 Section 17 of Christmas and Christmas Lore, this is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. Christmas and Christmas Lore by Thomas G. Krippen Legendary, Mystical and Modern Carols Some of the old carols are very rich in legendary lore, sometimes from the Apple-Kreiffel Gospels, sometimes from sources which cannot now be identified. There are often comical adaptations of Oriental matters to Western surroundings, and in the famous cherry tree carol, which tree in the original legend is a date palm, Joseph is an old man, walking with his young bride in a garden gay where cherries were growing on every spray. He is troubled with a fit of jealousy, and when Mary asks him for cherries he replies in rude language, suggesting doubts as to the truth of the message which he has had from the angel, but his doubts are soon dispelled and his jealousy reboot. For Mary said to the cherry tree, bow down to my knee, that I may gather cherries by one, two, and three. The uppermost bow then bow down to her knee. Now you see, Joseph, those cherries were for me. Joseph asked pardon for his unjust suspicions, and ere long an angel tells him that our heavenly king will shortly appear. He shall not be born in house or in hall, nor in the place of paradise but in an ox's stall. He shall not be wrapped in purple nor in pall, but in fair white linen as unsend babies all. He shall not be rocked in silver nor in gold, but in a wooden manger that rests death on the mould. The charming simplicity of these lines is immutable. Even a less widely known carol, the carnal and the crane, the minstrel who evidently understands the language of birds, repeats an overheard confabulation between a crane and a carnal, presumably a carion-cro, French, corneal. They narrate two old legends, both of medieval origin. Most the wise men tell Herod that Christ is born. If this be true, King Herod said, which thou tellest to me? This roasted cock that lies in the dish shall crow full fancies three. The cock soon freshly feathered was by the work of God's old hand. When he crewed, Christus Knightus est, in the dish where he did stand. The holy family journey toward Egypt, the wild beast worshipped the child, and he is recognized and honored by a husband men who is sowing corn. Godspeed thee, man, said Jesus, go fetch thy ox and wane, and the corn which thou this day has sown, go, carry it home again. The harvest thus miraculously hastened is reaped and loaded. Then there comes King Herod, with his train so furiously, inquiring of the husband men whether Jesus passed by. The husband men replies that, Jesus passed this way when my seed was sown, and Herod retreats, thinking it must be full quarters of a year since his seed has sown. Some of the carols represent the infant Christ as predicting his passion, in one of them Mary is weeping at the recital. Now peace, mother, now peace, mother, your weeping doth me grieve, for I must suffer this, he says, for Adam and for Eve. Some carols of the holy childhood are not over-reverent. The weathy carol, for example, of which variants are found in Herfordshire and in Ireland, in this the child Jesus is insulted by three boys. To prove his superiority over them he builds a bridge of sunbeams on which the attempt to follow him over the sea, but fall in and are drowned. For this Mary chastises him with a green witty, and he avenges himself by a curse on the entire species. The weathy shall be the very first tree that perishes at the heart. This is much on the lines of the worst things in the apocryphal gospels. In the carol of the holy well, which seems to be of rather later origin, we are on far higher moral ground. The child Jesus, having asked of his mother if he might go to play, goes as far as the holy well, but is repulsed by the other children, lords and ladies, sons, whom he finds there. Mary hears of it and is angry and begs him to take away those sinful souls and plunge them deep in hell. Nay, nay, sweet Jesus mildly said, Nay, nay, that must not be. There are too many sinful souls crying out for the help of me. Of numeral carols such as the twelve articles, twelve points, and the like, little needs to be said. Their form is probably due to a fanciful association with the twelve days of Christmas, otherwise they would be equally suitable to any other season. The same may be said of Dives and Lazarus, Jacob's Ladder, The Boy's Dream, The Seven Virgins, and others which, without any intelligible reason, are found in Christmas chap books. We seem to have no English specimens of the satirical carols which are heard in France, especially in Brittany, wherein the singers of one village indulge in seasonable gibbs at those of another, but we have carols which seem to have been originally mystical or allegorical, but to be so corrupted by oral tradition as to have become mere nonsense verses. Such are Christmas Day in the morning, and that class of numeral carols of which the Seven Joys is a fair sample. A mystical or allegorical carol beginning, Lully Lulli, the falcon has borne my mate away, is assigned to the fourteenth century. It contains evident allusions to the altar, the sacrament, and perhaps to some incidents in the legend of the Holy Grail. But the meaning is by no means easy to determine. A mystical carol of considerable length and by no means devoid of beauty is ascribed to John Oddly, a blind monk of Hogmont Abbey. Celep, the style is that of the early fifteenth century. The following are a few stanzas. There is a flower sprung of a tree. The root thereof is called Jesse, a flower of price. There is none such in paradise. The seed thereof was God's saund, that God himself sowed with his hand. In Bethlehem, in that holy land, amidst her harbour, he there her fend. This blissful flower sprang never but in Mary's bower. Angels there came out of their tower to look upon this freshly flower, how fair he was in his color, and to behold, how such a flower might spring in gold. I pray the flowers of this country, where ye go, where ye be, hold up the flower of good Jesse, for your freshness and your beauty, as fairest of all, and ever was, and ever shall. Happily one of the best of the English mystical carols has come down to us without serious corruption. In this the singer personates our Lord. It is the event of his marriage with his true love, the church. Tomorrow shall be my dancing day. I would my true love, so did chance, to see the legend of my play, to call my true love to my dance. In a manger laid and wrapped I was, so very poor this was my chance. In an ox and a silly poor ass, to call my true love to my dance. The incidents of his baptism, fasting, and temptation, his betrayal and passion are similarly told. Then down to hell I took my way for my true love's deliverance, and rose again on the third day, up to my true love and the dance. Then up to heaven I did ascend, where now I dwell insure substance at the right hand of God that men may come into the general dance. Several of the Elizabethan poets wrote carols of a more refined character. We have good ones from the pens of Herrick wither and other poets of the time of Charles I, but the ascendancy of puritism was, for the time, as fatal to carols as to maples. After the restoration there were festive songs and plenty, but few carols. The rustic muse here and there produced godly ballads of the childhood and life of Jesus, some of which of great length still do duty for carols, or did so quite lately in various places, but all ye that are to mirth inclined, faithful Christians, the black decree and Coleman's carol, though not bad of their kind, have not the art the spontaneity of the true carol. By far the best of the class is the famous song of Nahum Tate, where shepherds watched their flocks by night, which has served to keep from oblivion a name that else had deserved to be dragged down to the deepest pool of leth by the dead weight of his new version of the Psalms and his perversions of Shakespeare, but the song is a P.S. ballad, not a carol. The festive element is lacking, there is no dance in it, unless per chance it be sung to the old rollicking tune of Nativity. It forms a kind of transition from the true carols to the hymns of which the Methodist Revival brought forth such a glorious harvest, but who needs to be reminded of Hark, the Herald Angel Sing, or Christians Awake, or Angels from the Realms of Glory, or Rightest and Best, or It Came Upon the Midnight Clear. Hone, writing in 1823, gave a list of eighty-five carols which he had collected. Of this he says, it excludes all that are disused at the present time, nor does it contain any of the numerous compositions printed by religious societies under the denomination of carols. Of these about half have appeared in chapbooks within the last thirty years, but nine or ten of them are really hymns. When Hone wrote it seemed as if the singing of carols had almost died out except in remote country places extinguished by the unitarian spirit of the age. Carols, he said, begin to be spoken of as not belonging to this century, but a new generation arose which had eyes to see that the past, however faulty, was not wholly bad. Careful editors and enterprising publishers made familiar to the public the best of the old carols with their proper tunes as well as translations from alien sources and modern poets imbued with the true Christmas spirit have produced many new carols scarcely inferior to the old. End of Section 17, Recording by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. Section number 18 of Christmas and Christmas Lore. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. Christmas and Christmas Lore by Thomas G. Crippen Use of Carols As to the manner of using the old carols, no doubt it was for the most part domestic and just as certainly in the old days as in modern times they were sung in the streets on Christmas Eve or in the early morning, not always in a spirit of pure devotion. Hone in his ancient mysteries, page 90, quotes a curious stanza which, by its spelling, might seem to be of the 15th century, unless indeed it is, as we strongly suspect, a clever modern imitation. The Luit people, then, all gates agree, and carols sing in every chris mistide, not with sham fassons bought, John Condole, and holy boughs a boat, and all aside. The Brennan fur hem eaten, and hem drink, and laughing merrily, and makin' route, and poppy and dancin' and hem-redge, niswinkle, then no thing else, twelve days they would not. In the everyday book, volume one, page 800, he says, these ditties, which now exclusively enliven the industrious servant maid, and the humble laborer, gladden the festivity of royalty in ancient times. Henry VII, in the third year of his reign, 1487, kept his Christmas at Greenwich. On the twelfth night, after high mass, the king went to the hall, and kept his estate at the table. In the middle sat the dean, and those of the king's chapel, who immediately after the king's first course, sung a carol. As to whether carols were, to any great extent, substituted for the usual songly in church, we are not very fully informed. Certainly, herics carols were designed to be sung in the chapel royal at Whitehall. At Exter the various church choirs used to go about singing carols through the night, and then mustered in the cathedral at seven in the morning, where they joined in singing the old hundredth palm before the usual service. Davies Gilbert, writing in 1822, says that in the west of England, down to the end of the eighteenth century, on Christmas Eve, it was customary in many houses to spend the time in carol singing from seven or eight in the evening till late into the night, the intervals being devoted to the consumption of hot cakes and ale or cider. Even on Christmas Day, these carols took the place of psalms in all the churches, especially at afternoon service, the whole congregation joining, and at the end it was usual for the parish clerk to declare in a loud voice his wishes for a merry Christmas and a happy new year to all the parishners. At many places in Wales a service called Pligan, i.e. Don, was held at four or five o'clock in the morning. Sometimes the parson was escorted from his house to the church by young men with torches, and the church was lighted with coloured candles. The character of the service varied in different places. Sometimes there was celebration of the Holy Communion. Sometimes the parson sang the first verse of a carol. The clerk sang the second, and then carols were sung round the church in procession. In some places refreshment was provided in the shape of hot broth. These services, which might seem suggestive of a survival from the midnight mass of pre-Reformation times, are said to have generally died out in the Episcopal Church soon after the middle of the nineteenth century. About the same time it is said, Pligan's services began to be held in Welsh non-conformist chapels, but of late they seem to have been more usual on the morning of a new year. Footnote The Welsh language has ample supply of carols. Hone mentions two volumes, one containing sixty-six carols for Christmas and five for summer. The other containing forty Christmas carols, one for winter, three for May, nine for summer, one to the nightingale, and one to Cupid. Footnote Much akin to the Welsh Pligan is the custom that prevails in Norway. There, as in all Scandinavian countries, the usual type of religious thought is Lutheran, and the midnight mass is therefore not to be looked for, but is replaced by a service called Jolot. The regular time for family gatherings is Christmas Eve, but in the morning before daybreak the whole parish assembles in the church for a service of praise, which consists chiefly of singing. Roads of candles are arranged along the backs of the benches, so that the church is brilliantly illuminated, and as many Norwegian parishes are of great extent, it is no uncommon thing to take a journey of several miles to participate in the Jolot. In Lapland the parishes are of still greater extent, so that the journey to and from the church may occupy two or three days, and it is said that the sleigh ride with its jingling bell is looked forward to by the children for months together. This seems the most convenient place to mention what is reported from Finland, where every sailor and fisherman endeavors to spend his Christmas at home. Accordingly, all boats come into harbour on St. Thomas' Day, 21st December, and preparations for Christmas begin. On Christmas Eve everyone takes a hot bath and the evening is spent in singing hymns and telling stories of adventure. All rise before dawn and proceed to church, the journey being often of many miles, sometimes over a frozen arm of the sea. Lights are set in the church windows and a cross is placed over the door to show that there is Christmas joy within. The holiday fair is given to the cattle and a sheaf of corn is set upon the roof that the birds may keep festival. A very curious custom obtained in several parishes in the Isle of Man. People assemble in the church on Christmas Eve. Oil very, i.e. Mary's Eve, they called it. Each intern sung a carol as a solo, holding in his or her hand a lighted candle. The carols were very lengthy, but the singer had to stop if the candle went out. The ceremony ended at midnight. At Crandell in Hampshire until about 1860, carols used to be sung from the top of the church tower. A similar custom still survives in a few towns in Germany and was formerly much more general. Luther's carol, from heaven above I come to you, is the one usually sung and the melody being led by a trumpet or cornet. Of late years, a peasant custom has grown up in many places of church choirs or glee parties, preambulating a village or district, singing carols and collecting donations for some well understood charitable object. This practice sure embodies the genuine spirit of Christmas and deserves general imitation. End of Section 18, Recording by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. Section 19 of Christmas and Christmas Floor. This is a LibriVox recording. While LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Christmas and Christmas Floor by Thomas G. Krippen. Section 19, Church Observances, Advent. Remembering that Christmas is above all things a religious anniversary, we turn a while to the church observances of the season. From early in the 6th century it has been usual throughout Western Christendom, though not in the Greek church, to set apart the four Sundays next preceding Christmas as a season of devotional preparation. This was and still is known as the season of Advent. In special prayers, anthems and hymns for the four Sundays and some other days are given in the church service books. According to the Roman use in those uses which generally prevailed in England before the Reformation, the Tadeum and Gloria in Excelsis were not sung during Advent, but all the anthems had a note of expectation. Coming up to the seven great o's at Vespers on the seven days preceding Christmas, these have happily been restored to use within the last generation, and their use is by no means limited to the Episcopal Church. Advent being a preparation for Christmas as Lent was for Easter, it came to be regarded as in like manner a season of abstinence. So the Roman Church ordained that every Wednesday and Friday of the four weeks should be kept as a fast, and that if marriages took place, they should be without outward pomp or festivity. Kirchmeyer tells us that in Germany, which is in evil spirits were thought to be especially mischievous on the Thursdays in Advent. On those days children ran about the streets knocking at every door and crying the Advent of the Lord a happy new year, for which they expected apples or pence. At the same time girls sought by divination with onions and faggot sticks to learn something about their future husbands. In Rome, Naples and other Italian cities, images or pictures of the Blessed Virgin are often placed at street corners in other public places. It was customary in the 18th century, and perhaps is still for the Calabrian shepherds during the last few days of Advent, to come into the cities with musical instruments, big bagpipes, and play before these images and pictures as an act of devotion. They would also play before a carpenter's shop to show respect to St. Joseph. Advent ends with Christmas Eve, who is customary in the papal chapel at Rome that if a sovereign prince were present at matins on that day, he should read one of the lessons, holding in his hand a drawn sword and token of his readiness to defend the church. After this custom had become obsolete, the pope was accustomed on Christmas day to bless a sword and hat which were sent as gifts to some royal personage. In Holland the characteristic observance of Christmas Eve is or was of a more democratic type. At midnight the young men of a town or village, some of them in fantastic costumes, meet in the principal square or open space, and after seeing Gloria in ex-Gelcies, or it's Dutch equivalent, choose one of their numbers as starbearer. A large lantern has been provided in the shape of a star containing many candles and mounted on a pole. This is borne at the head of a long procession through every street, the company seeing the Gloria. The whole effect is said to be very impressive. A custom existed in Yorkshire, which certainly cannot be called a church observance, but which is most conveniently mentioned here, because it is connected with the season of the advent. The children went about carrying what was called the Yule baby, an elaborately dressed doll in a decorated box, which represented the manger at Bethlehem. Sometimes there were two dolls to represent the holy child and his mother. It was thought unlucky if any house was not visited by these advent images. This custom was, in all likelihood, a survival of the medieval presepio, of which more hereafter. End of section 19. Section 20 of Christmas and Christmas Floor. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Christmas and Christmas Floor by Thomas G. Crippen. Section 20. Church Observances. Christmas Bells. As is well known according to ecclesiastical usage, the day begins at sunset. The evening service on what we now commonly call Christmas Day was, therefore, the first Vespers of Christmas Day. At such a festive season it was a matter, of course, that every service should be heralded by the merry chiming of church bells, and whatever else ultra-protestantism and puritanism have wisely or unwisely swept away. We may be thankful that they have not silenced the Christmas bells. Long and ever-louder made they ring out the joyous invitation. O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem. Low in a manger lies the King of Angels. O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord. There is one very quaint bit of folklore pertaining to Christmas bells at Dewsbury, and no doubt at some other places it was customary that the great bell should toll, as if for a funeral, for an hour before midnight, and as soon as the hour was passed the ringer struck up a merry peal. This seems to have been a survival of a rather widespread medieval custom, the purpose of which was said to give the powers of darkness notice of the approaching birth of the Saviour. Later it was called tolling the devil's knell, for it was said the devil died when Christ was born. It is to be feared that he had a speedy resurrection, but the same was a striking if exaggerate way of presenting the truth that the birth of Christ gave a death blow to the Empire of Satan. On this conceit Dr. J. M. Neal wrote a delightful little poem to an ancient carol tune. Toll toll, because there ends tonight an empire old and vast, an empire of unquestioned might, or present or past, stretching wide from east to west, ruling over every breast, each nation, come and cast. Toll toll, because a monarch dies whose tyrant statutes ran, from polar snows to tropic skies, from Greenland to Japan, crowded city, lonely glen, ocean, mountain, shore, and fen, all own him, lord of man. Toll toll, because the monarch fought right fiercely for his own, and utmost craft and valor brought before he was overthrown, he the Lord and man the slave, his the kingdom of the grave, and all its dim unknown. Joy joy, because a babe is born, who after many a toil the scorners' pride shall laugh to scorn, and work the foilers foil, God his man the earth his trot, therefore man shall be his God, and reap the spoilers' spoil. The spells in England are popularly associated with frost and snow, but their music is heard in southern latitudes, and is as seasonable in an Australian summer as in English winter. Here are a couple of stanzas from a book entitled The Christmas Year Under the Southern Cross, published in New Zealand. No touch of winter's frosty breath, no snow-clad fields, neat skies that lower, all nature thrills with joyous life, as faintly from the distant tower ring out the cheerful Christmas bells, hark how their cadence softly swells, or open fields and bosky dels, in excelsis gloria. Neat skies and blue the plains lie decked, and thousand varying shades of green, soft shadow sweep o'er meadows gay, with many a floweret's brilliant sheen, while Christmas bells in glad refrain sound the glad tidings once again, which angels sang in raptured strain, in excelsis gloria. It is perhaps scarcely worthwhile to mention here that in many English villages handbell ringers visit the principal houses about Christmastime collecting large s's. End of Section 20 Section 21 of Christmas and Christmas Lore. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Christmas and Christmas Lore by Thomas G. Crippen. Section 21. Church Observances. Midnight Mass. Treaters will remember Scott's poetic enumeration of Christmas customs, amongst which he reminds us that, on Christmas Eve the bells were rung, on Christmas Eve the mass was sung, that only night of all the year saw the stalled priest his chalice reared. Reference to the Roman or Sara missile will confirm this statement, provision being made for three masses on Christmas day, while on no other festival is a midnight mass permitted. The custom was instituted at Rome in the earlier half of the fifth century. The Pope signed the first mass at midnight, at Santa Maria Maggiore, the second at St. Anastasia, and the third at St. Peter's. There can be little doubt that midnight mass on Christmas Eve only originated in a belief that the birth of our Lord occurred about midnight, a matter about which there is no real evidence one way or the other. The belief had, however, some imaginary support in a pious misapplication of a passage in the Book of Wisdom, Chapter 18, Verses 14 and 15. When peaceful silence enwrapped all things, and night in her own swiftness was in mid-course, though an all-powerful word leaped from heaven out of the royal throne, a stern warrior into the midst of the doomed land. This, as the context clearly shows, refers to the slaying of the firstborn of Egypt, but medieval divines applied it to the incarnation of the word, hence a beautiful Latin carol, probably of the 14th century, beginning Quando noctis matium. When in silence and in shade, earth at midnight has been laid, working out the Father's plan in the Virgin's womb made man, God his earthly life began. It certainly seems fitting that the central ordinance of Christian worship should have a place among the solemnities of the Saviour's birthday, and one of the worst evils that have resulted from the perversion of the ordinance into the Romish mass is that it has sometimes become a point of orthodox Protestantism, to thrust into a subordinate and obscure place what the apostles and primitive Christians placed foremost. In Paris and probably in other French cities it was usual to proceed direct from the Midnott mass to a family gathering, whereas sumptuous a meal was provided as funds would allow, and where family affairs were discussed, and endeavors made to appease quarrels and put an end to misunderstandings. In Brittany, poor old women wait about the church door to take charge of the lanterns which the country folk all carry to light them on their way. After the mass the owners of the lanterns, on reclaiming them, always give substantial alms to the caretakers. At Madrid people traverse the streets with torches, tambourines and guitars, and after mass danced in the body of the church. Footnote Dancing in a church was very early practiced in Spain at several festivals. It was forbidden by a council at Toledo in 589 or 590, but popular custom was too strong for ecclesiastical authority, and it survived at least at Christmas till about 1200. Even to quite recent times, if not to this day, one certain feast day's choir boys with castanets danced before the altar and in Seville Cathedral. In York Minster till the 17th century the choir boys were accustomed to dance in the nave after the morning prayers on Christmas day, and at Besen Song until 1727 it was usual to dance a baguette and a footnote. A similar custom existed in the Spanish-American cities. In Sicily the midnight service was often sadly lacking in reverence, downright pagan license intruding, and it is said to have been much the same in the Rhineland until midnight mass was abolished. At Rome at Santa Maria Maggiore, certain pieces of wood were preserved which were alleged to be part of the actual cradle of the Lord. These it was usual within the last century to bring forth in solemn procession early on Christmas morning. And after high mass to deposit them on the principal altar. According to Kirchmeyer it was customary in some parts of Germany, after the third mass, to place on the altar an effigy of the holy child, duly wrapped in swatling clothes around which the boys and girls would dance and sing carols. A variant of this custom was, perhaps still is, observed in the Church of the Holy Nativity at Bethlehem. At the end of the mass the Bambino is placed on the altar, and then carried in solemn procession to the crypt, where it is laid on the silver star in the pavement which is supposed to mark the actual place of the divine birth. The narrative is read from the Gospel of Luke, and when the reader comes to the words, laid him in a manger, the effigy is lifted from the floor and placed in a rock-une trough which represents the manger, and which many simple-minded pilgrims believe to be the veritable cradle of the holy child. In medieval England, after Matins, the deacon, or the bishop if you were present, chanted the genealogy in St. Matthew, chapter 1, followed by the Tadeum. This custom still survives in some Benedictine churches. CHAPTER XXII Christmas was very early, provided with one of those semi-dramatic services which in course of time developed into the mystery or miracle play. In the cathedral at Rowan, in the twelfth century, an image of the virgin and child was placed in a stable behind the altar. A boy, placed before or above the choir, and personating an angel, announced the nativity to certain canons as they entered below in the character of shepherds. As they passed through the great door of the choir, vested in tunics and ammissess, many more boys stationed on high began to sing, glory to God in the highest, to which the shepherds replied, peace on earth to men of good will. As they advanced up the choir, two priests, clad in Dalmatics, and representing women, met them inquiring, whom seek ye. They answered, Our Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. The priests then drew back the curtain, saying, The little one is here, as said Isaiah the prophet. They then showed the mother, saying, Behold the virgin! On this the shepherds bowed, worshiping the child and saluting the mother, and returning to the choir, singing alleluia. Thus the story of Bethlehem both acted and sung in the medieval church. From such beginnings grew that rich treasury of religious drama which flourished in England from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, and which still survives on the continent at Oberamigal and elsewhere. But the English nativity plays were not exclusively, nor even chiefly, associated with Christmas. They formed portions of those great cycles of plays which were acted in the open air on movable stages or pageants by members of various guilds and usually in the summertime. It is not necessary, therefore, to treat them at any great length. It may suffice to say that we possess five series of these plays, four English and one Cornish, besides a few detached specimens. The cycles contain from twenty-five to forty-eight plays apiece, and together they cover the whole field of sacred history, from the creation to the final doom. The treatment of the nativity may be estimated from the interlutent Longfellow's golden legend. If we remember that the modern poet exhibits a refinement which is totally lacking in the rugged originals. A few brief selections may be interesting. In the York play of the nativity marry thus soliloquizes. Now in my soul great joy have I, I am all glad in comfort clear. Best moat he be. Jesu, my son, that is so dear. Now born is he. Hail my Lord God, hail Prince of Peace, hail my Father, and hail my Son, hail Sovereign Siege, all sins to cease. Hail God and man, on earth to one, hail through whose might all this world was first begun, mercanness and light. The wakefield plays are characterized by a rough humor. The shepherds are grumbling about hard work, poor wages, heavy taxes, cold weather, and termigant wives. They lie down to rest, and while others are sleeping, one of them steals a sheep and carries it home where his wife hides it in the cradle. Lined by the shepherds come in quest and discover the sheep when one of them insists on kissing the new baby. Whereupon the thief is punished by being tossed in a blanket, the rest they return to the fold, and again lying down to sleep are thus aroused by the angel. Rise, herdmen, hind, for now is he born, that shall take fro the fiend what Adam had lorn. That warlock to shend, this night is he born. Man is made your friend. Now at this morn he behests at bedlam go see. There lies he in a crib, whorly. There is generally quaint humor in the homely gifts presented by the shepherds. In the chaster play they include a bell, a flask, a spoon, a hood, a pipe, and a nut hook. But the salutation in the York play is really beautiful. Hail the fairest of field folk fore to find. Fro the fiend and his fares faithfully as fend. Hail the best that shall be born to unbind, all the barons that are born and in bale bend. The coventry plays make much use of avocryphal matter, including the cherry tree incident. After the shepherds have presented their gifts, Herod appears proclaiming, I am the mightiest conqueror that ever walked on ground. May Gog and Maydrock, both these I did confound, and in this bright brand their bones I break asunder that all the world on those wraps did wander. He claims to be the lord of lightning, prince of purgatory, and chief captain of hell. When he learns that the wise men have gone home another way, he vows if he can catch those villain traitors, he will burn them, and forthwith orders all the children in Bethlehem to be slain. The bodies of the children are brought to him in a cart, but finding that Jesus is not among them, having escaped into Egypt with Joseph and Mary, he rages in the pageant and in the street and gallops off in pursuit. There are no nativity scenes in the great Cornish cycle of religious drama, but there are two plays not contained in either of the cycles, which were written by one John Parfrey in 1512. One of them is on the slaughter of the innocents, the other on the presentation of the infant Jesus in the temple. In the latter, Simeon, the bishop, speaks a prologue in which he expounds the doctrine of the incarnation and prays that he may not die until he has seen the sweet face of the divine child. Mary and Joseph enter and present the child to Simeon, together with the offering of two young doves, and he, after reciting Nunk Demetis, power phrases it in sixteen lines of rhyme. Then Anna calls forth a company of young maidens, exhorting them to worship this child, very God and man. Simeon bears Jesus in his arms, going a procession round about the temple, and all this while the maidens sing Nunk Demetis. Simeon returns the child to his mother, predicting his crucifixion and the sharp sword of sorrow that shall cleave her heart atweeen, and Bidzana teach those maidens to please God of most honor. She at once responds, Worship we, Jesus, that shall be our Savior, all at once come on and follow me, and they conclude the performance with a dance. Crude nativity plays are still acted in Romania, and in the middle of last century they were common in Poland, Provence, Naples, and Spain, the characters being sometimes represented by puppets. Within the last few years, nativity plays modern in structure and reverent in expression, have been presented at Christmastide in several church halls and schoolrooms, and it is not impossible that these may be first steps toward a resuscitation of the religious drama. Section 22. Recording by John Brandon. On Christmas Eve, 1224, a very realistic tableau of the nativity was arranged by St. Francis in a village church at Gressio in Italy. Joseph and Mary, represented by real persons, watched beside a manger in which a figure of the holy child lay upon straw, while a real ox and ass were tethered close by. This was celebrated and Francis preached on the topic of the season. This was the origin of the simple object lesson called the precipio, or precipae, or popularly the Christmas crib, which with innumerable variations has been reproduced at Christmas in almost every Roman Catholic church in Christendom, and has found its way with diverse adaptations far beyond the limits of the Church of Rome, as for example in the celebrated Moravian School of New-Wide. A visitor to Rome in the early part of the 19th century describes the precipio in the Church of the Arachaeli as best worth seeing. Daylight was completely excluded, and the artificial light was so managed as to stream in fluctuating rays from intervening silvery clouds, and shatter radiance over the child and his mother, who in a graceful attitude holds up the drapery which half conceals the sleeping infant. His swaddling clothes are richly embroidered, and both he and his mother are adorned with jewels lent for the purpose by princesses and other ladies of high rank. Groups of cattle grazing, peasantry engaged in different occupations, and other objects enliven the picturesque scenery, and every living creature in the group with eyes directed to the precipio false prostrate in adoration. During the visit thus described, a little girl of six or eight years old stood on a bench and recited a suitable discourse, with all the gesticulations of a little actress, perhaps in complete commemoration of those words of the psalmist, quoted by our blessed Lord. Both of the mouths of babes and sucklings, thou hast perfected praise. In southern Italy the precept is a domestic as well as a church custom. The manger is constructed and adorned a week beforehand, and is often a genuine work of art. C.A. Miles, in Christmas in ritual and tradition, reproduces a photograph of a magnificent Neapolitan precept which represents the holy family in a shed formed amidst the ruins of the Corinthian temple. On each side the shepherds approach with their offerings. One leads a lamb, another is attended by a dog. Others have brought gifts and baskets. Four or five baby angels are fluttering above. The ox and ass do not appear in the shed, but below is a cave near the entrance of which oxen are standing or lying. Shepherds are negotiating with a doorkeeper for the admission of a few sheep into the cave, while a number of goats are left outside. The hole is built up in one corner of a lofty hall, of which it almost reaches the ceiling. The domestic precept is often the work of the children and in Rome an enormous bazaar as well as numerous shops supply materials for its construction. There are earthenware figures varying in price from a hipony to many shillings, quark to represent rockwork, moss and liverwork, and scenery roughly painted in watercolors. What the construction frequently includes not only the stable or cave and its occupants, but the surroundings of Bethlehem. Imagine in complete ignorance of geography and history. An orgiastic medley of chaos and luxuriant riches, a radical negation of all the notions of time and space. This is what the bold Roman boy gathers around the crib, in which, after all, they sometimes forget to place the bambino. From the first setting up of the precept till Christmas Eve, visits are exchanged and mutual criticisms are passed on the domestic preparations. Minstrels come round with bagpipes and carols and sing or recite prayers before every precept, whether in house or church. Then on Christmas morning, the bambino is placed in the manger, with solemn ceremonies and feasting begins in earnest. In Bohemia the precipio, or as it is their cult, the Bethlehem, is a permanent memorial, arranged on a tiny stage and often handed down from generation to generation, and great care is expended in carving, painting, and dressing the figures and keeping them in repair. In some parts of France and perhaps in other countries, the precipio serves as it were to visualize the belief, already mentioned as a mystical repetition of the incarnation at Christmas. This is thought of in relation to the midnight mass, at which solemnity people gather from outlying hamlets, literally to visit the holy child. This great store of provision is brought, nominally as gifts to Joseph and Mary, really for a picnic after mass, at which the participants are guests of the holy family. This custom gave birth to a class of curious carols, abounding with local allusions, both to persons and places, sometimes complimentary, sometimes sarcastic. No such carols exist in English. There can be little doubt that the interesting group of carols in many languages, which have the form of a cradle song sung by the Blessed Virgin to the holy child, were originally associated with the precipio. End of Section 23, recording by John Brandon. Section 24 of Christmas and Christmas Lore. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by John Brandon. Christmas and Christmas Lore by Thomas G. Crippen. Section 24. Cradle Rocking, the Posada, et cetera. In this connection, mentioned must be made of the curious custom of cradle rocking, Kindle Wiegen, which arose in Germany about the fourteenth century and long retained its popularity. The crib became a cradle that could be rocked at first by priests, who personated Joseph and Mary while choir and people sang and danced around. Then the custom became domestic, but still a real act of devotion. Some very pretty German carols relate to this custom, with which the fine old Latin carols, Quem pastores, La Vare, and Resonette in Ladabes were also associated. The practice died out very slowly. It survived a toboggan as late as 1830, and to a still more recent time and out of the white places in Tyrol. In Sicily, especially at Messina, at least down to the middle of last century, it was usual on several nights before Christmas to fire a large number of crackers, as the midnight salute to the Madonna and her sacred mother. Then on Christmas night, that is the night following first Vespers, the streets were thronged, and every house was lighted in honor of the procession of the carol bumbino. This commenced at midnight and was formed by the clergy, municipal bodies, lines of military with music, church attendants, and etc., all singing and bearing torches, and followed by a tiny wax doll in the arms of a priest beneath a gorgeous canopy. Fireworks were let off in the streets, and few people went to bed before dawn. In some of the Spanish-American cities, especially in Mexico, there is a curious domestic custom called the Posada, that is the inn, based on a tradition that Joseph and Mary had a nine-days journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. For the due observance of this custom, several neighboring families, preferably Kinsfolk Unite, and on each of the nine evenings from 16th to 24th December, they gather in one selected house, the ladies taking in turn to act as hostess and give a present of some kind, however small, to each one of the company. The evening is usually spent in merry-making, dancing, and a romp with the children, but on one evening of the nine observance becomes distinctly religious. The attendance of a priest is secured. A temporary altar is fitted up in the principal room, and under it is fitted the precipio and its appropriate figures. As midnight approaches, the priest reads certain prescribed prayers, while incense is burned, and the company kneels in couples, each holding a candle. A procession is then formed. The images of Joseph and Mary being carried in front and the whole company enter every room in the house, above and below, singing a litany. As the litany ends, two or three persons slip into a room and shut the door. The rest sing a carol, in which Joseph begs admittance for himself and his wife, who can go no farther. To this request a refusal is given, and the procession goes on until, on the stroke of midnight, the hostess leads to a room or attic, or perhaps to the flat roof, where the representation of a stable has been prepared. There the images of Joseph and Mary are placed with all possible reverence, and the ceremony ends. Formerly the procession took place early on each of the nine evenings, but it came to be thought irreverent that a religious service should be sandwiched between games and dances, so now it is held on one evening only, and shortly before midnight. This seems the most convenient place in which to describe a curious old print in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries, Roadside 305. It was printed in 1701 by J. Bradford in Little Britain, and sold for a penny. It measures 10 inches by eight and a half inches. It represents the Virgin with the child in the manger, Joseph, standing by. There are four shepherds, two adoring, one with a basket, and one with a bagpipe. Three angels are kneeling, and several are hovering above. There are sundry beasts and birds around, who supposed utterances are indicated by Latin labels in their mouths. The cock crows, Christus natus est, that is, Christ is born. The raven croaks, quando, when? The crow calls, haknukte, this night. The ox loaves, who be, where? She bleeds, Bethlehem. And the angels sing, gloria in excelsis. In the border are the instruments of the passion. A similar idea is embodied in a quaint little French poem, Macaronic, which tells that of old the animals spoke better Latin than French, and after the conversation above reported adds that the ass braze, amus, let us go, and the calf replies, volo, I am willing. End of section 24, recording by John Brandon. Section 25 of Christmas and Christmas Lore. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by John Brandon. Christmas and Christmas Lore by Thomas G. Crippen. Section 25, The Children's Christmas. The medieval church did not on the whole do its duty by the children. Perhaps it may be pleaded by way of excuse that a celibate priesthood could scarcely be expected to understand children. But at least it remembered that Christmas was emphatically the festival of childhood. And possibly with that fact in view, it is signed the commemoration of the Holy Innocence to the third day after Christmas. A very pretty recognition of the children's interest in the season was continued for a number of years in the 13th century. In the church of the Benedictine nunnery at Godstow, where on Innocence Day the public prayers were said by the little girls of the convent school. Archbishop Peckham put an end to this in 1278. Another custom of similar purport was long and widely prevalent in cathedral and collegiate churches having schools attached. On St. Nicholas Day, the 6th December, the boys elected one of their number as bishop. He was dressed in full canonicals and during his term of office enjoyed very substantial privileges. In several inventories of church property, we find mention of miters, copes, and other vestments of the boy bishop, apparently of as costly material as those worn by the actual dignitaries. He exercised authority over his comrades of the school or choir, to whom he assigned various offices, some of them posing as priests, some as cannons, et cetera. In some places he was escorted to the church where he presided as bishop during the service and afterwards went in procession, singing from door to door, collecting money, not begging it as alms, but demanding it as the bishop's subsidy. Early in the 13th century, the cathedral dignitaries were called on to act in subordinate positions as taper and incense bearers, but this was forbidden in 1263. The boy bishop and his train actually took part in the church services and in December 1299, they sang vespers before King Edward I. On St. John's Day, 27th December, after Compton, they were usually entertained at supper by the dean or one of the cannons. On Innocence Day, they went in solemn procession and performed every part of the church service except actually saying mass. It is alleged that even this exception must not always maintain, but this is very difficult to believe. Their performance culminated in the recitation of a sermon by the boy bishop. It was probably written for him and in the statutes of St. Paul's School, 1518, all the scholars are enjoined to hear the child bishop's sermon on Innocence Day. At the end of Compton, the last evening service, he brought his episcopate to a close by pronouncing the benediction. If the boy happened to die during his term of office, he was buried with the same honors as if he had actually been a bishop. And the tomb of one of these boys is still to be seen in Salisbury Cathedral. The custom of electing a boy bishop was observed at St. Paul's, Canterbury, Winchester, Exeter, Salisbury, York, Newcastle, Beverly, Rotterham, Colchester, Eaton, Westminster, and Lambeth, and probably in many other places. Hone goes so far as to say the ceremony of the boy bishop is supposed to have existed not only in collegiate churches, but in almost every parish. This seems to be an exaggeration, but it certainly did exist in a number of common grammar schools and in several London parishes. Notably St. Mary at Hill, St. Andrews Hallborn, and St. Nicholas Ellips. There are indications that it was specially favored where there was a dedication in the name of St. Nicholas who was deemed the special patron of schoolboys. It was suppressed in England by proclamation dated 22nd July, 1542. There was a partial revival in Queen Mary's time, but we hear no more of it after her demise. On the continent, it obtained in Switzerland, France, and Spain, but gradually became debased, irreverent, and foolish, and was finally extinguished in Zugg, in Switzerland in 1797. There have however been local revivals within the last few years both in England and on the continent. The plan seems to be that the parish clergyman selects the bishop from among the members of a boys guild. Another curious custom, in recognition of Christmas, as peculiarly the children's festival, is that still practiced at Rome. The church of Ara Caeli, which stands above a lofty flight of 124 marble steps, is said to occupy the site and to be built from the materials of the ancient temple of Jupiter, capitalinus. It commemorates by its dedication an absurd story of a vision seen by Augustus Caesar, of a crowned infant seated in a star. In it is preserved an image of the holy child, artistically carved in olive wood, crowned and jeweled and swaddled in gold and silver tissue. This fambino is supposed to have miraculous powers and is taken out in its own carriage, attended by its own servants, to visit the sick who hope for healing through its imaginary virtues. All through the Christmas season, it lies in the church crib and is visited by thousands. On a platform before it, little boys and girls of all classes recite little speeches in honor of the infant savior. They say their pieces, as Countess Martinain go, with an infinite charm that raises half a smile and half a tear. Another writer says, they have the vivid dramatic gift, the extraordinary absence of self-consciousness that is typical of Italian children. And their so-called preaching is anything but a wooden repetition of a lesson learnt by heart. On the octave of epiphany, there is a great procession. The fambino is carried out to the open space at the top of the steps, where a priest raises it on high and solemnly blesses the eternal city. End of section 25, recording by John Brandon. Section 26 of Christmas and Christmas Lore. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by John Brandon. Christmas and Christmas Lore by Thomas G. Crippen. Section 26. Pure as in hostility to Christmas. Reference has been made to the Puritan hostility to Christmas. This is much more easily explained than justified. It was not that Puritanism was generally a verse to mirth, though there were ascetic Puritans as well as ascetic Papists. After all, there is not very much to choose between the Papists at Coventry, who burned a woman, for possessing the scriptures in English and the Puritan at Banbury, who hanged his cat on Monday, for killing a mouse on Sunday. However, the Puritans were so deeply impressed with the sanctity of the Lord's Day that they transferred to it not only all the stringency of the law of Moses respecting the Sabbath, but much of the spirit of rabbinical tradition. Now, the unreformed church had quite subordinated the Lord's Day to the great ecclesiastical festivals, and the anti-Puritan party under Elizabeth and James I showed a like inclination. The Puritans thought that festivals of mere human institution, when thus exalted above the Sabbath of divine obligation, became objectionable, and had better not be observed. The first two steward kings, on the other hand, sought to extinguish the rather austere Puritan Sabbath by encouraging Sunday games, and to this end put forth a notorious book of sports. This declaration of war against the Puritan ideal provoked an assault on all those church festivals which were thus put in open competition with the Sabbath. And as Christmas was the most popular of them all, on it were poured out the vials of the fiercest indignation. Pamphlets were published in which it was denounced as at once heathenish and pulpish, and its observance was declared to be sinful. This was in close accord with the sediment which then prevailed in Scotland. The religious movement in that country had been not merely a reformation, it was a revolution. Its leaders, Knox, Melville, and the rest, thought the Romanized Church too bad to be mended. In their view it must be ended, and a new beginning made, strictly on the model which they believed they had found in the New Testament. Now certainly the New Testament makes no mention of ecclesiastical festivals, so the new beginning included the sweeping of them all away, Yule among the rest. On the 26th December 1583, the Glasgow Kirk session put five persons to public penance for keeping the superstitious day called Yule. Ten years later, in 1593, the same Glasgow session ordained that keepers of this feast should be debarred from the privileges of the Church and punished by the magistrates. And in 1649 the General Assembly appointed a commission to report on the druidical customs observed at the fires of Beltane, Midsummer, Halloween, and Yule. No doubt with the view to their more effectual suppression. But the end of it was merely that all the worst of the old Christmas customs were transferred to New Year's Day. In the Scottish Highlands, the Presbyterian Order and the Puritan sentiment were far less dominant than in the more southern counties. And in them, Pre-Lacy and Roman Catholicism each had numerous and influential adherents. Indies therefore Christmas persisted in surviving in spite of Kirk sessions and General Assemblies. But it would seem from Mrs. Grant's popular superstitions of the Highlands that down to the latter part of the 18th century its observance was more festive than religious consisting for the most part of games, dancing, feasting, and tippling. Moreover to the Puritan extremists, any recognition of Christians whether festive or religious was equally offensive. It was much the same across the Atlantic. It is said that in one of the New England settlements a number of young men proposed to celebrate Christmas by a football match. But the Governor intervened saying, if their conscience forbids them to work, my conscience forbids me to allow them to play. Some compensation for the suppressed Christmas was found in the Highlands. The suppressed Christmas was found in the newly instituted Thanksgiving Day on the last Thursday in November. In 1633 William Prine, a fanatical Puritan lawyer, published a huge volume more than half as big as the Bible to prove the sinfulness of almost every kind of amusement but especially of stage plays and Christmas festivities. The title of this amazing monument of learned folly is Histriomastics or the Player Scourge. In it he denounces all Christmas games and feasting as a wicked survival of the heathen Saturnalia. But he does not seem seriously averse to a sober religious recognition of the anniversary. His fanatical hostility to all sorts of sport and merriment would probably have been laughed at and forgotten but for the brutal punishment inflicted on him for his foolish book. The effect of setting him in the pillory and cutting off his ears was to exalt a crank into a hero and a martyr. Most of the English Puritan leaders had a great admiration for the Church of Scotland, which they deemed one of the best reformed churches and political exigencies on the breaking out of the Civil War gave an enormous impetus to Scottish ideas in England. These ideas were acquiesced in no doubt in loyalty to the solemn League and Covenant by many who regarded them with little sympathy. Perhaps it was by way of compromise that in 1642 a volume of 36 metrical psalms appeared set in secular ballad tunes. The title was Psalms or Songs of Sion turned into the language and set to the tunes of a strange land by William Slater intended for Christmas carols etc. But the new forces of conscience as Milton called them would have no compromise and so in 1644 when for a season Puritanism was in power under the long parliament the monthly fast was appointed for Christmas Day. It was by this time a somewhat risky business to defend the old order so in 1645 a satirical track appeared with the following title The Arraignment Conviction and Imprisoning of Christmas on St. Thomas Day Last and how he broke out of prison in the holidays and got away With a hue and cry after Christmas in what shift he was feigned to make to save his life printed by Simon Mintz Pie for sissly plum porridge and to be sold at the sign of a pack of cards in Mustard Alley in Braun Street On 22nd December 1647 the town crier of Caterbury by order of the mayor proclaimed a market on Christmas Day following on that day however being Saturday only about a dozen shops were opened these were stormed by an angry mob and compelled to close A few of the rioters were committed to prison but were forcibly released The Sunday passed peaceably but on Monday the rioting was renewed and several persons were seriously injured peace was restored by an agreement between the leaders of the two factions that no man shall further question or trouble them On the 24th December 1652 about four months before Cromwell dispersed it the parliament gave order that no observation shall be had of the five and twentieth day of December commonly called Christmas Day nor any solemnity used or exercised in churches upon that day in respect thereof but surely the limit was reached in 1656 when a Puritan crank named Hezekiah Woodward printed a tract with this amazing title Christmas Day the old heathen's feasting day in honor to Satan their idle God the Papist Massing Day the superstitious man's idle day the multitude's idle day Satan's that adversary's working day the true Christian man's fasting day taking to heart the heathenish customs Popesh superstitions ranting fashions fearful provocations horrible abominations committed against the Lord and his Christ on that day and days following it may suffice to add that the sequel was worthy of the title page in Evelyn's Diary we read that on Christmas Day 1657 he and others were arrested while engaged in worship in Exeter Chapel and were detained for several hours however they were allowed to finish the service which included a celebration of the Holy Communion indeed there are indications that the Cromwellian regime was less intolerant than that of the Long Parliament and in spite of restrictions Christmas managed to survive both in its religious and its festal aspects this at least may be gathered from the following title page make room for Christmas or remember your Christmas box being a delightful new book full of merry jests rare inventions pretty conceits Christmas carols pleasant tales and woody verses written by Lawrence Price 1657 who wishes well to all those that dare goodwill to roast beef plum potage white loaves strong beer warm clothes good fires and soft lodging the blunders of well-meaning people are often in their effect worse than crimes and it is fairly open to question whether the beheading of Charles I was in the long run so harmful to the Puritan interest as the blunder of trying to suppress the old English Christmas one thing is certain when old Christmas returned after the restoration it was with a new face the violent reaction against Puritanism led to the degradation of a great Christian anniversary to a mere heathenish yuletide holiday and instead of the old carols to the praise of the babe of Bethlehem the Cavalier Rhymesters poured forth rollicking songs to the praise of plum pudding goose capon minced pies and roast beef meanwhile the misdirected Puritan conscientiousness persisted in some quarters for three or four generations far into the 18th century grave Presbyterian divines preached against the observance of Christmas at as late as 1830 hymn books were in use in Baptist and other congregations which either made no provision at all or barely admitted one or two poor hymns suitable for a commemoration of the Holy Nativity in Scotland the Puritan tradition so far survives that even to this day the recognition of Christmas either in its religious or its festive aspect is confined to a minority of the population in most places business goes on as usual end of section 26 recording by John Brandon section 27 of Christmas and Christmas lore this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Christmas and Christmas War by Thomas G. Krippen section 27 mumming let us now turn from the more definitely religious to the purely festive aspect of Christmas and its customs and first and mumming the dictionaries define this as making diversion in disguise and the merry makers who were called mummers in England were called geezards in Scotland throughout the British Isles this was for ages a favorite sport not at Christmas only but on other festivations in Ireland it was most prevalent on May Day and in Scotland about the New Year but in England Christmas and Easter especially the former have been the favorite seasons of the mummers the tradition being that boys mumming and carol singing legitimately began on St Thomas's Day the shortest in the year a familiar old dit he runs thus to shorten winter sadness see where the nymphs with gladness disguised all are coming right wantonly a mumming with a fall la la it was customary though not universal for the girls to dress as boys and the men as women and the disguise to visit the neighbor's houses singing dancing and partaking of good cheer in many places the performers if sufficiently skilled would execute a sword dance this was all together different from the Scottish sword dance and though usually introduced with some harmless buffoonery was a real artistic performance the swords in the course of the dancing being plated together in the form of a rose or star as lately as the middle of the 19th century it was practiced in Durham County in the Yorkshire Dales there was some difference in Devon it is even continued to this day in the neighborhood of Clamburough elsewhere the Morris dance was affected although this was usually thought more seasonable that May Day and Woodson tied and the hobby horse was not forgotten where anything beyond dancing was attempted it usually took the form of a rude or less drama with plenty of fighting the characters were various but they generally included a bully who was killed and a doctor by whom he was resuscitated the leader commonly spoke a ridiculous prologue varying in different places one of the drollist used in Somerset is as father's here comes I little man Jen with my Gert sword in my hand if you don't all do as you be told by I I'll send you all to York for to make apple pie the performance was usually pure buffoonery but sometimes there was a simple plot such as the rescue of a Christian man from the clutches of a terrible Turk in the most widespread of the mummeries the leading characters are Saint George Alexander King of Egypt Hector sometimes called Slasher the dragon and Dr. Brown the prologue had spoken sometimes by Father Christmas and sometimes by a small boy in a scarlet vest who personates Robin red breast in the Cornish version Saint George kills in secession the dragon the Turkish Knight and the giant each of whom is cured by the doctor he after the last cures given a basin of dirty grout and is then kicked out and the epilogue is spoken by Judas with the bag or by little devil doubt give him money or he'll sweep you all out some have described these mummery plays as a degradation or burlesque of the old miracle plays but that is very unlikely they're more probably a survival from pre-christian times there was a custom in many parts of the Roman Empire of going about on New Year's Day and mass often of animal faces in skins of beasts and in women's dresses this practice was strongly condemned by the clergy from the fourth century onward specimens of their denunciations are extant from at least eight different countries if we may judge from the analogy of what still goes on in western Africa these animal mass were warned for the due performance of sacrificial or magical rights the wearers being priests or members of secret societies whom the uninitiated supposed to be demons this belief would be fostered by the early Christian clergy create a greater horror of idolatry it is almost certain that some such masquerade is the explanation of the witch's Sabbath on wool purchase knocked it being alleged whether truly or falsely that crime was facilitated by the disguises and especially the mask worn by mummers orders said to have been given by Henry the eighth that all mummers wearing visors should be apprehended as vagabonds and committed to prison for three months or find at the king's pleasure in some places the mummery took the form of a dance of fools the dancers wearing motley with caps and bells this belong less to Christmas than to the new year and plow Monday in Somerset and no doubt elsewhere mumming degenerated into mumping that is plain undisguised begging in many west county villages the poor women go around on st. Thomas's day soliciting seasonable gifts which it is deemed uncharitable to refuse in Gloucester this is called Thomasing in Warwickshire Corning and in Kent going a good thing a variety of mumping rhymes are current in various places of which one herd in Somerset may serve as a sample Christmas is coming the beef is getting fat please drop a penny in a poor man's hat formerly in return for the expected alms the mummers offered sprigs of evergreens useful for home decoration and section 27 section 28 of Christmas and Christmas Lore this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jamie Church Christmas and Christmas Lore by Thomas G. Crippen Hodenning Schimmel etc in some parts of Kent and round about Richmond in Yorkshire there was a custom the purely heathen origin of which is obvious the head of a horse either a skull or a wooden effigy was fixed to a pole and its jaws snapped by means of a string the party carried handbells and sang songs for which they expected meat and drink or money in Kent the head was made of wood and its mouth was open for contributions the diddy was three jelly Hodenning boys lately come from town for apples or for money we searched the country round some of the Kentish Wagoners used to keep the head in their stables through the year for luck a similar practice existed in some parts of Wales the skull was dressed with ribbons and carried by a man under a white sheet the jaws were made to bite anyone it could lay hold of who was only released on payment of a forfeit this was called Marie Lloyd E. J. Newell in his history of the diocese of Landaf says that the custom survived at Cardiff as late as 1886 if not later it is hard to conceive that Hodenning or Marie Lloyd could ever have any relation to Christmas they seem to be either an unintelligent survival or a designed caricature of some custom of the pre-Christian Ewell the word Hodenning is evidently reminiscent of Odin who whatever else he may have been was certainly a sky god he was represented as a stately man with one eye there being only one sun in the firmament he was wrapped in a blue mantle spangled with stars and rode on a white horse that was swifter than the wind the horse's head can scarcely be anything else than a relic of Odin's horse Sleipnur the German counterpart of this toy is called the Schimmel the gray or fusty one the horse's head is fixed to a pole and this sometimes to a man who goes on all fours covered with a white cloth elsewhere the horse is formed by three or four lads one of whom is the rider he is veiled and sometimes carries on his head a pot with glowing coals which shine through the openings that represent eyes and mouth the Schimmelreiter is sometimes accompanied by a bear a boy dressed in straw who plays the part of a bear chained to a pole in other parts of Germany the head is that of a buck or goat usually made of wood with a jaw that clatters it butts children who cannot say their prayers this is the Clapperbuch or Habergeis in Denmark Norway and Sweden the Julebuch with a buck's head and dressed in a hide butted the children whom he met in his peregrinations sometimes the name was applied to a straw puppet there was a story of a girl who danced with the straw Julebuch and found that her partner was none other than Satan himself another Julebuch was carried off by the evil one whom he had mimicked a grim story was told in one of the Yorkshire dales where Scandinavian customs and traditions long survived of a man who early in the 19th century went about in a black oxide with the horns above his head he was stabbed to death by the village idiot who gleefully boasted that he had killed the devil end of section 28 recording by Jamie Church section 29 of Christmas and Christmas lore this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jamie Church Christmas and Christmas lore by Thomas G. Crippen Wasseling somewhat akin to mumming is Wasseling Wassel was the old Anglo-Saxon drinking pledge equivalent to your health to which the response was drink Kyle at the Saxon Yule feast it was quite usual without any feeling of irreverence to drink Wassel to the Lord the Wassel bowl was indispensable at an old English Christmas feast at Jesus College Oxford there is a huge silver gilt bowl formerly used at such celebrations which will hold nearly 10 gallons and the ladle half a pint the Wassel bowl was considered appropriate not only to Christmas but also to New Year's Eve and 12th night at court and no doubt elsewhere it was in daily use during all the 12 days of the festive season and was brought in with more or less of ceremony in the ordinances for the household of King Henry the 7th the following occurs with reference to 12th night item the chapel to stand on one side of the hall probably the choristers of the chapel royal and when the steward cometh in at the hall door with the Wassel he must cry three times Wassel Wassel Wassel and then the chapel to answer with a good song the correct charge of the Wassel bowl was lamb's wool a mixture of ale with roasted apples sugar and spice to this Shakespeare seems to elude when he makes puck say sometimes lurk eye in a gossips bowl in very likeness of a roasted crab and he describes winter as the season when roasted crabs hiss in the bowl herrick bids us crown the bowl full with gentle lamb's wool add nutmeg sugar and ginger with store of ale too and this you must do to make the Wassel a swinger here are two recipes said to have been used in the royal kitchen in 1633 it will be observed that in the first as in herrick's rhyme the apples are not separately mentioned one set ale on the fire to warm boil a quart of cream with two or three whole cloves add the beaten yolks of three or four eggs stir all together and pour into the ale add sops or sippots of fine manchit or french bread put them in a basin and pour on the warm mixture with some sugar and thick cream on that stick it well with blanched almonds and cast on cinnamon ginger and sugar or wafers and comfits two boil three pints of ale beat six eggs the whites and yolks together set both to the fire in a pewter pot add roasted apples sugar beaten nutmegs cloves and ginger and being well brewed drink it well hot the origin of the name lamb's wool is quite unknown the only etymology we have met with is that suggested by the antiquarian valency he says that the bowl with its compound of apples and ale was common to all great festivals especially halloween which was dedicated to the angel or spirit who was supposed to keep guard over fruit seeds etc accordingly that day and some Celtic dialect was called lamas ubal otherwise apple day which by easy corruption became lamasul and finally lamb's wool but why the name of a day should be transferred to that of a beverage is not easy to tell query if the more general use of distilled spirit and the early part of the 18th century did not lead to the frequent substitution of punch for the time honored lamb's wool a change that has not always promoted an increase of sobriety in many places it was customary for young men and elsewhere for maids to go from farmhouse to farmhouse with a great wooden bowl of spiced ale gaily bedecked with ribbons and garlands inviting the inmates to drink wasail to the season the custom continued in Gloucestershire far down into the 19th century and perhaps is not yet quite extinct the song which accompanied the visit was a rollicking bacchanalean ditty beginning wasail wasail all over the town our toast it is white our ale it is brown our bowl is made of a maplin tree we be good fellows all I drink to thee then follow benedictions on the master and mistress the horse the ox and the next year's crop and the song concludes be there here any maids I suppose there be some sure they'll not let young men stand on the cold stone sing hey ho maids twirl back the pin and the fairest maid in the house let us all in in herfordshire on christmas eve the oxen were visited after supper and a health was drunk in strong ale or cider to the best or favorite ox a large cake with a hole in it was then hung on the ox's horn he was tickled to make him toss it and omens were drawn from the way it fell the usual incantation was to this effect here's to thy pretty face and thy white horn God send thy master a good crop of corn both wheat rye and barley and all sorts of grain next year if we live we'll drink to thee again the party then returned to the house but found the door fast bolted it was only opened when someone had guessed what had been provided for supper or when a merry song had been sung after that the remainder of the night was passed in feasting and jollity wasling of trees and devon summer set and elsewhere is something quite different and belongs to old christmas eve i.e. the fifth of january it will be treated of in its proper place in yorkshire the wassel bowl has long been obsolete though the name in its variant vessel cup or vessel cup still survives but what the children carry about is the yule baby already described the song that accompanies it certainly the best of the wasale songs begins here we come a wassaling among the leaves so green here we come a wandering so fair to be seen love and joy come to you and to you your wassel too and god bless you and send you a happy new year in the black country of staffordshire a rabble of young urchins make night hideous from saint thomas's day to twelfth night they carry neither wassel bowl nor yule baby but yell and every variety of discord a pie sat in a pear tree the henset clucking by i wish you a merry christmas and every day a pie a pocketful of money a cellar full of beer and a good fat pig in the pigsty to last you all the year the roads are very dirty my shoes are very thin please good mistress and master chuck a penny in a pie a pie etc add libietum end of section 29 recording by jayme church section 30 of christmas and christmas lore this is a librewax recording all librewax recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librewax.org recording by jayme church christmas and christmas lore by thomas g krippen christmas eve we have already referred to christmas eve as the accredited time for placing the seasonable decorations evergreens etc both in house and church this though the most obvious was not the only preparation for the feast which was more or less tinged with superstition in many places especially in scotland before the reformation it was almost a matter of religious obligation to emphasize the holiday aspect of the season on christmas eve the house must be thoroughly cleaned all borrowed articles returned all tools laid aside no lint allowed to remain on rock or wheel and such work as could not be completed was stopped and as far as possible made to look as if it were complete finally a cake was baked for every person in the house and if anyone's cake happened to be broken it was an omen of ill luck to the person for whom that cake was intended these cakes were usually flavored with caraway and their circular or annular form has been thought to indicate a survival from the heathen sun worship of yuletide there are many customs in many countries relating to christmas cakes most of which seem to be survivals of old time superstitions not much of this would seem to attach to the christmas cake of east yorkshire just an ordinary spiced cake with raisins currents lemon peel etc or to the wigs or caraway buns which in shropshire were dipped in ale but in other places yule dows were given by bakers to their customers small images of paste human or animal in form such are common in many parts of france and germany sometimes the cakes actually represent the holy child elsewhere they're oblong adorned with his figure in sugar in many places the cakes are horned and french plowmen give to the poor as many of them as they have oxen or horses in some parts of catholic germany magical powers are ascribed to bread baked on christmas eve and moistened with christmas dew this it is said will never grow moldy and is a cure for snake bites the notion seems to be associated with the antiphon rorate coeli duciper i.e drop down dew ye heavens from above etc which is sung at vespers during advent a similar superstition is found in the south of france and in the italian tyrol in sweden and denmark a cake in the form of a boar stands on the table throughout the festive season evidently connected with the cultus of the boar's head of which we have to treat hereafter in poland monks bring round small wafers of flour and water stamped with sacred figures and blessed by a priest christmas eve is a strict fast but when the first star appears the feasting begins a few straws are scattered under the table and a chair is left vacant for the holy child all the members of the household servants included break the aforesaid wafers between them exchanging mutual good wishes after supper the children are led to another room where father christmas or as he is called in poland the star man appears in his proper person he is often the parish priest in disguise he examines them in the catechism reproves those who give wrong answers and tells the rest that he has brought them rewards for their good conduct these are brought in by young lads who carry a large illuminated paper star and sing carols in romania the traditional christmas cakes are thin dry leaves of dough eaten with honey syrup or other flavoring these are supposed to represent the swaddling clothes of the holy child in greece the christmas cake has a cross at the top after supper on the sacred eve nothing is removed from the table in the hope that christ will come and eat during the night analogous to this was an old welsh custom of unbolting all the outer doors on christmas eve in case the holy family should wish to enter christmas eve being a fast in roman catholic countries fish is in great demand at hamburg and other parts of germany and in stevia carp is eaten for supper and saxony and thuringia herring salad in britney cod in italy eels are especially popular at white stable in kent the fishermen were accustomed to choose eight of the largest whiting from every boat these were sold separately and their price reserved for a feast on christmas eve in honor of saint rumbald the supposed patron of the fishery naturally the eve came to be called rumbald's night a similar custom is said to have been obtained at folkstone most schoolboys remember the story of a king who died of indigestion caused by eating too greatly of lamprey pie by ancient custom a lamprey pie is annually presented to the king at christmas by the city of glochester the custom is sometimes costly as lamprey's are often difficult to procure at that season the glochester custom reminds us of numerous local traditions relating to christmas pies we shall have something to say here after on the english medieval pie it may suffice here to mention that the more ordinary pie was supposed to occupy the attention of the housewife on christmas eve and that if we may believe herrick the holy season did not always afford adequate protection from hungry and predacious members of the professionally unemployed he bids us come guard this night the christmas pie that the thief though ne'er so sly with this flesh hook don't come nigh to catch it from him who alone sits there with his eye still in his ear and a deal of nightly fear to watch it in tyrol on saint thomas's day an elaborate pie is baked which is marked with the sign of the cross and sprinkled with holy water before it is put in the oven it is not eaten till st steven's day or epiphany when it is cut by the house father with considerable ceremony each maid servant also has a pie which she takes home to share with her kin folk if a lover offers to carry her pie that is understood to be a proposal which she accepts or not according to the circumstances end of section 30 recording by jayme church