Chapter XVII: Masks and Misrule (6)

[772] F. Blomefield, _Hist. of Norfolk_ (1805), iv. 6, 347; Mackerell, MS. _Hist. of Norfolk_ (1737), quoted in _Norfolk Archaeology_, iii. 315; _Notices Illustrative of Municipal Pageants and Processions_ (with plates, publ. C. Muskett, Norwich, 1850); Toulmin Smith, _English Gilds_ (E. E. T. S.), 17, 443; Kelly, 48. Hudson and Tingey, _Cal. of Records of Norwich_ (1898), calendar many documents of the guild.

[773] Hartland, iii. 58, citing Jacobus à Voragine, _Legenda Aurea_, xciii, gives the story of St. Margaret, and the appearance of the devil to her in the shape of a dragon. She was in his mouth, but made the sign of the cross, and he burst asunder.

[774] Cf. p. 177.

[775] Kelly, 37. The ‘dressyng of the dragon’ appears in the town accounts for 1536. The guild had dropped the riding, even before the Reformation.

[776] Harris, 97, 190, 277; Kelly, 41. The guild was formed by journeymen in 1424. Probably there was a riding. In any case, at the visit of Prince Edward in 1474, there was a pageant or _mystère mimé_ ‘upon the Conddite in the Crosse Chepyng’ of ‘seint George armed and Kynges dought^r knelyng afore hym w^t a lambe and the fader and the moder beyng in a toure a boven beholdyng seint George savyng their dought^r from the dragon.’ There was a similar pageant at the visit of Prince Arthur in 1498.

[777] Kelly, 42.

[778] Morris, 139, 168; Fenwick, _Hist. of Chester_, 372; Dyer, 195. The Fraternity of St. George was founded for the encouragement of shooting in 1537. They had a chapel with a George in the choir of St. Peter’s. St. George’s was the great day for races on the Rooddee. In 1610 was a famous show, wherein St. George was attended by Fame, Mercury, and various allegorical figures.

[779] Cf. _Representations_, s. v. York, Dublin.

[780] Dyer, 194, gives from Coates, _Hist. of Reading_, 221, the account for setting-up a ‘George’ in 1536. Dugdale, _Hist. of Warwickshire_, 928, has a notice of a legacy in 1526 by John Arden to Aston church of his ‘white harneis ... for a George to were it, and to stand on his pewe, a place made for it.’

[781] R. W. Goulding, _Louth Records_, quotes from the churchwardens’ accounts for 1538 payments for taking down the image of St. George and his horse.

[782] _Representations_, s. v. Windsor, Lydd, New Romney, Bassingbourne.

[783] For the legend, see _Acta Sanctorum_, _April_, iii. 101; Jacobus à Voragine, _Legenda Aurea_ (1280), lviii; E. A. W. Budge, _The Martyrdom and Miracles of St. George of Cappadocia: the Coptic Texts_ (Oriental Text Series, 1888). In Rudder, _Hist. of Gloucestershire_, 461, and _Gloucester F. L._ 47, is printed an English version of the legend, apparently used for reading in church on the Sunday preceding St. George’s day, April 23. Cf. also Gibbon (ed. Bury), ii. 472, 568; Hartland, _Perseus_, iii. 38; Baring-Gould, _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_, 266; Zöckler, s. v. St. Georg, in Herzog and Plitt’s _Encyclopedia_; F. Görres, _Ritter St. Georg in Geschichte, Legende und Kunst, in Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie_, xxx (1887), 54; F. Vetter, _Introduction_ to Reimbot von Durne’s _Der heilige Georg_ (1896). Gibbon identified St. George with the Arian bishop George of Cappadocia, and the dragon with Athanasius. This view has been recently revived with much learning by J. Friedrich in _Sitzb. Akad. Wiss. München_ (_phil.-hist. Kl._), 1899, ii. 2. Pope Gelasius (†495) condemned the _Passio_ as apocryphal and heretical, but he admits the historical existence of the saint, whose cult indeed was well established both in East and West in the fifth century. Budge tries to find an historical basis for him in a young man at Nicomedia who tore down an edict during the persecution of Diocletian (†303), and identifies his torturer Dadianus with the co-emperor Galerius.

[784] Du Méril, _La Com._ 98. He quotes Novidius, _Sacri Fasti_ (ed. 1559), bk. vi. f. 48^{vo}:

‘perque annos duci monet [rex] in spectacula casum
unde datur multis annua scena locis.’

A fifteenth-century Augsburg miracle-play of St. George is printed by Keller, _Fastnachtsspiele_, No. 125; for other Continental data cf. Creizenach, i. 231, 246; Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 10, 644; D’Ancona, i. 104.

[785] Rabelais, _Gargantua_, iv. 59. The dragon was called Graoully, and snapped its jaws, like the Norwich ‘snap-dragons’ and the English hobby-horse.

[786] Cf. p. 138. The myth has attached itself to other undoubtedly historical persons besides St. George (Bury, _Gibbon_, ii. 569). In his case it is possibly due to a misunderstood bit of rhetoric. In the Coptic version of the legend edited by Budge (p. 223), Dadianus is called ‘the dragon of the abyss.’ There is no literal dragon in this version: the princess is perhaps represented by Alexandra, the wife of Dadianus, whom George converts. Cf. Hartland, _Perseus_, iii. 44.

[787] Cf. ch. xxiv, as to these plays.

[788] I ought perhaps to say that in one of the Coptic versions of the legend St. George is periodically slain and brought back to life by a miracle during the space of seven years. But I do not think that this episode occurs in any of the European versions of the legend.

[789] ‘Sant George and the dragon’ are introduced into a London May-game in 1559 (ch. viii).

[790] See the Manchester _Peace Egg_ chap-book. At Manchester, Langdale, and, I believe, Coniston, the play is performed at Easter: cf. Halliwell, _Popular Rhymes_, 231. The Steyning play is believed to have been given at May-day as well as Christmas. Of course, so far as this goes, the transference might have been from Christmas, not to Christmas, but the German analogies point the other way. The Cheshire performance on All Souls’ Day (Nov. 2), mentioned by Child, v. 291, is, so far as I know, exceptional.

[791] Cf. ch. xvii: In the Isle of Wight the performers are called the ‘Christmas Boys’ (C. R. Smith, _Isle of Wight Words_, in _E. D. S._ xxxii. 63). The terms ‘Seven Champions’ (Kent) and ‘John Jacks’ (Salisbury) have already been explained. The Steyning ‘Tipteers’ or ‘Tipteerers’ may be named from the ‘tips’ collected in the _quête_. The ‘Guisers’ of Staffordshire become on the Shropshire border ‘Morris-dancers,’ ‘Murry-dancers,’ or ‘Merry-dancers’--a further proof of the essential identity of the morris- or sword-dance with the play.

[792] Tille, _Y. and C._ 78, 107; Rhys, _C. H._ 519; cf. ch. v.

[793] Tille, _Y. and C._ 18; _D. W._ 6. Bede, _D. T. R._ 15, gives Blot-monath as the Anglo-Saxon name for November, and explains it as ‘mensis immolationum, quia in ea pecora quae occisuri erant, Diis suis voverent.’

[794] Burton, 15, notes a tradition at Disley, in Cheshire, that the local wake was formerly held after the first fall of snow.

[795] Tille, _Y. and C._ 18.

[796] Mogk, iii. 391; Tille, _Y. and C._ 24, find the winter feast in the festival of Tanfana which the Marsi were celebrating when Germanicus attacked them in A. D. 14 (Tacitus, _Ann._ i. 51). Winter, though imminent, had not yet actually set in, but this might be the case in any year after the festival had come to be determined by a fixed calendar.

[797] Tille, _Y. and C._ 57.

[798] Rhys, _C. H._ 513, says that the _Samhain_ fell on Nov. 1. The preceding night was known as _Nos Galan-geaf_, the ‘night of winter calends,’ and that following as _Dy’ gwyl y Meirw_, ‘the feast of the Dead.’ In _F. L._ ii. 308 he gives the date of the Manx _Samhain_ as Nov. 12, and explains this as being Nov. 1, O. S. But is it not really the original date of the feast which has been shifted elsewhere to the beginning of the month?

[799] Tille, _Y. and C._ 12, citing M. Heyne, _Ulfilas_, 226: ‘In a Gothic _calendarium_ of the sixth century November, or _Naubaímbaír_, is called _fruma Iiuleis_, which presupposes that December was called *_aftuma Iiuleis_.’

[800] Bede, _de temp. rat._ c. 15. Tille, _Y. and C._ 20, points out that the application of the old tide-name to fit November and December by the Goths and December and January by the Anglo-Saxons is fair evidence for the belief that the tide itself corresponded to a period from mid-November to mid-January.

[801] Tille, _Y. and C._ 147. The terms _gehhol_, _geóhel_, _geól_, _giúl_, _iûl_, &c. signify the Christmas festival season from the ninth century onwards, and from the eleventh also Christmas Day itself. The fifteenth-century forms are _Yule_, _Ywle_, _Yole_, _Yowle_. In the A.-S. Chronicle the terms used for Christmas are ‘midewinter,’ ‘Cristes mæssa,’ ‘Cristes tyde,’ ‘Natiuitedh.’ As a single word ‘Cristesmesse’ appears first in 1131 (Tille, _Y. and C._ 159). The German ‘Weihnacht’ (M.H.G. _wich_, ‘holy’) appears †1000 (Tille, _D. W._ 22).

[802] Pfannenschmidt, 238, 512.

[803] The notion is of a circular course of the sun, passing through the four turning- or wheeling-points of the solstices and equinoxes. Cf. ch. vi for the use of the wheel as a solar symbol.

[804] Mogk, iii. 391, quoting Kluge, _Englische Studien_, ix. 311, and Bugge, _Ark. f. nord. Filolog._ iv. 135. Tille, _Y. and C._ 8, 148, desirous to establish an Oriental origin for the Three Score Day tides, doubts the equation *_jehwela_ = _ioculus_, and suggests a connexion between the Teutonic terms and the old Cypriote names ἰλαῖος, ἰουλαῖος, ἰουλίηος, ἰούλιος for the period Dec. 22 to Jan. 23 (K. F. Hermann, _Über griech. Monatskunde_, 64), and, more hesitatingly, with the Greek Ἴουλος or hymn to Ceres. Weinhold, _Deutsche Monatsnamen_, 4; _Deutsche Jahrteilung_, 15, thinks that both the Teutonic and Cypriote names are the Roman _Julius_ transferred from mid-summer to mid-winter. Northall, 208, makes _yule_ = _ol_, _oel_, a feast or ‘ale,’ for which I suppose there is nothing to be said. Skeat, _Etym. Dict._ s. v., makes it ‘a time of revelry,’ and connects with M.E. _youlen_, _yollen_, to ‘yawl’ or ‘yell,’ and with A.-S. _gýlan_, Dutch _joelen_, to make merry, G. _jolen_, _jodeln_, to sing out. He thus gets in a different way much the sense given in the text.

[805] At a Cotswold Whitsun ale a lord and lady ‘of yule’ were chosen (_Gloucester F. L._ 56). Rhys, _C. H._ 412, 421, 515, and in _F. L._ ii. 305, gives _Gwyl_ as a Welsh term for ‘feast’ in general, and in particular mentions, besides the _Gwyl y Meirw_ at the _Samhain_, the _Gwyl Aust_ (Aug. 1, Lammas or Lugnassad Day). This also appears in Latin as the _Gula Augusti_ (Ducange, s. v. temp. Edw. III), and in English as ‘the Gule of August’ (Hearne, _Robert of Gloucester’s Chron._ 679). Tille, _Y. and C._ 56, declares that _Gula_ here is only a mutilation of _Vincula_, Aug. 1 being in the ecclesiastical calendar the feast of St. Peter _ad Vincula_.

[806] Kluge and Lutz, _English Etymology_, s. v. Yule.

[807] Bede, _D. T. R._ c. 15 ‘ipsam noctem nobis sacrosanctam, tunc gentili vocabulo _Modranicht_ [v.l. _Modraneht_], id est, matrum noctem appellabant; ob causam ut suspicamur ceremoniarum, quas in ea pervigiles agebant.’

[808] Mogk, iii. 391. Tille, _Y. and C._ 152, gives some earlier explanations, criticizes that of Mogk, and offers as his own a reference to a custom of baking a cake (_placenta_) to represent the physical motherhood of the Virgin. The practice doubtless existed and was condemned by Pope Hormisdas (514-23), by the Lateran Council of 649, the Council of Hatfield (680), and the Trullan Council (692). But Bede must have known this as a Christian abuse, and he is quite plainly speaking of a pre-Christian custom. J. M. Neale, _Essays in Liturgiology_ (1867), 511, says, ‘In most Celtic languages Christmas eve is called the night of Mary,’ the Virgin, here as elsewhere, taking over the cult of the mother-goddesses.

[809] Tille, _Y. and C._ 65. In his earlier book _D. W._ 7, 29, Dr. Tille held the view that there had always been a second winter feast about three weeks after the first, when the males held over for breeding were slain.

[810] According to Bede, _D. T. R._ c. 15, the Anglo-Saxons had adopted the system of intercalary months which belongs to the pre-Julian and not the Julian Roman calendar. But Bede’s chapter is full of confusions: cf. Tille, _Y. and C._ 145.

[811] All Saints’ day or Hallowmas (November 1) and All Souls’ day (November 2) have largely, though not wholly, absorbed the November feast of the Dead.

[812] Pfannenschmidt, 203; Jahn, 229; Tille, _Y. and C._ 21, 28, 36, 42, 57; _D. W._ 23.

[813] Tille, _D. W._ 29; Müller, 239, 248. According to Tille, _D. W._ 63, Christmas only replaced the days of St. Martin and St. Nicholas as a German children’s festival in the sixteenth century.

[814] Tille, _Y. and C._ 34, 65; Pfannenschmidt, 206; Dyer, 418; N. Drake, _Shakespeare and his Times_ (1838), 93. Martinmas was a favourite Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval legal term. It survived also as a traditional ‘tyme of slauchter’ for cattle. ‘Martlemas beef’ was a common term for salt beef. In Scotland a Mart is a fat cow or bullock, but the derivation of this appears to be from a Celtic word _Mart_ = cow.

[815] Rhys, in _F. L._ ii. 308.

[816] Mommsen, _C. I. L._ i^2. 287; Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encycl._ s. v. _Bruma_; Tomaschek, in _Sitzb. Akad. Wiss. Wien_, lx (1869), 358.

[817] Ovid, _Fasti_, i. 163 ‘bruma novi prima est veterisque novissima solis.’

[818] Cf. p. 112.

[819] Preller, ii. 408; P. Allard, _Julien l’Apostat_, i. 16; J. Réville, _La Religion à Rome sous les Sévères_ (1885); Wissowa, 306. An earlier cult of the same type introduced by Elagabalus did not survive its founder.

[820] The earliest reference is probably that in the calendar of the Greek astronomer, of uncertain date, Antiochus, Ἡλίου γενέθλιον· αὔξει φῶς (Cumont, i. 342, from _Cod. Monac._ gr. 287, f. 132). The _Fasti_ of Furius Dionysius Philocalus (A.D. 354) have ‘VIII. KAL. IAN. N[atalis] INVICTI C[ircenses] M[issus] XXX’ (_C. I. L._ i^2. 278, 338). Cf. Julian, _Orat._ 4 (p. 156 ed. Spanheim) εὐθέως μετὰ τὸν τελευταῖον τοῦ Κρόνου μῆνα ποιοῦμεν ἡλίῳ τὸν περιφανέστατον ἀγῶνα, τὴν ἑορτὴν Ἡλίῳ καταφημίσαντες Ἀνικήτῳ; Corippus, _de laud. Iust. min._ i. 314 ‘Solis honore novi grati spectacula circi’; cf. the Christian references on p. 242. Mommsen’s _Scriptor Syrus_ quoted _C. I. L._ i^2. 338 tells us that lights were used; ‘accenderunt lumina festivitatis causa.’

[821] Preller, ii. 410; Gibbon, ii. 446.

[822] On Mithraicism, cf. F. Cumont, _Textes et Monuments relatifs aux Mystères de Mithra_ (1896-9); also the art. by the same writer in Roscher’s _Lexicon_, ii. 3028, and A. Gasquet, _Le Culte de Mithra_ (_Revue des Deux Mondes_ for April 1, 1899); J. Réville, _La Religion à Rome sous les Sévères_, 77; Wissowa, 307; Preller, ii. 410; A. Gardner, _Julian the Apostate_, 175; P. Allard, _Julien l’Apostat_, i. 18; ii. 232; G. Zippel, _Le Taurobolium_, in _Festschrift f. L. Friedländer_ (1895), 498. Mithra was originally a form of the Aryan Sun-god, who though subordinated in the Mazdean system to Ahoura Mazda continued to be worshipped by the Persian folk. His cult made its appearance in Rome about 70 B.C., and was developed during the third and fourth centuries A.D. under philosophic influences. Mithra was regarded as the fount of all life, and the yearly obscuration of the sun’s forces in winter became a hint and promise of immortality to his worshippers: cf. _Carm. adv. paganos_, 47 ‘qui hibernum docuit sub terra quaerere solem.’ Mithraic votive stones have been found in all parts of the empire, Britain included. They are inscribed ‘Soli Invicto,’ ‘Deo Soli Invicto Mithrae,’ ‘Numini Invicto Soli Mithrae,’ and the like.

[823] Cumont, _Textes et Mon._ i. 325; ii. 66, and in Roscher’s _Lexicon_, ii. 3065; Lichtenberger, _Encycl. des Sciences religieuses_, s. v. Mithra.

[824] Preller, _R. M._ ii. 15; Mommsen, in _C. I. L._ i^2. 337; Marquardt and Mommsen, _Handbuch der römischen Alterthümer_, vi. 562; _Dict. of Cl. A._ s. v. Saturnalia; Tille, _Y. and C._ 85; Frazer, iii. 138; W. W. Fowler, 268; C. Dezobry, _Rome au Siècle d’Auguste_ (ed. 4, 1875), iii. 140.

[825] Horace, _Satires_, ii. 7. 4:

‘age, libertate Decembri,
quando ita maiores voluerunt, utere; narra.’

[826] The democratic character of the feast is brought out in the νόμοι put by Lucian (Luc. _Opp._ ed. Jacobitz, iii. 307; _Saturnalia_, p. 393) in the mouth of the divinely instructed νομοθέτης, Chronosolon, and in the ‘Letters of Saturn’ that follow.

[827] According to Tacitus, _Ann._ xiii. 15, Nero was king of the Saturnalia at the time of the murder of Britannicus. On the nature of this sovereignty, cf. Arrian, _Epictetus_, i. 25; Martial, xi. 6:

‘unctis falciferi senis diebus,
regnator quibus imperat fritillus.’

Lucian, _Saturnalia_, p. 385, introduces a dialogue between Saturn and his priests. Saturn says ἑπτὰ μὲν ἡμερῶν ἡ πᾶσα βασιλεία, καὶ ἢν ἐκπρόθεσμος τούτων γένωμαι, ἰδιώτης εὐθύς εἰμι, καὶ τοῦ πολλοῦ δήμου εἷσ· ἐν αὐταῖς δέ ταῖς ἑπτὰ σπουδαῖον μὲν οὐδὲν οὐδὲ ἀγοραῖον διοικήσασθαί μοι συγκεχώρηται, πίνειν δὲ καὶ μεθύειν καὶ βοᾶν καὶ παίζειν καὶ κυβεύειν καὶ ἄρχοντας καθίσταναι καὶ τοὺς οἰκέτας εὐωχεῖν καὶ γυμνὸν ἄδειν καὶ κροτεῖν ὑποτρέμοντα, ἐνίοτε δὲ καὶ ἐς ὕδωρ ψυχρὸν ἐπὶ κεφαλὴν ὠθεῖσθαι ἀσβόλῳ κεχρισμένον τὸ πρόσωπον, ταῦτα ἐφεῖταί μοι ποιεῖν; and again: εὐωχώμεθα δὲ ἤδη καὶ κροτῶμεν καὶ ἐπὶ τῆ ἑορτῆ ἐλευθεριάζωμεν, εἲτα πεττεύωμεν ἐς τὸ ἀρχαῖον ἐπὶ καρύων καὶ βασιλέας χειροτονῶμεν καὶ πειθαρχῶμεν αὐτοῖσ· οὕτω γὰρ ἂν τὴν παροιμίαν ἐπαληθεύσαιμι, ἥ φησι, παλίμπαιδας τοὺς γέροντας γίγνεσθαι. The ducking is curiously suggestive of western festival customs, but I do not feel sure whether it was the image of Saturn that was ducked or the _rex_ with whom he appears to half, and only half, identify himself. Frazer, iii. 140, lays stress on the primitive sacrificial character of the ‘rex,’ who is said still to have been annually slain in Lower Moesia at the beginning of the fourth century A.D.; cf. _Acta S. Dasii_, in _Acta Bollandiana_, xvi. (1897), 5; Parmentier et Cumont, _Le Roi des Saturnales_, in _R. de Philologie_, xxi (1897), 143.

[828] Frazer, iii. 144, suggests that the _Saturnalia_ may once have been in February, and have left a trace of themselves in the similar festival of the female slaves, the _Matronalia_, on March 1, which, like the winter feasts, came in for Christian censure; cf. Appendix N. No. (i).

[829] Preller, _R. M._ i. 64, 178; ii. 13; C. Dezobry, _Rome au Siècle d’Auguste_ (ed. 4, 1875), ii. 169; Mommsen and Marquardt, vi. 545; vii. 245; Roscher, _Lexicon_, ii. 37; W. W. Fowler, 278; Tille, _Y. and C._ 84; M. Lipenius, _Strenarum Historia_ in J. G. Graevius, _Thesaurus Antiq. Rom._ (1699), xii. 409. The last-named treatise contains a quantity of information set out with some obsolete learning. The most important contemporary account is that of Libanius (314-†95) in his είς τὰς καλάνδας and his καλανδῶν ἔκφρασις (ed. Reiske, i. 256; iv. 1053; cf. Sievers, _Das Leben der Libanius_, 170, 204). In the former speech he says ταύτην τὴν ἑορτὴν εὔροι τ’ ἂν τεταμένην ἐφ’ ἅπαν, ὅσον ἡ Ῥωμαίων ἀρχὴ τέταται, in the latter, μίαν δὲ οἶδα κοινὴν ἁπάντων ὁπόσοι ζῶσιν ὑπὸ τὴν Ῥωμαίων ἀρχήν. Under the emperors, who made much of the _strenae_ and _vota_, the importance of the Kalends grew, probably at the expense of the Saturnalia; cf. Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, i. 2. 1 ‘adsunt feriae quas indulget magna pars mensis Iano dicati.’

[830] Preller, i. 180; Mommsen and Marquardt, vi. 14; vii. 245; W. W. Fowler, 278; Tille, _Y. and C._ 84, 104. _Strenia_ was interpreted in the sense of ‘strenuous’; cf. Symmachus, _Epist._ x. 15 ‘ab exortu paene urbis Martiae strenarum usus adolevit auctore Tatio rege, qui verbenas felicis arboris ex luco Streniae anni novi auspices primus accepit.... Nomen indicio est viris strenuis haec convenire virtute.’ Preller calls Strenia a Sabine _Segensgöttin_.

[831] Mommsen and Marquardt, vii. 245; Lipenius, 489. The gifts were often inscribed ‘anno novo faustum felix tibi.’ It is probable that the sweet cakes and the lamps like the _verbenae_ had originally a closer connexion with the rites of the feast than that of mere omens. The emperors expected liberal _strenae_, and from them the custom passed into mediaeval and Renaissance courts. Queen Elizabeth received sumptuous new year gifts from her subjects. For a money payment the later empire used the term καλανδικόν or _kalendaticum_. _Strenae_ survives in the French _étrennes_ (Müller, 150, 504).

[832] Appendix N, Nos. (i), (ii).

[833] The most recent authorities are Tille, _Y. and C._ 119; H. Usener, _Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen_, i, _Das Weihnachtsfest_ (1889); L. Duchesne, _Origines du Culte chrétien_ (ed. 2, 1898), 247, and in _Bulletin critique_ (1890), 41; F. C. Conybeare, _The History of Christmas_, in _American Journal of Theology_ (1899), iii. 1, and _Introduction_ to _The Key of Truth_ (1898); F. Cumont, _Textes et Monuments mithraïques_, i (1899), 342, 355. I have not been able to see an article praised by Mr. Conybeare, in P. de Lagarde, _Mittheilungen_ (1890), iv. 241.

[834] Conybeare, _Am. J. Th._ iii. 7, cites, without giving exact references, two ‘north Italian homilies’ of the fourth century, which seem to show this.

[835] _Sermo_ ccii (_P. L._ xxxviii. 1033).

[836] The _depositio martyrum_, attached to the _Fasti_ of Philocalus drawn up in 354, opens with the entry ‘viii kl. ianu. natus Christus in Bethleem Iudeae.’ December 25 was therefore kept as the birthday at least as early as 353. Usener, i. 267, argued that the change must have taken place in this very year, because Liberius, while veiling Marcellina, the sister of St. Ambrose, on the Epiphany, spoke of the day as ‘natalem Sponsi tui’ (_de Virginibus_, iii. 1, in _P. L._ xvi. 219). But it is not proved either that this event took place in 363, or that it was on Epiphany rather than Christmas day. Liberius refers to the Marriage at Cana and the Feeding of the Five Thousand. But the first allusion is directly led up to by the _sponsalia_ of Marcellina, and both events, although at a later date commemorated at Epiphany, may have belonged to Christmas at Rome, before Epiphany made its appearance (Duchesne, _Bulletin critique_ (1890), 41). Usener adds that Liberius built the _Basilica Liberii_, also known as _Sta. Maria ad Praesepe_ or _Sta. Maria Maggiore_, which is still a great station for the Christmas ceremonies, in honour of the new feast. But Duchesne shows that the dedication to St. Mary only dates from a rebuilding in the fifth century, that the _praesepe_ cannot be traced there before the seventh, and that the original Christmas _statio_ was at St. Peter’s.

[837] Duchesne, _Bulletin critique_ (1890), 44. This document also belongs to the collection of Philocalus.

[838] Conybeare, _Key of Truth_, clii-clvii, quoting an Armenian bishop Hippolytus in _Bodl. Armen. Marsh_ 467, f. 338^a, ‘as many as were disobedient have divided the two feasts.’ According to the _Catechism of the Syrian Doctors_ in the same MS., Sahak asked Afrem why the churches feast Dec. 25: the teacher replied, ‘The Roman world does so from idolatry, because of the worship of the Sun. And on the 25th of Dec., which is the first of Qanûn; when the day made a beginning out of the darkness they feasted the Sun with great joy, and declared that day to be the nuptials [? ‘natals,’ but cf. p. 241, n. 1] of the Sun. However, when the Son of God was born of the Virgin, they celebrated the same feast, although they had turned from their idols to God. And when their bishops (_or_ primates) saw this, they proceeded to take the Feast of the Birth of Christ, which was on the sixth of January, and placed it there (viz. on Dec. 25). And they abrogated the feast of the Sun, because it (the Sun) was nothing, as we said before.’ Mommsen, _C. I. L._ i^2. 338, quotes to the same effect another _Scriptor Syrus_ (in Assemanus, _Bibl. Orient._ ii. 164): cf. p. 235. The early apologists (Tertullian, _Apol._ 16; _ad Nationes_, i. 13; Origen, _contra Celsum_, viii. 67) defend Christianity against pagan charges of Sun-worship.

[839] Conybeare, _J. Am. Th._ iii. 8.

[840] Most of these dates were in the spring (Duchesne, 247). As late as †243 the Pseudo-Cyprianic _de Pascha computus_ gives March 28. On the other hand, December 25 is given early in the third century by Hippolytus, _Comm. super Danielem_, iv. 23 (p. 243, ed. Bonwetsch, 1897), although the text has been suspected of interpolation (Hilgenfeld, in _Berlin. phil. Wochenschrift_, 1897, p. 1324, s.). Ananias of Shirak (†600-50), _Hom. de Nat._ (transl. in _Expositor_, Nov. 1890), says that the followers of Cerinthus first separated the birth and baptism: cf. Conybeare, _Key of Truth_, cliv. This is further explained by Paul of Taron (ob. 1123), _adv. Theopistum_, 222 (quoted Conybeare, clvi), who says that Artemon calculated the dates of the Annunciation as March 25 and the Birth as December 25, ‘the birth, not however of the Divine Being, but only of the mere man.’ Both Cerinthus (end of 1st cent.) and Artemon (†202-17) appear to have held Adoptionist tenets: cf. Schaff, iv. 465, 574. Paul adds that Artemon calculated the dates from those for the conception and nativity of John the Baptist. This implies that St. John Baptist’s day was already June 24 by †200. It was traditional on that day by St. Augustine’s time, ‘Hoc maiorum traditione suscepimus’ (_Sermo_ ccxcii. 1, in Migne, _P. L._ xxxviii. 1320). The six months’ interval between the two nativities may be inferred from _St. Luke_ i. 26. St. Augustine refers to the symbolism of their relation to each other, and quotes with regard to their position on the solstices the words ascribed to the Baptist in _St. John_ iii. 30 ‘illum oportet crescere, me autem minui’ (_Sermo_ cxciv. 2; cclxxxvii. 3; cclxxxviii. 5; Migne, _P. L._ xxxviii. 1016, 1302, 1306). Duchesne, 250, conjectures that the varying dates of West (Dec. 25) and East (Jan. 6) depended on a similar variation in the date assigned to the Passion, it being assumed in each case that the life of Christ must have been a complete circle, and that therefore he must have died on the anniversary of his conception in the womb. Thus St. Augustine (_in Heptat._ ii. 90) upbraids the Jews, ‘non coques agnum in lacte matris suae.’ March 25 was widely accepted for the Passion from Tertullian onwards, and certain Montanists held to the date of April 6. Astronomy makes it impossible that March 25 can be historically correct, and therefore the whole calculation, if Duchesne is right, probably started from an arbitrary identification of a Christian date with the spring equinox, just as, if Ananias of Shirak is right, it started from a similar identification of another such date with the summer solstice. But it seems just as likely that the birth was fixed first, and the Annunciation and St. John Baptist’s day calculated back from that. If the Passion had been the starting-point, would not the feast of Christmas, as distinct from the traditional date for the event, have become a movable one?

[841] The Armenian criticism just quoted only re-echoes that put by St. Augustine in the mouth of the Manichaeans in _Contra Faustum_, xx. 4 (_Corp. Script. Eccl._ xxv) ‘Faustus dixit ... solemnes gentium dies cum ipsis celebratis ut Kalendas et solstitia.’ Augustine answers other criticisms of the same order in the course of the book, but he does not take up this one.

[842] Augustine, in his sermons, uses a solar symbolism in two ways, besides drawing the parallel with St. John already quoted. Christ is _lux e tenebris_: ‘quoniam ipsa infidelitas quae totum mundum vice noctis obtexerat, minuenda fuerat fide crescente; ideo die Natalis Domini nostri Iesu Christi, et nox incipit perpeti detrimenta, et dies sumere augmenta’ (_Sermo_ cxc. 1 in _P. L._ xxxviii. 1007). He is also _sponsus procedens de thalamo suo_ (_Sermo_ cxcii. 3; cxcv. 3, in _P. L._ xxxviii. 1013, 1018). Following this Caesarius or another calls Christmas the _dies nuptialis Christi_, on which ‘sponsae suae Ecclesiae adiunctus est’ (_Serm. Pseudo-Aug._ cxvi. 2, in _P. L._ xxxix. 1975). Cumont, i. 355, gives other examples of _Le Soleil Symbole du Christ_ from an early date, and especially of the use of the phrase _Sol Iustitiae_ from _Malachi_, iv. 2.

[843] Pseudo-Chrysostom (Italian, 4th cent.), _de solstitiis et aequinoctiis_ (_Op._ Chrys. ed. 1588, ii. 118) ‘Sed et dominus nascitur mense Decembri, hiemis tempore, viii kal. Ianuarias.... Sed et invicti natalem appellant. Quis utique tam invictus nisi dominus noster qui Mortem subactam devicit? vel quod dicant Solis esse natalem, ipse est Sol iustitiae de quo Malachias propheta dixit’; St. Augustine, _Sermo_ cxc. 1 (_P. L._ xxxviii. 1007) ‘habeamus, igitur, fratres, solemnem istum diem; non sicut infideles propter hunc solem, sed propter eum qui fecit hunc solem’; _Tract. in Iohann._ xxxiv. 2 (_P. L._ xxxv. 1652) ‘numquid forte Dominus Christus est Sol iste qui ortu et occasu peragit diem? Non enim defuerunt heretici qui ita senserunt ... (c. 4) ne quis carnaliter sapiens solem istum intelligendum putaret’; Pseudo-Ambrose (perhaps Maximus of Turin, †412-65), _Sermo_ vi. (_P. L._ xvii. 614) ‘bene quodammodo sanctum hunc diem natalis Domini solem novum vulgus appellat ... quod libenter nobis amplectendum est; quia oriente Salvatore non solum humani generis salus, sed etiam solis ipsius claritas innovatur’; Leo Magnus, _Sermo_ xxii, _in Nativ. Dom._ (_P. L._ liv. 198) ‘Ne idem ille tentator, cuius iam a vobis dominationem Christus exclusit, aliquibus vos iterum seducat insidiis, et haec ipsa praesentis diei gaudia suae fallaciae arte corrumpat, illudens simplicioribus animis de quorumdam persuasione pestifera, quibus haec dies solemnitatis nostrae non tam de nativitate Christi quam de novi, ut dicunt, solis ortu honorabilis videatur’; _Sermo_ xxvii, _in Nat. Dom._ (_P. L._ liv. 218) ‘De talibus institutis etiam illa generatur impietas ut sol in inchoatione diurnae lucis exsurgens a quibusdam insipientioribus de locis eminentioribus adoretur; quod nonnulli etiam Christiani adeo se religiose facere putant, ut priusquam ad B. Petri apostoli basilicam, quae uni Deo vivo et vero est dedicata, perveniant, superatis gradibus quibus ad suggestum areae superioris ascenditur, converso corpore ad nascentem se solem reflectant, et curvatis cervicibus, in honorem se splendidi orbis inclinent. Quod fieri partim ignorantiae vitio, partim paganitatis spiritu, multum tabescimus et dolemus.’ Eusebius, _Sermo_ xxii. περὶ ἀστρονόμων (_P. G._ lxxxvi. 453), also refers to the adoration of the sun by professing Christians. The ‘tentator’ of Leo and the ‘heretici’ of Augustine are probably Manichaeus and his followers, against whose sun-worship Augustine argues at length in _Contra Faustum_, xx (_Corp. Script. Eccl._ xxv).

[844] Duchesne, 248.

[845] Cf. p. 14.

[846] _C. Agathense_, c. 21 (Mansi, viii. 328) ‘Pascha vero, natale domini, epiphania, ascensionem domini, pentecostem, et natalem S. Ioannis Baptistae, vel si qui maximi dies in festivitatibus habentur, non nisi in civitatibus aut in parochiis teneant.’

[847] _Conc. Bracarense_ (†560), Prop. 4 (Mansi, ix. 775) ‘Si quis natalem Christi secundum carnem non bene honorat, sed honorare se simulat, ieiunans in eodem die, et in dominico; quia Christum in vera hominis natura natum esse non credit, sicut Cerdon, Marcion, Manichaeus, et Priscillianus, anathema sit.’ A similar prohibition is given by Gregory II (†725), _Capitulare_, c. 10 (_P. L._ lxxxix. 534). To failings in the opposite direction the Church was more tender: cf. _Penitentiale Theodori_ (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 177), _de Crapula et Ebrietate_ ‘Si vero pro infirmitate aut quia longo tempore se abstinuerit, et in consuetudine non erit ei multum bibere vel manducare, aut pro gaudio in Natale Domini aut in Pascha aut pro alicuius Sanctorum commemoratione faciebat, et tunc plus non accipit quam decretum est a senioribus, nihil nocet. Si episcopus iuberit, non nocet illi, nisi ipse similiter faciat.’

[848] Tille, _Y. and C._ 122.

[849] Cf. Appendix N, No. xxii.

[850] _Epist. Gregorii ad Eulogium_ (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 12).

[851] _Epist. Bedae ad Egbertum_ (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 323).

[852] _Leges Ethelredi_ (Thorpe, _Ancient Laws_, i. 309) ‘Ordâl and âdhar sindon tocweden ... fram Adventum Domini odh octavas Epiphanie.... And beo tham hâlgum tîdan eal swa hit riht is, eallum cristenum mannum sib and sôm gemæne, and ælc sacu getwæmed.’ Cf. _Leges Edwardi_ (Thorpe, i. 443).

[853] _C. Moguntiacum_, c. 36 (Mansi, xiv. 73) ‘In natali Domini dies quatuor, octavas Domini, epiphaniam Domini.’

[854] Tille, _Y. and C._ 203.

[855] Cf. the collection of prohibitions in Appendix N.

[856] _C. of Tours_, c. 18 (Appendix N, No. xxii).

[857] R. Sinker, in _D. C. A._ s. v. Circumcision.

[858] On this difficult subject see Tille, _Y. and C._ 134; H. Grotefend, _Taschenbuch der Zeitrechnung_ (1898), 11; F. Ruhl, _Chronologie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit_ (1897), 23; C. Plummer, _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, ii. cxxix; R. L. Poole, in _Eng. Hist. Review_ (1901), 719.

[859] The position of Christmas would have made it natural that it should attract observances from the spring festivals also, and, in fact, it did attract the Mummers’ play: cf. p. 226. It cannot of course be positively said whether the Epiphany fires and some of the other agricultural rites to be presently mentioned (ch. xii) came from the November or the ploughing festival.

[860] _C. of Auxerre_ (573-603), c. 11 (Appendix N. No. xxv).

[861] In the south of France Christmas is _Chalendes_, in Provence _Calendas_ or _Calenos_. The log is _calignau_, _chalendau_, _chalendal_, _calignaon_, or _culenos_, and the peasants sang round it ‘Calène vient’ (Tille, _D. W._ 286; Müller, 475, 478). Thiers, i. 264, speaks of ‘le pain de Calende.’ Christmas songs used to be known in Silesia as _Kolendelieder_ (Tille, _D. W._ 287). The Lithuanian term for Christmas is _Kalledos_ and the Czechic _Koleda_ (Polish _Kolenda_, Russian _Koljada_). A verb _colendisare_ appears as a Bohemian law term (Tille, _Y. and C._ 84); while in the fourteenth century the Christmas _quête_ at Prague was known as the _Koledasammeln_ (Tille, _D. W._ 112). The Bohemian Christmas procession described by Alsso (cf. ch. xii) was called _Calendizatio_, and according to tradition St. Adalbert (tenth century) transferred it from the Kalends to Christmas, and called it _colendizatio_ ‘_a colendo_.’

[862] _C. of Auxerre_ (573-603), c. 5 (Appendix N, No. xxv). Pfannenschmidt, 498, has collected a number of notices of _Martinalia_ from the tenth century onwards.

[863] Pfannenschmidt, 279; Dyer, 386, describe the ‘Horn Fair’ at Charlton, Kent, on St. Luke’s Day, Oct. 18. A king and queen were chosen, who went in procession to the church, wearing horns. The visitors wore masks or women’s clothes, and played practical jokes with water. Rams’ horns were sold at the fair, which lasted three days, and the gilt on the gingerbread took the same shape. It will be remembered that the symbol of St. Luke in Christian art is a horned ox.

[864] Cf. p. 114. According to Spence, 196, the Shetland Christmas begins on St. Thomas’s Day and ends on Jan. 18, known as ‘Four and Twenty Day.’ Candlemas (Feb. 2) is also often regarded as the end of the Christmas season. The Anglo-Saxon Christmas feast lasted to the Octave of Epiphany (Tille, _Y. and C._ 165).

[865] Dyer, 451; Ashton, 118, where the custom is said to have been ‘started by the Rev. J. Kenworthy, Rector of Ackworth, in Yorkshire, ... for the special benefit of the birds.’

[866] Frazer, i. 177, ii. 172, 286; Grimm, iv. 1783; Tille, _D. W._ 50, 178; Alsso, in Usener, ii. 61, 65.

[867] Lipenius, 423; cf. Appendix N, Nos. i, vi, xiii, xxiv.

[868] Tille, _Y. and C._ 103, 174; Philpot, 164; Jackson and Burne, 397; Dyer, 457; Stow, _Survey of London_ (ed. 1618), 149 ‘Against the feast of Christmas, euery mans house, as also their parish Churches, were decked with Holm, Iuy, Bayes, and whatsoever the season of the yeere aforded to be greene. The Conduits and Standards in the streetes were, likewise, garnished.’ He gives an example from 1444.

[869] Burne-Jackson, 245, 397, 411; Ashton, 95. Customs vary: here the evergreens must be burnt; there given to the cattle. They should not touch the ground (Grimm, iii. 1207). With this taboo compare that described by ancient writers, probably on the authority of Posidonius, as existing in a cult of a god identified with Dionysus amongst the Namnites on the west coast of Gaul. A temple on an island was unroofed and reroofed by the priestesses annually. Did one of them drop her materials on the ground, she was torn to pieces by her companions (Rhys, _C. H._ 196). They are replaced on Candlemas by snowdrops, or, according to Herrick, ‘the greener box.’ In Shropshire a garland made of blackthorn is left hanging from New Year to New Year, and then burnt in a festival fire (_F. L._ x. 489; xii. 349).

[870] The Christmas, rivalry between holly and ivy is the subject of carols, some dating from the fifteenth century; cf. Ashton, 92; Burne-Jackson, 245.

[871] Grimm, iii. 1205.

[872] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxi. 95.

[873] Ashton, 81, 92; Ditchfield, 18; Brand, i. 285; Dyer, 458; Philpot, 164. Mistletoe is the chief ingredient of the ‘kissing-bunch,’ sometimes a very elaborate affair, with apples and dolls hung in it. The ecclesiastical taboo is not universal; in York Minster, e.g., mistletoe was laid on the altar.

[874] Tille, _Y. and C._ 174; _D. W._ 256, and in _F. L._ iii. 166; Philpot, 164; Ashton, 189; Kempe, _Loseley MSS._ 75. The earliest English mention is in 1789.

[875] Tille, _Y. and C._ 170.

[876] Ibid. 172; Ashton, 105, quoting Aubrey, _Natural Hist. of Wilts_, ‘Mr. Anthony Hinton, one of the officers of the Earle of Pembroke, did inoculate, not long before the late civill warres (ten yeares or more), a bud of Glastonbury Thorne, on a thorne, at his farm house, at Wilton, which blossoms at Christmas, as the other did. My mother has had branches of them for a flower-pott, several Christmasses, which I have seen. Elias Ashmole, Esq., in his notes upon _Theatrum Chymicum_, saies that in the churchyard at Glastonbury grew a walnutt tree, that did putt out young leaves at Christmas, as doth the King’s Oake in the New Forest. In Parham Park, in Suffolk (Mr. Boutele’s), is a pretty ancient thorne, that blossomes like that at Glastonbury; the people flock hither to see it on Christmas day. But in the rode that leades from Worcester to Droitwiche is a black thorne hedge at Clayes, half a mile long or more, that blossoms about Christmas-day for a week or more together. Dr. Ezerel Tong sayd that about Rumly-Marsh in Kent, are thornes naturally like that near Glastonbury. The Soldiers did cutt downe that near Glastonbury: the stump remaines.’ Specimens are still found about Glastonbury of _Crataegus oxyacantha praecox_, a winter-flowering variety of hawthorn: some of the alleged slips from the Glastonbury thorn appear, however, to be _Prunus communis_, or blackthorn. A writer in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1753 reports that the opponents of the ‘New Style’ introduced in 1752 were encouraged by the refusal of the thorns at Glastonbury and Quainton in Buckinghamshire to flower before Old Christmas day. A Somerset woman told a writer in 3 _N. Q._ ix. 33 that the buds of the thorns burst into flower at midnight on Christmas Eve, ‘As they comed out, you could hear ‘um haffer.’

[877] Tille, _Y. and C._ 175.

[878] Usener, ii. 61. Alsso says that St. Adalbert substituted a crucifix for the idol, and the cry of ‘Vele, Vele,’ for that of ‘Bely, Bely.’

[879] Ashton, 244; Dyer, 483; Ditchfield, 15. The dolls sometimes represent the Virgin and Child. ‘Wesley-bob’ and the alternative ‘vessel-cup’ appear to be corruptions of ‘wassail.’

[880] Cf., however, the Burghead ceremony (p. 256).

[881] Brand, i. 217; Burne-Jackson, 381; Dyer, 405; Ditchfield, 25, 161; Northall, 216; Henderson, 66; Haddon, 476; Pfannenschmidt, 206. The _N. E. D._ plausibly explains ‘gooding,’ which seems to be used of any of these _quêtes_ as ‘wishing good,’ and ‘hooding’ may be a corruption of this.

[882] Brand, i. 1; Dyer, 501; Ditchfield, 42; Northall, 183. Skeat derives _wassail_, M.E. _wasseyl_, ‘a health-drinking,’ from N.E. _wæs hǽl_, A.-S. _wes hál_, ‘be whole.’

[883] Ducange, _Gloss_, s. v. Kalendae Ianuarii, quoting _Cerem. Rom. ad calcem Cod. MS. eccl. Camerac._ ‘Hii sunt ludi Romani communes in Kalendis Ianuarii. In vigilia Kalendarum in sero surgunt pueri, et portant scutum. Quidam eorum est larvatus cum maza in collo; sibilando sonant timpanum, eunt per domos, circumdant scutum, timpanum sonat, larva sibilat. Quo ludo finito, accipiunt munus a domino domus, secundum quod placet ei. Sic faciunt per unamquamque domum. Eo die de omnibus leguminibus comedunt. Mane autem surgunt duo pueri ex illis, accipiunt ramos olivae et sal, et intrant per domos, salutant domum: Gaudium et laetitia sit in hac domo; tot filii, tot porcelli, tot agni, et de omnibus bonis optant, et antequam sol oriatur, comedunt vel favum mellis, vel aliquid dulce, ut totus annus procedat eis dulcis, sine lite et labore magno.’

[884] Du Tilliot, 67, quoting J. B. Thiers, _Traité des jeux et des divertissemens_, 452; Müller, 103. There are some Guillaneu songs in Bujeaud, ii. 153. The _quête_ was prohibited by two synods of Angers in 1595 and 1668.

[885] Brand, i. 247; Dyer, 505; Ditchfield, 44; Ashton, 217; Northall, 181; Henderson, 76; Tille, _Y. and C._ 204; Nicholson, _Golspie_, 100; Rhys, in _F. L._ ii. 308. Properly speaking, ‘Hogmanay’ is the gift of an oaten farl asked for in the _quête_. It is also applied to the day on which the _quête_ takes place, which is in Scotland generally New Year’s Eve. Besides the _quête_, Hogmanay night, like Halloween elsewhere, is the night for horse-play and practical joking. The name appears in many forms, ‘Hogmana,’ ‘Hogomanay,’ ‘Nog-money’ (Scotland), ‘Hogmina’ (Cumberland), ‘Hagmena’ (Northumberland), ‘Hagman heigh!’ ‘Hagman ha!’ (Yorkshire), ‘Agganow’ (Lancashire), ‘Hob dy naa,’ ‘Hob ju naa’ (Isle of Man). It is generally accepted as equivalent to the French _aguilanneuf_, _aguilanleu_, _guillaneu_, _hagui men lo_, _hoquinano_, &c., ad infin., the earliest form being _auguilanleu_ (1353). With the Scotch

‘Hogmanay,
Trollolay,
Give us of your white bread and none of your grey’!

may be compared the French,

‘Tire lire,
Maint de blanc, et point du bis.’

On no word has amateur philology been more riotous. It has been derived from ‘au gui menez,’ ‘à gui l’an neuf,’ ‘au gueux menez,’ ‘Hálig monath,’ ἁγία μήνη, ‘Homme est né,’ and the like. Tille thinks that the whole of December was formerly Hogmanay, and derives from _monâth_ and either *_hoggva_, ‘hew,’ _hag_, ‘witch,’ or _hog_, ‘pig.’ Nicholson tries the other end, and traces _auguilanleu_ to the Spanish _aguinaldo_ or _aguilando_, ‘a New Year’s gift.’ This in turn he makes the gerund of *_aguilar_, an assumed corruption of _alquilar_, ‘to hire oneself out.’ Hogmanay will thus mean properly ‘handsel’ or hiring-money,’ and the first Monday in the New Year is actually called in Scotland ‘Handsel Monday.’ This is plausible, but, although no philologist, I think a case might be made out for regarding the terms as corruptions of the Celtic _Nos Galan-gaeaf_, ‘the night of the winter Calends’ (Rhys, 514). This is All Saints’ eve, while the Manx ‘Hob dy naa’ _quête_ is on Hollantide (November 12; cf. p. 230).

[886] A Gloucestershire wassail song in Dixon, _Ancient Poems_, 199, ends,

‘Come, butler, come bring us a bowl of the best:
I hope your soul in heaven will rest;
But if you do bring us a bowl of the small,
Then down fall butler, bowl and all.’

[887] In Herefordshire and the south of Scotland it is lucky to draw ‘the cream of the well’ or ‘the flower of the well,’ i. e. the first pail of water after midnight on New Year’s eve (Dyer, 7, 17). In Germany _Heilwag_ similarly drawn at Christmas is medicinal (Grimm, iv. 1810). Pembroke folk sprinkle each other on New Year’s Day (_F. L._ iii. 263). St. Martin of Braga condemns amongst Kalends customs ‘panem in fontem mittere (Appendix N, No. xxiii), and this form of well-cult survives at Christmas in the Tyrol (Jahn, 283) and in France (Müller, 500). Tertullian chaffs the custom of early bathing at the _Saturnalia_ (Appendix N, No. ii). Gervase of Tilbury (ed. Liebrecht, ii. 12) mentions an English belief (†1200) in a wonder-working Christmas dew. This Tille (_Y. and C._ 168) thinks an outgrowth from the Advent chant _Rorate coeli_, but it seems closely parallel to the folk belief in May-dew.

[888] Burne-Jackson, 388; Simpson, 202; _F. L._ v. 38; Dyer, 410. The festival in its present form can only date from the reign of James I, but the Pope used to be burned in bonfires as early as 1570 upon the accession day of Elizabeth, Nov. 17 (Dyer, 422).

[889] Dyer, 389 (Sussex).

[890] Brand, i. 210, 215 (Buchan, Perthshire, Aberdeenshire, North Wales).

[891] Pfannenschmidt, 207; Jahn, 240.

[892] Ashton, 47 (Isle of Man, where the day is called ‘Fingan’s Eve’).

[893] Jahn, 253.

[894] _F. L._ xii. 349; W. Gregor, _Brit. Ass. Rept._ (1896), 620 (Minnigaff, Galloway; bones being saved up for this fire); Gomme, _Brit. Ass. Rept._ (1896), 633 (Biggar, Lanarkshire).

[895] Brand, i. 14; Dyer, 22 (Gloucestershire, Herefordshire). Twelve small fires and one large one are made out in the wheat-fields.

[896] Dyer, 507; Ashton, 218; Simpson, 205; Gomme, _Brit. Ass. Rept._ (1896), 631; _F. L. J._ vii. 12; _Trans. Soc. Antiq. Scot._ x. 649.

[897] Simpson, 205, quoting Gordon Cumming, _From the Hebrides to the Himalayas_, i. 245.

[898] Bede, _D. T. R._ c. 17: cf. the A.-S. passage quoted by Pfannenschmidt, 495; Jahn, 252. Other Germanic names for the winter months are ‘Schlachtmonat,’ ‘Gormânaða’: cf. Weinhold, _Die deutschen Monatsnamen_, 54.

[899] Jahn, 229; Tille, _Y. and C._ 28, 65; Pfannenschmidt, 206, 217, 228.

[900] Dyer, 456, 470, 474, 477; Ashton, 171; Karl Blind, _The Boar’s Head Dinner at Oxford and an Old Teutonic Sun-God_, in _Saga Book_ of Viking Club for 1895.

[901] Dyer, 473.

[902] Hampson, i. 82.

[903] Gummere, _G. O._ 433.

[904] Tacitus, _Germ._ 45, of the Aestii, ‘matrem deum venerantur. insigne superstitionis formas aprorum gestant: id pro armis omnique tutela securum deae cultorem etiam inter hostis praestat.’

[905] Dyer, 439.

[906] Dyer, 492; Ashton, 204; Grimm, iv. 1816.

[907] Dyer, 481; N. W. Thomas, in _F. L._ xi. 250. Cf. ch. xvii for the hunt of a cat and a fox at the ‘grand Christmas’ of the Inner Temple.

[908] Dyer, 494, 497; Frazer, ii. 442; Northall, 229.

[909] Ashton, 114 (Reculver); Dyer, 472 (Ramsgate); Ditchfield, 27 (Walmer), 28 (Cheshire: All Souls’ day).

[910] Dyer, 486.

[911] Ditchfield, 28.

[912] Bertrand, 314; Arbois de Jubainville, _Cycl. myth._ 385; Rhys, _C. H._ 77.

[913] Tille, _D. W._ 109.

[914] C. de Berger (1723), _Commentatio de personis vulgo larvis seu mascharis_, 218 ‘Vecolo aut cervolo facere; hoc est sub forma vitulae aut cervuli per plateas discurrere, ut apud nos in festis Bacchanalibus vulgo dicitur _correr la tora_’; J. Ihre (†1769), _Gloss. Suio-Gothicum_, s. v. Jul. ‘Julbock est ludicrum, quo tempore hoc pellem et formam arietis induunt adolescentuli et ita adstantibus incursant. Credo idem hoc esse quod exteri scriptores cervulum appellant.’ In the _Life of Bishop Arni_ (nat. 1237) it is recorded how in his youth he once joined in a _scinnleic_ or ‘hide-play’ (_C. P. B._ ii. 385). Frazer, ii. 447, describes the New Year custom of _colluinn_ in Scotland and St. Kilda. A man clad in a cowhide is driven _deasil_ round each house to bless it. Bits of hide are also burnt for amulets. Probably the favourite Christmas game of Blind Man’s Buff was originally a _scinnleic_ (N. W. Thomas, in _F. L._ xi. 262).

[915] Brand, i. 210, 217; Jackson and Burne, 381, 392, 407; Ashton, 178; Jahn, 487, 500; Müller, 487, 500. Scandinavian countries bake the Christmas ‘Yule-boar.’ Often this is made from the last sheaf and the crumbs mixed with the seed-corn (Frazer, ii. 29). Germany has its _Martinshörner_ (Jahn, 250; Pfannenschmidt, 215).

[916] Dyer, 501; Ashton, 214.

[917] Brand, i. 19; Dyer, 21, 447; Ashton, 86, 233. Brand, i. 210, describes a Hallow-e’en custom in the Isle of Lewis of pouring a cup of ale in the sea to ‘Shony,’ a sea god.

[918] Brand, i. 14; Dyer, 22, 448; Northall, 187. A cake with a hole in the middle is hung on the horn of the leading ox.

[919] Grimm, iv. 1808. Hens are fed on New Year’s day with mixed corn to make them lay well.

[920] Gregory, _Posthuma_, 113 ‘It hath been a Custom, and yet is elsewhere, to whip up the Children upon Innocents-Day morning, that the memory of this Murther might stick the closer, and in a moderate proportion to act over the cruelty again in kind.’ In Germany, adults are beaten (Grimm, iv. 1820). In mediaeval France ‘innocenter,’ ‘donner les innocents,’ was a custom exactly parallel to the Easter _prisio_ (Rigollot, 138, 173).

[921] Dyer, 24; Cortet, 32; Frazer, iii. 143; Deslyons, _Traités contre le Paganisme du Roi boit_ (2nd ed. 1670). The accounts of Edward II record a gift to the _rex fabae_ on January 1, 1316 (_Archaeologia_, xxvi. 342). Payments to the ‘King of Bene’ and ‘for furnissing his graith’ were made by James IV of Scotland between 1490 and 1503 (_L. H. T. Accounts_, 1. ccxliii; 11. xxiv, xxxi, &c.). The familiar mode of choosing the king is thus described at Mont St. Michel ‘In vigilia Epyphaniae ad prandium habeant fratres gastellos et ponatur faba in uno; et frater qui inveniet fabam, vocabitur rex et sedebit ad magnam mensam, et scilicet sedebit ad vesperas ad matutinam et ad magnam missam in cathedra parata’ (Gasté, 53). The pre-eminence of the bean, largest of cereals, in the mixed cereal cake (cf. ch. vi) presents no great difficulty; on the religious significance attached to it in South Europe, cf. W. W. Fowler, 94, 110, 130. Lady Jane Grey was scornfully dubbed a Twelfth-day queen by Noailles (Froude, v. 206), just as the Bruce’s wife held her lord a summer king (ch. viii).

[922] _Accts. of St. Michael’s, Bath_, s. ann. 1487, 1490, 1492 (_Somerset Arch. Soc. Trans._ 1878, 1879, 1883). One entry is ‘pro corona conducta Regi Attumnali.’ The learned editor explains this as ‘a quest conducted by the King’s Attorney’!

[923] Ashton, 119; Dyer, 388, 423, 427.

[924] Brand, i. 261, prints from Leland, _Itinerary_ (ed. 1769), iv. 182, a description of the proclamation of Youle by the sheriffs at the ‘Youle-Girth’ and throughout the city. In Davies, 270, is a letter from Archbp. Grindal and other ecclesiastical commissioners to the Lord Mayor, dated November 13, 1572, blaming ‘a very rude and barbarouse custome maynteyned in this citie and in no other citie or towne of this realme to our knowledge, that yerely upon St. Thomas day before Christmas twoo disguysed persons, called Yule and Yule’s wife, shoulde ryde throughe the citie very undecently and uncomely....’ Hereupon the council suppressed the riding. Drake, _Eboracum_ (1736), 217, says that originally a friar rode backwards and ‘painted like a Jew.’ He gives an historical legend to account for the origin of the custom. Religious interludes were played on the same day: cf. _Representations_. The ‘Yule’ of York was perhaps less a ‘king’ than a symbolical personage like the modern ‘Old Father Christmas.’

[925] Ramsay, _Y. and L._ ii. 52; Blomefield, _Hist. of Norfolk_, iii. 149. The riot was against the Abbot of St. Benet’s Holm, and the monks declared that one John Gladman was set up as a king, an act of treason against Henry VI. The city was fined 1,000 marks. In 1448 they set forth their wrongs in a ‘Bill’ and explained that Gladman ‘who was ever, and at thys our is, a man of sad disposition, and trewe and feythfull to God and to the Kyng, of disporte as hath ben acustomed in ony cite or burgh thorowe alle this realme, on Tuesday in the last ende of Cristemesse, viz. Fastyngonge Tuesday, made a disport with hys neyghbours, havyng his hors trappyd with tynnsoyle and other nyse disgisy things, coronned as kyng of Crestemesse, in tokyn that seson should end with the twelve monethes of the yere, aforn hym yche moneth disguysed after the seson requiryd, and Lenton clad in whyte and red heryngs skinns, and his hors trapped with oystyr-shells after him, in token that sadnesse shuld folowe, and an holy tyme, and so rode in diverse stretis of the cite, with other people, with hym disguysed makyng myrth, disportes and plays.’

[926] Jevons, _Plutarch’s Romane Questions_, 86. The Ides (Jan. 9) must have practically been included in the Kalends festival. The Agonium, probably a sacrifice to Janus, was on that day (W. W. Fowler, 282).

[927] Appendix N, Nos. ix, xi, xiv, xvii, xviii, xxviii, xxxvi.

[928] G. L. Gomme, in _Brit. Ass. Rep._ (1896), 616 sqq.; Tille, _D. W._ 11, _Y. and C._ 90; Jahn, 253; Dyer, 446, 466; Ashton, 76, 219; Grimm, iv. 1793, 1798, 1812, 1826, 1839, 1841; Bertrand, 111, 404; Müller, 478.

[929] Tille, _Y. and C._ 95.

[930] Dyer, 456; Ashton, 125, 188. A Lombard _Capitulary_ (App. N, No. xxxviii) forbids a Christmas candle to be burnt beneath the kneading-trough.

[931] Müller, 236; Dyer, 430; Ashton, 54; Rigollot, 173; _Records of Aberdeen_ (Spalding Club), ii. 39, 45, 66. In Belgium the household keys are entrusted to the youngest child on Innocents’ day (Durr, 73).