His Mother [10-25] at the hour of Midnight Mass, and a Breton practice
of leaving food all through Christmas night in case the Virgin should come. [10-26])

It is difficult to say how far the other supernatural beings—their name is
legion—who in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland are believed to come out of
their underground hiding-places during the long dark Christmas nights, were
originally ghosts of the dead. Twenty years ago many students would have
accounted for them all in this way, but the tendency now is strongly against the
derivation of all supernatural beings from ancestor-worship. Elves, trolls,
dwarfs, witches, and other uncanny folk—the beliefs about their Christmas
doings are too many to be treated here; readers of Danish will find a long and
very interesting chapter on this subject in Dr. Feilberg's “Jul.” [10-27] I may mention just one familiar figure of the
Scandinavian Yule, Tomte Gubbe, a sort of genius of the house corresponding very
much to the “drudging goblin” of Milton's “L'Allegro,” for whom the cream-bowl
must be duly set. He may perhaps be the spirit of the founder of the family. At
all events on Christmas Eve Yule porridge and new milk are set out for him,
sometimes with other things, such as a suit of small clothes, spirits, or even
tobacco. Thus must his goodwill be won for the coming year. [10-28]

In one part of Norway it used to be believed that on Christmas Eve, at rare
intervals, the old Norse gods made war on Christians, coming down from the
mountains with great blasts of wind and wild shouts, and carrying off any human
being who might be about. In one place the memory of such a visitation was
preserved in the nineteenth century. The people were preparing for their
festivities, when suddenly from the mountains came the warning sounds. “In a
second the air became black, peals of thunder echoed among the hills, lightning
danced about the buildings, and the inhabitants in the darkened rooms heard the
clatter of hoofs and the weird shrieks of the hosts of the gods.” [10-29]

The Scandinavian countries, Protestant though they are,
have retained many of the outward forms of Catholicism, and the sign of the
cross is often used as a protection against uncanny visitors. The cross—perhaps
the symbol was originally Thor's hammer—is marked with chalk or tar or fire
upon doors and gates, is formed of straw or other material and put in stables
and cowhouses, or is smeared with the remains of the Yule candle on the udders
of the beasts—it is in fact displayed at every point open to attack by a spirit
of darkness. [10-30]

Christmas Eve is in Germany a time for auguries. Some of
the methods already noted on other days are practised upon it—for instance the
pouring of molten lead into water, the flinging of shoes, the pulling out of
pieces of wood, and the floating of nutshells—and there are various others
which it might be tedious to describe. [10-31]

Among the southern Slavs if a girl wants to know what sort of husband she
will get, she covers the table on Christmas Eve, puts on it a white loaf, a
plate, and a knife, spoon, and fork, and goes to bed. At midnight the spirit of
her future husband will appear and fling the knife at her. If it falls without
injuring her she will get a good husband and be happy, but if she is hurt she
will die early. There is a similar mode of divination for a young fellow. On
Christmas Eve, when everybody else has gone to church, he must, naked and in
darkness, sift ashes through a sieve. His future bride will then appear, pull
him thrice by the nose, and go away. [10-32]

In eastern Europe Christmas, and especially Christmas Eve, is the time for
the singing of carols called in Russian Kolyádki, and in other Slav
countries by similar names derived from Kalendae. [10-33] More often than not these are without connection
with the Nativity; sometimes they have a Christian form and tell of the doings
of God, the Virgin and the saints, but frequently they are of an entirely
secular or even pagan character. Into some the sun, moon, and stars and other
natural objects are introduced, and they seem to be based on myths to which a
Christian appearance has been given by a sprinkling of names of holy persons of
the  Church. Here for instance is a fragment from a Carpathian
song:—

“A golden plough goes
ploughing,
And behind that plough is the Lord
Himself.
The holy Peter helps Him to
drive,
And the Mother of God carries the seed
corn,
Carries the seed corn, prays to the Lord
God,
‘Make, O Lord, the strong wheat to
grow,
The strong wheat and the vigorous
corn!
The stalks then shall be like reeds!’”
[10-34]

Often they contain wishes for the prosperity of the household and end with
the words, “for many years, for many years.” The Roumanian songs are frequently
very long, and a typical, oft-recurring refrain is:—

“This evening is a great
evening,
White flowers;
Great
evening of Christmas,
White flowers.”
[10-35]

Sometimes they are ballads of the national life.

In Russia a carol beginning “Glory be to God in heaven, Glory!” and calling
down blessings on the Tsar and his people, is one of the most prominent among
the Kolyádki, and opens the singing of the songs called
Podblyudnuiya. “At the Christmas festival a table is covered with a
cloth, and on it is set a dish or bowl (blyudo) containing water. The
young people drop rings or other trinkets into the dish, which is afterwards
covered with a cloth, and then the Podblyudnuiya Songs commence. At the
end of each song one of the trinkets is drawn at random, and its owner deduces
an omen from the nature of the words which have just been sung.” [10-36]

The Twelve Days.

Whatever the limits fixed for the beginning and end of the Christmas
festival, its core is always the period between Christmas  Eve and the Epiphany—the “Twelve Days.” [97] A cycle of feasts falls within this time, and the
customs peculiar to each day will be treated in calendarial order. First,
however, it will be well to glance at the character of the Twelve Days as a
whole, and at the superstitions which hang about the season. So many are these
superstitions, so “bewitched” is the time, that the older mythologists not
unnaturally saw in it a Teutonic festal season, dating from pre-Christian days.
In point of fact it appears to be simply a creation of the Church, a natural
linking together of Christmas and Epiphany. It is first mentioned as a festal
tide by the eastern Father, Ephraem Syrus, at the end of the fourth century, and
was declared to be such by the western Council of Tours in 567. [10-37]

While Christmas Eve is the night par excellence of the supernatural,
the whole season of the Twelve Days is charged with it. It is hard to see whence
Shakespeare could have got the idea which he puts into the mouth of Marcellus in
“Hamlet”:—

“Some say that ever ‘gainst that season
comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is
celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night
long;
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir
abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets
strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to
charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.”
[10-38]

Against this is the fact that in folk-lore Christmas is a quite peculiarly
uncanny time. Not unnatural is it that at this midwinter season of darkness,
howling winds, and raging storms, men should have thought to see and hear the
mysterious shapes and voices of dread beings whom the living shun.

Throughout the Teutonic world one finds the belief in a “raging  host” or “wild hunt” or spirits, rushing howling through
the air on stormy nights. In North Devon its name is “Yeth (heathen) hounds”; [10-40] elsewhere in the west of England it is called the
“Wish hounds.” [10-41] It is the train of the unhappy souls of those who
died unbaptized, or by violent hands, or under a curse, and often Woden is their
leader. [10-42] At least since the seventeenth century this “raging
host” (das wüthende Heer) has been particularly associated with Christmas
in German folk-lore, [10-43] and in Iceland it goes by the name of the “Yule
host.” [10-44]

In Guernsey the powers of darkness are supposed to be more than usually
active between St. Thomas's Day and New Year's Eve, and it is dangerous to be
out after nightfall. People are led astray then by Will o’ the Wisp, or are
preceded or followed by large black dogs, or find their path beset by white
rabbits that go hopping along just under their feet. [10-45]

In England there are signs that supernatural visitors were formerly looked
for during the Twelve Days. First there was a custom of cleansing the house and
its implements with peculiar care. In Shropshire, for instance, “the pewter and
brazen vessels had to be made so bright that the maids could see to put their
caps on in them—otherwise the fairies would pinch them, but if all was perfect,
the worker would find a coin in her shoe.” Again in Shropshire special care was
taken to put away any suds or “back-lee” for washing purposes, and no spinning
might be done during the Twelve Days. [10-46] It was said elsewhere that if any flax were left on
the distaff, the Devil would come and cut it. [10-47]

The prohibition of spinning may be due to the Church's hallowing of the
season and the idea that all work then was wrong. This churchly hallowing may
lie also at the root of the Danish tradition that from Christmas till New Year's
Day nothing that runs round should be set in motion, [10-48] and of the German idea that no thrashing must be
done during the Twelve Days, or all the corn within hearing will spoil. The
expectation of uncanny visitors in the English traditions calls, however, for
special attention; it is perhaps because of their coming that the house must be
left spotlessly clean and with as little as possible about on which they can
work mischief. [10-49] Though I know of no distinct English belief in the
 return of the family dead at Christmas, it may be that the
fairies expected in Shropshire were originally ancestral ghosts. Such a
derivation of the elves and brownies that haunt the hearth is very probable. [10-50]

The belief about the Devil cutting flax left on the
distaff links the English superstitions to the mysterious Frau with
various names, who in Germany is supposed to go her rounds during the Twelve
Nights. She has a special relation to spinning, often punishing girls who leave
their flax unspun. In central Germany and in parts of Austria she is called Frau
Holle or Holda, in southern Germany and Tyrol Frau Berchta or Perchta, in the
north down to the Harz Mountains Frau Freen or Frick, or Fru Gode or Fru Harke,
and there are other names too. [10-51] Attempts have been made to dispute her claim to the
rank of an old Teutonic goddess and to prove her a creation of the Middle Ages,
a representative of the crowd of ghosts supposed to be specially near to the
living at Christmastide. [10-52] It is questionable whether she can be thus explained
away, and at the back of the varying names, and much overlaid no doubt with
later superstitions, there may be a traditional goddess corresponding to that
old divinity Frigg to whom we owe the name of Friday. The connection of Frick
with Frigg is very probable, and Frick shares characteristics with the other
Frauen. [10-53]

All are connected with spinning and spinsters (in the literal sense). Fru
Frick or Freen in the Uckermark and the northern Harz permits no spinning during
the time when she goes her rounds, and if there are lazy spinsters she soils the
unspun flax on their distaff. In like manner do Holda, Harke, Berchta, and Gode
punish lazy girls. [10-54]

The characters of the Frauen can best be shown by the things told of
them in different regions. They are more dreaded than loved, but if severe in
their chastisements they are also generous in rewarding those who do them
service.

Frau Gaude (also called Gode, Gaue, or Wode) is said in Mecklenburg to love
to drive through the village streets on the Twelve Nights with a train of dogs.
Wherever she finds a street-door open she sends a little dog in. Next morning he
wags his  tail at the inmates and whines, and will not be driven
away. If killed, he turns into a stone by day; this, though it may be thrown
away, always returns and is a dog again by night. All through the year he whines
and brings ill luck upon the house; so people are careful to keep their
street-doors shut during the Twelve Nights. [10-55]

Good luck, however, befalls those who do Frau Gaude a service. A man who put
a new pole to her carriage was brilliantly repaid—the chips that fell from the
pole turned to glittering gold. Similar stories of golden chips are told about
Holda and Berchta. [10-56]

A train of dogs belongs not only to Frau Gaude but also to Frau Harke; with
these howling beasts they go raging through the air by night. [10-57] The Frauen in certain aspects are, indeed,
the leaders of the “Wild Host.”

Holda and Perchta, as some strange stories show, are the guides and guardians
of the heimchen or souls of children who have died unbaptized. In the
valley of the Saale, so runs a tale, Perchta, queen of the heimchen, had
her dwelling of old, and at her command the children watered the fields, while
she worked with her plough. But the people of the place were ungrateful, and she
resolved to leave their land. One night a ferryman beheld on the bank of the
Saale a tall, stately lady with a crowd of weeping children. She demanded to be
ferried across, and the children dragged a plough into the boat, crying
bitterly. As a reward for the ferrying, Perchta, mending her plough, pointed to
the chips. The man grumblingly took three, and in the morning they had turned to
gold-pieces. [10-58]

Holda, whose name means “the kindly one,” is the most friendly of the
Frauen. In Saxony she brings rewards for diligent spinsters, and on every
New Year's Eve, between nine and ten o'clock, she drives in a carriage full of
presents through villages where respect has been shown to her. At the crack of
her whip the people come out to receive her gifts. In Hesse and Thuringia she is
imagined as a beautiful woman clad in white with long golden hair, and, when it
snows hard, people say, “Frau Holle is shaking her featherbed.” [10-59]

More of a bugbear on the whole is Berchte or Perchte (the
name is variously spelt). She is particularly connected with the Eve of the
Epiphany, and it is possible that her name comes from the old German
giper(c)hta Na(c)ht, the bright or shining night, referring to the
manifestation of Christ's glory. [10-60] In Carinthia the Epiphany is still called
Berchtentag. [10-61]

Berchte is sometimes a bogey to frighten children. In the mountains round
Traunstein children are told on Epiphany Eve that if they are naughty she will
come and cut their stomachs open. [10-62] In Upper Austria the girls must finish their
spinning by Christmas; if Frau Berch finds flax still on their distaffs she will
be angered and send them bad luck. [10-63]

In the Orlagau (between the Saale and the Orle) on the night before Twelfth
Day, Perchta examines the spinning-rooms and brings the spinners empty reels
with directions to spin them full within a very brief time; if this is not done
she punishes them by tangling and befouling the flax. She also cuts open the
body of any one who has not eaten zemmede (fasting fare made of flour and
milk and water) that day, takes out any other food he has had, fills the empty
space with straw and bricks, and sews him up again. [10-64] And yet, as we have seen, she has a kindly side—at
any rate she rewards those who serve her—and in Styria at Christmas she even
plays the part of Santa Klaus, hearing children repeat their prayers and
rewarding them with nuts and apples. [10-65]

There is a charming Tyrolese story about her. At midnight on Epiphany Eve a
peasant—not too sober—suddenly heard behind him “a sound of many voices, which
came on nearer and nearer, and then the Berchtl, in her white clothing, her
broken ploughshare in her hand, and all her train of little people, swept
clattering and chattering close past him. The least was the last, and it wore a
long shirt which got in the way of its little bare feet, and kept tripping it
up. The peasant had sense enough left to feel compassion, so he took his garter
off and bound it for a girdle round the infant, and then set it again on its
way. When the Berchtl saw what he had done, she turned back and thanked him, and
told him that in return for his compassion his children should never come to
want.” [10-66]

In Tyrol, by the way, it is often said that the Perchtl is
Pontius Pilate's wife, Procula. [10-67] In the Italian dialects of south Tyrol the German
Frau Berchta has been turned into la donna Berta. [10-68] If one goes further south, into Italy itself, one
meets with a similar being, the Befana, whose name is plainly nothing but a
corruption of Epiphania. She is so distinctly a part of the Epiphany
festival that we may leave her to be considered later.

Of all supernatural Christmas visitors, the most vividly
realized and believed in at the present day are probably the Greek
Kallikantzaroi or Karkantzaroi. [10-69] They are the terror of the Greek peasant during the
Twelve Days; in the soil of his imagination they flourish luxuriantly, and to
him they are a very real and living nuisance.

Traditions about the Kallikantzaroi vary from region to region, but in
general they are half-animal, half-human monsters, black, hairy, with huge
heads, glaring red eyes, goats’ or asses’ ears, blood-red tongues hanging out,
ferocious tusks, monkeys’ arms, and long curved nails, and commonly they have
the foot of some beast. “From dawn till sunset they hide themselves in dark and
dank places... but at night they issue forth and run wildly to and fro, rending
and crushing those who cross their path. Destruction and waste, greed and lust
mark their course.” When a house is not prepared against their coming, “by
chimney and door alike they swarm in, and make havoc of the home; in sheer
wanton mischief they overturn and break all the furniture, devour the Christmas
pork, befoul all the water and wine and food which remains, and leave the
occupants half dead with fright or violence.” Many like or far worse pranks do
they play, until at the crowing of the third cock they get them away to their
dens. The signal for their final departure does not come until the Epiphany,
when, as we saw in  IV, the “Blessing of the Waters” takes place. Some of the hallowed water is
put into vessels, and with these and with incense the priests sometimes make a
round of the village, sprinkling the people and their houses. The fear of the  Kallikantzaroi at this purification is expressed in
the following lines:—

“Quick, begone! we must
begone,
Here comes the pot-bellied
priest,
With his censer in his hand
And his sprinkling-vessel too;
He has purified
the streams
And he has polluted
us.”

Besides this ecclesiastical purification there are various Christian
precautions against the Kallikantzaroi—e.g., to mark the
house-door with a black cross on Christmas Eve, the burning of incense and the
invocation of the Trinity—and a number of other means of aversion: the lighting
of the Yule log, the burning of something that smells strong, and—perhaps as a
peace-offering—the hanging of pork-bones, sweetmeats, or sausages in the
chimney.

Just as men are sometimes believed to become vampires temporarily during
their lifetime, so, according to one stream of tradition, do living men become
Kallikantzaroi. In Greece children born at Christmas are thought likely
to have this objectionable characteristic as a punishment for their mothers’ sin
in bearing them at a time sacred to the Mother of God. In Macedonia [10-70] people who have a “light” guardian angel undergo the
hideous transformation.

Many attempts have been made to account for the Kallikantzaroi.
Perhaps the most plausible explanation of the outward form, at least, of the
uncanny creatures, is the theory connecting them with the masquerades that
formed part of the winter festival of Dionysus and are still to be found in
Greece at Christmastide. The hideous bestial shapes, the noise and riot, may
well have seemed demoniacal to simple people slightly “elevated,” perhaps, by
Christmas feasting, while the human nature of the maskers was not altogether
forgotten. [10-71] Another theory of an even more prosaic character has
been propounded—“that the Kallikantzaroi are nothing more than established
nightmares, limited like indigestion to the twelve days of feasting. This view
is  taken by Allatius, who says that a Kallikantzaros has all
the characteristics of nightmare, rampaging abroad and jumping on men's
shoulders, then leaving them half senseless on the ground.” [10-72]

Such theories are ingenious and suggestive, and may be true to a certain
degree, but they hardly cover all the facts. It is possible that the
Kallikantzaroi may have some connection with the departed; they certainly
appear akin to the modern Greek and Slavonic vampire, “a corpse imbued with a
kind of half-life,” and with eyes gleaming like live coals. [10-73] They are, however, even more closely related to the
werewolf, a man who is supposed to change into a wolf and go about ravening. It
is to be noted that “man-wolves” (λυκανθρωποι) is the very name given to the
Kallikantzaroi in southern Greece, and that the word
Kallikantzaros itself has been conjecturally derived by Bernhard Schmidt
from two Turkish words meaning “black” and “werewolf.” [10-74] The connection between Christmas and werewolves is
not confined to Greece. According to a belief not yet extinct in the north and
east of Germany, even where the real animals have long ago been extirpated,
children born during the Twelve Nights become werewolves, while in Livonia and
Poland that period is the special season for the werewolf's ravenings. [10-75]

Perhaps on no question connected with primitive religion is there more
uncertainty than on the ideas of early man about the nature of animals and their
relation to himself and the world. When we meet with half-animal, half-human
beings we must be prepared to find much that is obscure.

With the Kallikantzaroi may be compared some goblins of the Celtic
imagination; especially like is the Manx Fynnodderee (lit. “the hairy-dun
one”), “something between a man and a beast, being covered with black shaggy
hair and having fiery eyes,” and prodigiously strong. [10-76] The Russian Domovy or house-spirit is also a
hirsute creature, [10-77] and the Russian Ljeschi, goat-footed woodland
sprites, are, like the Kallikantzaroi, supposed to be got rid of by the
“Blessing of the Waters” at the Epiphany. [10-78] Some of the monstrous German figures already dealt
with here  bear strong resemblances to the Greek demons. And, of
course, on Greek ground one cannot help thinking of Pan and the Satyrs and
Centaurs. [98]

Chapter X — The Yule Log

The Log as Centre of the Domestic Christmas—Customs of the Southern
Slavs—The Polaznik—Origin of the Yule Log—Probable Connection with
Vegetation-cults or Ancestor-worship—The Souche de Noël in
France—Italian and German Christmas Logs—English Customs—The Yule Candle in
England and Scandinavia.

The peoples of Europe have various centres for their Christmas rejoicing. In
Spain and Italy the crib is often the focus of the festival in the home as well
as the church. In England—after the old tradition—, in rural France, and among
the southern Slavs, the centre is the great log solemnly brought in and kindled
on the hearth, while in Germany, one need hardly say, the light-laden tree is
the supreme symbol of Christmas. The crib has already been treated in our First
Part, the Yule log and the Christmas-tree will be considered in this chapter and
the next.

The log placed on the fire on the Vigil of the Nativity no longer forms an
important part of the English Christmas. Yet within the memory of many it was a
very essential element in the celebration of the festival, not merely as giving
out welcome warmth in the midwinter cold, but as possessing occult, magical
properties. In some remote corners of England it probably lingers yet. We shall
return to the traditional English Yule log after a study of some Continental
customs of the same kind.

First, we may travel to a part of eastern Europe where the log ceremonies are
found in their most elaborate form. Among the Serbs and Croats on Christmas Eve
two or three young oaks are felled for every house, and, as twilight comes on,
are brought in and laid on the fire. (Sometimes there is one for each male  member of the family, but one large log is the centre of
the ritual.) The felling takes place in some districts before sunrise, corn
being thrown upon the trees with the words, “Good morning, Christmas!” At Risano
and other places in Lower Dalmatia the women and girls wind red silk and gold
wire round the oak trunks, and adorn them with leaves and flowers. While they
are being carried into the house lighted tapers are held on either side of the
door. As the house-father crosses the threshold in the twilight with the first
log, corn—or in some places wine—is thrown over him by one of the family. The
log or badnjak is then placed on the fire. At Ragusa the house-father
sprinkles corn and wine upon the badnjak, saying, as the flame shoots up,
“Goodly be thy birth!” In the mountains above Risano he not only pours corn and
wine but afterwards takes a bowl of corn, an orange, and a ploughshare, and
places them on the upper end of the log in order that the corn may grow well and
the beasts be healthy during the year. In Montenegro, instead of throwing corn,
he more usually breaks a piece of unleavened bread, places it upon the log, and
pours over it a libation of wine. [11-1]

The first visit on Christmas Day is considered important—we may compare this
with “first-footing” in the British Isles on January 1—and in order that
the right sort of person may come, some one is specially chosen to be the
so-called polaznik. No outsider but this polaznik may enter a
house on Christmas Day, where the rites are strictly observed. He appears in the
early morning, carries corn in his glove and shakes it out before the threshold
with the words, “Christ is born,” whereupon some member of the household
sprinkles him with corn in return, answering, “He is born indeed.” Afterwards
the polaznik goes to the fire and makes sparks fly from the remains of
the badnjak, at the same time uttering a wish for the good luck of the
house-father and his household and farm. Money and sometimes an orange are then
placed on the badnjak. It is not allowed to burn quite away; the last
remains of the fire are extinguished and the embers are laid between the
branches of young fruit-trees to promote their growth. [11-2]

How shall we interpret these practices? Mannhardt regards the log as an
embodiment of the vegetation-spirit, and its burning  as an efficacious symbol of sunshine, meant to secure the
genial vitalizing influence of the sun during the coming year. [11-3] It is, however, possible to connect it with a
different circle of ideas and to see in its burning the solemn annual rekindling
of the sacred hearth-fire, the centre of the family life and the dwelling-place
of the ancestors. Primitive peoples in many parts of the world are accustomed to
associate fire with human generation, [11-4] and it is a general belief among Aryan and other
peoples that ancestral spirits have their seat in the hearth. In Russia, for
instance, “in the Nijegorod Government it is still forbidden to break up the
smouldering faggots in a stove, because to do so might cause the ancestors to
fall through into hell. And when a Russian family moves from one house to
another, the fire is conveyed to the new one, where it is received with the
words, ‘Welcome, grandfather, to the new home!’” [11-5]

Sir Arthur Evans in three articles in Macmillan's Magazine for 1881 [11-6] gave a minute account of the Christmas customs of the
Serbian highlanders above Risano, who practise the log-rites with elaborate
ceremonial, and explained them as connected in one way or other with
ancestor-worship, though the people themselves attach a Christian meaning to
many of them. He pointed to the following facts as showing that the Serbian
Christmas is at bottom a feast of the dead:—(1) It is said on Christmas Eve,
“To-night Earth is blended with Paradise” [Raj, the abode of the dead
among the heathen Slavs]. (2) There is talk of unchristened folk beneath the
threshold wailing “for a wax-light and offerings to be brought them; when that
is done they lie still enough”—here there may be a modified survival of the
idea that ancestral spirits dwell beneath the doorway. (3) The food must on no
account be cleared away after the Christmas meal, but is left for three days,
apparently for the house-spirits. (4) Blessings are invoked upon the “Absent
Ones,” which seems to mean the departed, and (5) a toast is drunk and a
bread-cake broken in memory of “the Patron Namegiver of all house-fathers,”
ostensibly Christ but perhaps originally the founder of the family. Some of
these customs resemble those we have noted on All Souls’ Eve and—in
Scandinavia—on Christmas Eve; other parallels we shall meet  with later. Among the Slav races the old organization of
the family under an elective house-elder and holding things in common has been
faithfully preserved, and we might expect to find among the remote Serbian
highlanders specially clear traces of the old religion of the hearth. One
remarkable point noted by Sir Arthur Evans was that in the Crivoscian cottage
where he stayed the fire-irons, the table, and the stools were removed to an
obscure corner before the logs were brought in and the Christmas rites began—an
indication apparently of the extreme antiquity of the celebration, as dating
from a time when such implements were unknown. [11-7]

If we take the view that ancestral spirits are the centre of the
badnjak observances, we may regard the libations upon the fire as
intended for their benefit. On the sun and vegetation hypothesis, however, the
libations would be meant to secure, by homoeopathic magic, that sunshine should
alternate with the rain necessary for the welfare of plants. [99] [11-8] The fertilizing powers possessed by the sparks and
ashes of the Christmas log appear frequently in folk-lore, and may be explained
either by the connection of fire with human generation already noted, or, on the
other theory, by the burning log being a sort of sacrament of sunshine. It is
not perhaps necessary to exclude the idea of the log's connection with the
vegetation-spirit even on the ancestral cult hypothesis, for the tree which
furnished the fuel may have been regarded as the source of the life of the
race. [11-9] The Serbian rites certainly suggest very strongly some
sort of veneration for the log itself as well as for the fire that it feeds.

We may now return to western Europe. In France the
Christmas log or souche de Noël is common in the less modernized places,
particularly in the south. In Dauphiné it is called chalendal,  in Provence calignaou (from Kalendae, of
course) or tréfoir, in Orne tréfouet. On Christmas Eve in Provence
the whole family goes solemnly out to bring in the log. A carol meanwhile is
sung praying for blessings on the house, that the women may bear children, the
nanny-goats kids, and the ewes lambs, that corn and flour may abound, and the
cask be full of wine. Then the youngest child in the family pours wine on the
log in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The log is then thrown upon
the fire, and the charcoal is kept all the year and used as a remedy for various
ills. [11-11]

Another account is given in his Memoirs by Frédéric Mistral, the Provençal
poet. On Christmas Eve everyone, he says, speaking of his boyhood, sallied forth
to fetch the Yule log, which had to be cut from a fruit-tree:—

“Walking in line we bore it home, headed by the oldest at one end, and I,
the last born, bringing up the rear. Three times we made the tour of the
kitchen, then, arrived at the flagstones of the hearth, my father solemnly
poured over the log a glass of wine, with the dedicatory words:

‘Joy, joy. May God shower joy upon us, my dear children. Christmas brings
us all good things. God give us grace to see the New Year, and if we do not
increase in numbers may we at all events not decrease.’

In chorus we responded:

‘Joy, joy, joy!’ and lifted the log on the fire dogs. Then as the first
flame leapt up my father would cross himself, saying, ‘Burn the log, O fire,’
and with that we all sat down to the table.” [11-12]

In some places the tréfoir or tison de Noël is burnt every
evening during the Thirteen Nights. If put under the bed its charcoal protects
the house all the year round from lightning; contact with it preserves people
from chilblains and animals from various diseases; mixed with fodder it makes
cows calve; its brands thrown into the soil keep the corn healthy. In Périgord
the portion which has not been burnt is used to form part of a plough, and is
believed to make the seed prosper; women also keep some fragments until Epiphany
that their poultry may thrive. [11-13] In  Brittany the tison is a protection against lightning
and its ashes are put in wells to keep the water good. [11-14]

In northern Italy also the ceppo or log is (or was) known—the
Piedmontese call it suc—and in Tuscany Christmas is called after it
Festa di Ceppo. In the Val di Chiana on Christmas Eve the family gathers,
a great log is set on the fire, the children are blindfolded and have to beat it
with tongs, and an Ave Maria del Ceppo is sung. [11-15] Under the name in Lombardy of zocco, in
Tuscany of ciocco, di Natale, the Yule log was in olden times
common in Italian cities; the custom can there be traced back to the eleventh
century. A little book probably printed in Milan at the end of the fifteenth
century gives minute particulars of the ritual observed, and we learn that on
Christmas Eve the father, or the head of the household, used to call all the
family together and with great devotion, in the name of the Holy Trinity, take
the log and place it on the fire. Juniper was put under it, and on the top money
was placed, afterwards to be given to the servants. Wine in abundance was poured
three times on the fire when the head of the house had drunk and given drink to
all present. It was an old Italian custom to preserve the ashes of the
zocco as a protection against hail. A modern superstition is to keep some
splinters of the wood and burn them in the fires made for the benefit of
silkworms; so burnt, they are supposed to keep ills away from the creatures. [11-16]

In many parts of Germany Yule log customs can be traced. In Hesse and
Westphalia, for instance, it was the custom on Christmas Eve or Day to lay a
large block of wood on the fire and, as soon as it was charred a little, to take
it off and preserve it. When a storm threatened, it was kindled again as a
protection against lightning. It was called the Christbrand. [11-17] In Thuringia a Christklotz (Christ log) is
put on the fire before people go to bed, so that it may burn all through the
night. Its remains are kept to protect the house from fire and ill-luck. In
parts of Thuringia and in Mecklenburg, Pomerania, East Prussia, Saxony, and
Bohemia, the fire is kept up all night on Christmas or New Year's Eve, and the
ashes are used to rid cattle of vermin and protect plants and fruit-trees from
insects, while in the country between the Sieg  and Lahn the powdered ashes of an oaken log are strewn
during the Thirteen Nights on the fields, to increase their fertility. [11-18] In Sweden, too, some form of Yule log was known, [11-19] and in Greece, as we have seen, the burning of a log
is still supposed to be a protection against Kallikantzaroi.

As for the English customs, they can hardly be better introduced than in
Herrick's words:—

“Come, bring, with a noise,
My merry, merry boys,
The Christmas Log to the
firing:
While my good Dame she
Bids ye all be free,
And drink to your hearts’
desiring.
With the last year's Brand
Light the new Block, and
For good success in
his spending,
On your psaltries play,
That sweet luck may
Come while the log is
a-teending.”
[100]

[11-20]

We may note especially that the block must be kindled with last year's brand;
here there is a distinct suggestion that the lighting of the log at Christmas is
a shrunken remnant of the keeping up of a perpetual fire, the continuity being
to some extent preserved by the use of a brand from last year's blaze.

Another tradition and its origin are thus described by Sir Laurence
Gomme:—

“From there being an ever-burning fire, it has come to be that the fire
must not be allowed to be extinguished on the last day of the old year, so
that the old year's fire may last into the new year. In Lanarkshire it is
considered unlucky to give out a light to any one on the morning of the new
year, and therefore if the house-fire has been allowed to become extinguished
recourse must be had to the embers of  the village pile [for on New Year's Eve a great public
bonfire is made]. In some places the self-extinction of the yule-log at
Christmas is portentous of evil.” [11-21]

In the north of England in the days of tinder-boxes, if any one could not get
a light it was useless to ask a neighbour for one, so frightfully unlucky was it
to allow any light to leave the house between Christmas Eve and New Year's
Day. [11-22] The idea of the unluckiness of giving out fire at
the Kalends of January can be traced back to the eighth century when, as we saw
in  VI, St. Boniface alluded to this superstition among the people or Rome.

In Shropshire the idea is extended even to ashes, which must not be thrown
out of the house on Christmas Day, “for fear of throwing them in Our Saviour's
face.” Perhaps such superstitions may originally have had to do with dread that
the “luck” of the family, the household spirit, might be carried away with the
gift of fire from the hearth. [11-23]

When Miss Burne wrote in the eighties there were still many West Shropshire
people who could remember seeing the “Christmas Brand” drawn by horses to the
farmhouse door, and placed at the back of the wide open hearth, where the flame
was made up in front of it. “The embers,” says one informant, “were raked up to
it every night, and it was carefully tended that it might not go out during the
whole season, during which time no light might either be struck, given, or
borrowed.” At Cleobury Mortimer in the south-east of the county the silence of
the curfew bell during “the Christmas” points to a time when fires might not be
extinguished during that season. [11-24]

The place of the Yule log in Devonshire is taken by the “ashen [sometimes
“ashton”] faggot,” still burnt in many a farm on Christmas Eve. The sticks of
ash are fastened together by ashen bands, and the traditional custom is for a
quart of cider to be called for and served to the merrymaking company, as each
band bursts in the flames. [11-25]

In England the Yule log was often supplemented or replaced  by a great candle. At Ripon in the eighteenth century the
chandlers sent their customers large candles on Christmas Eve, and the coopers,
logs of wood. [11-26] Hampson, writing in 1841, says:—

“In some places candles are made of a particular kind, because the candle
that is lighted on Christmas Day must be so large as to burn from the time of
its ignition to the close of the day, otherwise it will portend evil to the
family for the ensuing year. The poor were wont to present the rich with wax
tapers, and yule candles are still in the north of Scotland given by merchants
to their customers. At one time children at the village schools in Lancashire
were required to bring each a mould candle before the parting or
separation for the Christmas holidays.” [101] [11-27]

In the Scandinavian countries the Yule candle is, or was, very prominent
indeed. In West Jutland (Denmark) two great tallow candles stood on the festive
board. No one dared to touch or extinguish them, and if by any mischance one
went out it was a portent of death. They stood for the husband and wife, and
that one of the wedded pair whose candle burnt the longer would outlive the
other. [11-28]

In Norway also two lights were placed on the table. [11-29] All over the Scandinavian lands the Yule candle had
to burn throughout the night; it was not to be extinguished till the sun rose
or—as was said elsewhere—till the beginning of service on Christmas Day.
Sometimes the putting-out had to be done by the oldest member of the family or
the father of the household. In Norway the candle was lighted every evening
until New Year's Day. While it foreshadowed death if it went out, so long as it
duly burned it shed a blessing with its light, and, in order to secure abundance
of good things, money, clothes, food, and drink were spread out that its rays
might fall upon them. The remains of the candle were used in various ways to
benefit man and beast. Sometimes a cross was branded with them upon the animals
on Christmas morning; in Sweden the plough was smeared with  the tallow, when used for the first time in spring. Or
again the tallow was given to the fowls; and, lastly, in Denmark the ends were
preserved and burnt in thundery weather to protect the house from lightning. [11-30] There is an analogy here with the use of the
Christmas log, and also of the candles of the Purification (see  XVI).

Chapter XI — The Christmas-Tree, Decorations, and Gifts

The Christmas-tree a German Creation—Charm of the German Christmas—Early
Christmas-trees—The Christmas Pyramid—Spread of the Tree in Modern Germany
and other Countries—Origin of the Christmas-tree—Beliefs about Flowering
Trees at Christmas—Evergreens at the Kalends—Non-German Parallels to the
Christmas-tree—Christmas Decorations connected with Ancient Kalends
Customs—Sacredness of Holly and Mistletoe—Floors strewn with
Straw—Christmas and New Year Gifts, their Connection with the Roman
Strenae and St. Nicholas—Present-giving in Various
Countries—Christmas Cards.

The Christmas-tree.

The most widespread, and to children the most delightful, of all festal
institutions is the Christmas-tree. Its picturesqueness and gay charm have made
it spread rapidly all over Europe without roots in national tradition, for, as
most people know, it is a German creation, and even in Germany it attained its
present immense popularity only in the nineteenth century. To Germany, of
course, one should go to see the tree in all its glory. Many people, indeed,
maintain that no other Christmas can compare with the German Weihnacht.
“It is,” writes Miss I. A. R. Wylie, “that childish, open-hearted simplicity
which, so it seems to me, makes Christmas essentially German, or at any rate
explains why it is that nowhere else in the world does it find so pure an
expression. The German is himself simple, warm-hearted, unpretentious, with
something at the bottom of him which is childlike in the best sense. He is the
last ‘Naturmensch’ in civilization.” Christmas suits him “as well as a play
suits an actor for whose character and temperament it has been especially
written.” [12-1]

In Germany the Christmas-tree is not a luxury for
well-to-do people as in England, but a necessity, the very centre of the
festival; no one is too poor or too lonely to have one. There is something about
a German Weihnachtsbaum—a romance and a wonder—that English
Christmas-trees do not possess. For one thing, perhaps, in a land of forests the
tree seems more in place; it is a kind of sacrament linking mankind to the
mysteries of the woodland. Again the German tree is simply a thing of beauty and
radiance; no utilitarian presents hang from its boughs—they are laid apart on a
table—and the tree is purely splendour for splendour's sake. However tawdry it
may look by day, at night it is a true thing of wonder, shining with countless
lights and glittering ornaments, with fruit of gold and shimmering festoons of
silver. Then there is the solemnity with which it is surrounded; the long secret
preparations behind the closed doors, and, when Christmas Eve arrives, the
sudden revelation of hidden glory. The Germans have quite a religious feeling
for their Weihnachtsbaum, coming down, one may fancy, from some dim
ancestral worship of the trees of the wood.

As Christmas draws near the market-place in a German town is filled with a
miniature forest of firs; the trees are sold by old women in quaint costumes,
and the shop-windows are full of candles and ornaments to deck them. Mrs. Alfred
Sidgwick in her “Home Life in Germany” gives a delightful picture of such a
Christmas market in “one of the old German cities in the hill country, when the
streets and the open places are covered with crisp clean snow, and the mountains
are white with it.... The air is cold and still, and heavy with the scent of the
Christmas-trees brought from the forest for the pleasure of the children. Day by
day you see the rows of them growing thinner, and if you go to the market on
Christmas Eve itself you will find only a few trees left out in the cold. The
market is empty, the peasants are harnessing their horses or their oxen, the
women are packing up their unsold goods. In every home in the city one of the
trees that scented the open air a week ago is shining now with lights and little
gilded nuts and apples, and is helping to make that Christmas smell, all compact
of the pine forest, wax  candles, cakes and painted toys, you must associate so long
as you live with Christmas in Germany.” [12-2]

Even in London one may get a glimpse of the Teutonic Christmas in the
half-German streets round Fitzroy Square. They are bald and drab enough, but at
Christmas here and there a window shines with a lighted tree, and the very
prosaic Lutheran church in Cleveland Street has an unwonted sight to show—two
great fir-trees decked with white candles, standing one on each side of the
pulpit. The church of the German Catholics, too, St. Boniface's, Whitechapel,
has in its sanctuary two Christmas-trees strangely gay with coloured glistening
balls and long strands of gold and silver engelshaar. The candles are lit
at Benediction during the festival, and between the shining trees the solemn
ritual is performed by the priest and a crowd of serving boys in scarlet and
white with tapers and incense.

There is a pretty story about the institution of the
Weihnachtsbaum by Martin Luther: how, after wandering one Christmas Eve
under the clear winter sky lit by a thousand stars, he set up for his children a
tree with countless candles, an image of the starry heaven whence Christ came
down. This, however, belongs to the region of legend; the first historical
mention of the Christmas-tree is found in the notes of a certain Strasburg
citizen of unknown name, written in the year 1605. “At Christmas,” he writes,
“they set up fir-trees in the parlours at Strasburg and hang thereon roses cut
out of many-coloured paper, apples, wafers, gold-foil, sweets, &c.” [12-3]

We next meet with the tree in a hostile allusion by a distinguished Strasburg
theologian, Dr. Johann Konrad Dannhauer, Professor and Preacher at the
Cathedral. In his book, “The Milk of the Catechism,” published about the middle
of the seventeenth century, he speaks of “the Christmas- or fir-tree, which
people set up in their houses, hang with dolls and sweets, and afterwards shake
and deflower.” “Whence comes the custom,” he says, “I know not; it is child's
play.... Far better were it to point the children to the spiritual cedar-tree,
Jesus Christ.” [12-4]

In neither of these references is there any mention of candles—the  most fascinating feature of the modern tree. These appear,
however, in a Latin work on Christmas presents by Karl Gottfried Kissling of the
University of Wittenberg, written in 1737. He tells how a certain country lady
of his acquaintance set up a little tree for each of her sons and daughters, lit
candles on or around the trees, laid out presents beneath them, and called her
children one by one into the room to take the trees and gifts intended for
them. [12-5]

With the advance of the eighteenth-century notices of the
Weihnachtsbaum become more frequent: Jung Stilling, Goethe, Schiller, and
others mention it, and about the end of the century its use seems to have been
fairly general in Germany. [12-6] In many places, however, it was not common till well
on in the eighteen hundreds: it was a Protestant rather than a Catholic
institution, and it made its way but slowly in regions where the older faith was
held. [12-7] Well-to-do townspeople welcomed it first, and the
peasantry were slow to adopt it. In Old Bavaria, for instance, in 1855 it was
quite unknown in country places, and even to-day it is not very common there,
except in the towns. [12-8] “It is more in vogue on the whole,” wrote Dr. Tille in
1893, “in the Protestant north than in the Catholic south,” [12-9] but its popularity was rapidly growing at that
time.

A common substitute for the Christmas-tree in Saxony during the nineteenth
century, and one still found in country places, was the so-called “pyramid,” a
wooden erection adorned with many-coloured paper and with lights. These pyramids
were very popular among the smaller bourgeoisie and artisans, and were
kept from one Christmas to another. [12-10] In Berlin, too, the pyramid was once very common. It
was there adorned with green twigs as well as with candles and coloured paper,
and had more resemblance to the Christmas-tree. [12-11] Tieck refers to it in his story, “Weihnacht-Abend”
(1805). [12-12]

Pyramids, without lights apparently, were known in England before 1840. In
Hertfordshire they were formed of gilt evergreens, apples, and nuts, and were
carried about just before Christmas for presents. In Herefordshire they were
known at the New Year. [12-13]

The Christmas-tree was introduced into France in 1840, when
Princess Helene of Mecklenburg brought it to Paris. In 1890 between thirty and
thirty-five thousand of the trees are said to have been sold in Paris. [12-14]

In England it is alluded to in 1789, [12-15] but its use did not become at all general until
about the eighteen-forties. In 1840 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had a
Christmas-tree, and the fashion spread until it became completely
naturalized. [12-16] In Denmark and Norway it was known in 1830, and in
Sweden in 1863 (among the Swedish population on the coast of Finland it seems to
have been in use in 1800). [12-17] In Bohemia it is mentioned in 1862. [12-18] It is also found in Russia, the United States,
Spain, Italy, and Holland, [12-19] and of course in Switzerland and Austria, so largely
German in language and customs. In non-German countries it is rather a thing for
the well-to-do classes than for the masses of the people.

The Christmas-tree is essentially a domestic institution. It has, however,
found its way into Protestant churches in Germany and from them into Catholic
churches. Even the Swiss Zwinglians, with all their Puritanism, do not exclude
it from their bare, white-washed fanes. In the Münsterthal, for instance, a
valley of Romonsch speech, off the Lower Engadine, a tree decked with candles,
festoons, presents, and serpent-squibs, stands in church at Christmas, and it is
difficult for the minister to conduct service, for all the time, except during
the prayers, the people are letting off fireworks. On one day between Christmas
Eve and New Year there is a great present-giving in church. [12-20]

In Munich, and doubtless elsewhere, the tree appears not only in the church
and in the home, but in the cemetery. The graves of the dead are decked on
Christmas Eve with holly and mistletoe and a little Christmas-tree with gleaming
lights, a touching token of remembrance, an attempt, perhaps, to give the
departed a share in the brightness of the festival. [12-21]

The question of the origin of Christmas-trees is of great
interest. Though their affinity to other sacraments of the  vegetation-spirit is evident, it is difficult to be certain
of their exact ancestry. Dr. Tille regards them as coming from a union of two
elements: the old Roman custom of decking houses with laurels and green trees at
the Kalends of January, and the popular belief that every Christmas Eve apple
and other trees blossomed and bore fruit. [12-22]

Before the advent of the Christmas-tree proper—a fir with lights and
ornaments often imitating and always suggesting flowers and fruit—it was
customary to put trees like cherry or hawthorn into water or into pots indoors,
so that they might bud and blossom at New Year or Christmas. [12-23] Even to-day the practice of picking boughs in order
that they may blossom at Christmas is to be found in some parts of Austria. In
Carinthia girls on St. Lucia's Day (December 13) stick a cherry-branch into
wet sand; if it blooms at Christmas their wishes will be fulfilled. In other
parts the branches—pear as well as cherry—are picked on St. Barbara's Day
(December 4), and in South Tyrol cherry-trees are manured with lime on the
first Thursday in Advent so that they may blossom at Christmas. [12-24] The custom may have had to do with legendary lore
about the marvellous transformation of Nature on the night of Christ's birth,
when the rivers ran wine instead of water and trees stood in full blossom in
spite of ice and snow. [12-25]

In England there was an old belief in trees blossoming at Christmas,
connected with the well-known legend of St. Joseph of Arimathea. When the saint
settled at Glastonbury he planted his staff in the earth and it put forth
leaves; moreover it blossomed every Christmas Eve. Not only the original thorn
at Glastonbury but trees of the same species in other parts of England had this
characteristic. When in 1752 the New Style was substituted for the Old, making
Christmas fall twelve days earlier, folks were curious to see what the thorns
would do. At Quainton in Buckinghamshire two thousand people, it is said, went
out on the new Christmas Eve to view a blackthorn which had the Christmas
blossoming habit. As no sign of buds was visible they agreed that the new
Christmas could not be right, and refused to keep it. At Glastonbury itself
nothing  happened on December 24, but on January 5, the
right day according to the Old Style, the thorn blossomed as usual. [102] [12-26]

Let us turn to the customs of the Roman Empire which may be in part
responsible for the German Christmas-tree. The practice of adorning houses with
evergreens at the January Kalends was common throughout the Empire, as we learn
from Libanius, Tertullian, and Chrysostom. A grim denunciation of such
decorations and the lights which accompanied them may be quoted from Tertullian;
it makes a pregnant contrast of pagan and Christian. “Let them,” he says of the
heathen, “kindle lamps, they who have no light; let them fix on the doorposts
laurels which shall afterwards be burnt, they for whom fire is close at hand;
meet for them are testimonies of darkness and auguries of punishment. But thou,”
he says to the Christian, “art a light of the world and a tree that is ever
green; if thou hast renounced temples, make not a temple of thy own
house-door.” [12-27]

That these New Year practices of the Empire had to do with the
Weihnachtsbaum is very possible, but on the other hand it has closer
parallels in certain folk-customs that in no way suggest Roman or Greek
influence. Not only at Christmas are ceremonial “trees” to be found in Germany.
In the Erzgebirge there is dancing at the summer solstice round “St. John's
tree,” a pyramid decked with garlands and flowers, and lit up at night by
candles. [12-28] At midsummer “in the towns of the Upper Harz
Mountains tall fir-trees, with the bark peeled off their lower trunks, were set
up in open places and decked with flowers and eggs, which were painted yellow
and red. Round these trees the young folk danced by day and the old folk in the
evening”; [12-29] while on Dutch ground in Gelderland and Limburg at
the beginning of May trees were adorned with lights. [12-30]

Nearer to Christmas is a New Year's custom found in some  Alsatian villages: the adorning of the fountain with a
“May.” The girls who visit the fountain procure a small fir-tree or holly-bush,
and deck it with ribbons, egg-shells, and little figures representing a shepherd
or a man beating his wife. This is set up above the fountain on New Year's Eve.
On the evening of the next day the snow is carefully cleared away and the girls
dance and sing around the fountain. The lads may only take part in the dance by
permission of the girls. The tree is kept all through the year as a protection
to those who have set it up. [12-31]

In Sweden, before the advent of the German type of tree, it was customary to
place young pines, divested of bark and branches, outside the houses at
Christmastide. [12-32] An English parallel which does not suggest any
borrowing from Germany, was formerly to be found at Brough in Westmoreland on
Twelfth Night. A holly-tree with torches attached to its branches was carried
through the town in procession. It was finally thrown among the populace, who
divided into two parties, one of which endeavoured to take the tree to one inn,
and the other, to a rival hostelry. [12-33] We have here pretty plainly a struggle of two
factions—perhaps of two quarters of a town that were once separate
villages—for the possession of a sacred object. [103]

We may find parallels, lastly, in two remote corners of Europe. In the island
of Chios—here we are on Greek ground—tenants are wont to offer to their
landlords on Christmas morning a rhamna, a pole with wreaths of myrtle,
olive, and orange leaves bound around it; “to these are fixed any flowers that
may be found—geraniums, anemones, and the like, and, by way of further
decoration, oranges, lemons, and strips of gold and coloured paper.” [104] [12-34] Secondly, among the Circassians in the early half of
the nineteenth century, a young pear-tree used to be carried into each house at
an autumn festival, to the sound of music and joyous cries. It was covered with
candles, and a cheese was fastened to its top. Round about it they ate, drank,
and sang. Afterwards it was  removed to the courtyard, where it remained for the rest of
the year. [12-36]

Though there is no recorded instance of the use of a tree at Christmas in
Germany before the seventeenth century, the Weihnachtsbaum may well be a
descendant of some sacred tree carried about or set up at the
beginning-of-winter festival. All things considered, it seems to belong to a
class of primitive sacraments of which the example most familiar to English
peoples is the May-pole. This is, of course, an early summer institution, but in
France and Germany a Harvest May is also known—a large branch or a whole tree,
which is decked with ears of corn, brought home on the last waggon from the
harvest field, and fastened to the roof of farmhouse or barn, where it remains
for a year. [12-37] Mannhardt has shown that such sacraments embody the
tree-spirit conceived as the spirit of vegetation in general, and are believed
to convey its life-giving, fructifying influences. Probably the idea of contact
with the spirit of growth lay also beneath the Roman evergreen decorations, so
that whether or not we connect the Christmas-tree with these, the principle at
the bottom is the same.

Certain Christian ideas, finally, besides that of trees blossoming on the
night of the Nativity, may have affected the fortunes of the Christmas-tree.
December 24 was in old Church calendars the day of Adam and Eve, the idea
being that Christ the second Adam had repaired by His Incarnation the loss
caused by the sin of the first. A legend grew up that Adam when he left Paradise
took with him an apple or sprout from the Tree of Knowledge, and that from this
sprang the tree from which the Cross was made. Or it was said that on Adam's
grave grew a sprig from the Tree of Life, and that from it Christ plucked the
fruit of redemption. The Cross in early Christian poetry was conceived as the
Tree of Life planted anew, bearing the glorious fruit of Christ's body, and
repairing the mischief wrought by the misuse of the first tree. We may recall a
verse from the “Pange, lingua” of Passiontide:—