It is extremely remarkable, and can scarcely be a mere coincidence, that far away among the southern Slavs, as we saw in [Chapter XII.], a Christmas cake with a hole in its centre is likewise put upon the horn of the chief ox. The wassailing of the animals is found there also. On Christmas Day, Sir Arthur [347]Evans relates, the house-mother “entered the stall set apart for the goats, and having first sprinkled them with corn, took the wine-cup in her hand and said, ‘Good morning, little mother! The Peace of God be on thee! Christ is born; of a truth He is born. May'st thou be healthy. I drink to thee in wine; I give thee a pomegranate; may'st thou meet with all good luck!’ She then lifted the cup to her lips, took a sup, tossed the pomegranate among the herd, and throwing her arms round the she-goat, whose health she had already drunk, gave it the ‘Peace of God’—kissed it, that is, over and over again.” The same ceremony was then performed for the benefit of the sheep and cows, and all the animals were beaten with a leafy olive-branch.[{44}]
As for the fires, an Irish custom to some extent supplies a parallel. On Epiphany Eve a sieve of oats was set up, “and in it a dozen of candles set round, and in the centre one larger, all lighted.” This was said to be in memory of the Saviour and His apostles, lights of the world.[{45}] Here is an account of a similar custom practised in Co. Leitrim:—
“A piece of board is covered with cow-dung, and twelve rushlights are stuck therein. These are sprinkled with ash at the top, to make them light easily, and then set alight, each being named by some one present, and as each dies so will the life of its owner. A ball is then made of the dung, and it is placed over the door of the cowhouse for an increase of cattle. Sometimes mud is used, and the ball placed over the door of the dwelling-house.”[{46}]
There remains to be considered under Epiphany usages an ancient and very remarkable game played annually on January 6 at Haxey in Lincolnshire. It is known traditionally as “Haxey Hood,” and its centre is a struggle between the men of two villages for the possession of a roll of sacking or leather called the “hood.” Over it preside the “boggans” or “bullocks” of Plough Monday (see p. [352]), headed by a figure known as “My Lord,” who is attended by a fool. The proceedings are opened on the village green by a mysterious speech from the fool:—
“Now, good folks, this is Haxa’ Hood. We've killed two [348]bullocks and a half, but the other half we had to leave running about field: we can fetch it if it's wanted. Remember it's—
‘Hoose agin hoose, toon agin toon,
And if you meet a man knock him doon.’”
Then, in an open field, the hoods—there are six of them, one apparently for each of the chief hamlets round—are thrown up and struggled for. “The object is to carry them off the field away from the boggans. If any of these can get hold of them, or even touch them, they have to be given up, and carried back to My Lord. For every one carried off the field the boggans forfeit half-a-crown, which is spent in beer, doubtless by the men of the particular hamlet who have carried off the hood.” The great event of the day is the struggle for the last hood—made of leather—between the men of Haxey and the men of Westwoodside—“that is to say really between the customers of the public-houses there—each party trying to get it to his favourite ‘house.’ The publican at the successful house stands beer.”[{47}]
Mr. Chambers regards the fool's strange speech as preserving the tradition that the hood is the half of a bullock—the head of a sacrificial victim, and he explains both the Haxey game and also the familiar games of hockey and football as originating in a struggle between the people of two villages to get such a head, with all its fertilizing properties, over their own boundary.[{48}] At Hornchurch in Essex, if we may trust a note given by Hone, an actual boar's head was wrestled for on Christmas Day, and afterwards feasted upon at one of the public-houses by the victor and his friends.[{49}]
One more feature of the Haxey celebration must be mentioned (it points apparently to a human sacrifice): the fool, the morning after the game, used to be “smoked” over a straw fire. “He was suspended above the fire and swung backwards and forwards over it until almost suffocated; then allowed to drop into the smouldering straw, which was well wetted, and to scramble out as he could.”[{50}]
Returning to the subject of football, I may here condense an [349]account of a Welsh Christmas custom quoted by Sir Laurence Gomme, in his book “The Village Community,” from the Oswestry Observer of March 2, 1887:—“In South Cardiganshire it seems that about eighty years ago the population, rich and poor, male and female, of opposing parishes, turned out on Christmas Day and indulged in the game of football with such vigour that it became little short of a serious fight.” Both in north and south Wales the custom was found. At one place, Llanwenog near Lampeter, there was a struggle between two parties with different traditions of race. The Bros, supposed to be descendants from Irish people, occupied the high ground of the parish; the Blaenaus, presumably pure-bred Brythons, occupied the lowlands. After morning service on Christmas Day, “the whole of the Bros and Blaenaus, rich and poor, male and female, assembled on the turnpike road which divided the highlands from the lowlands.” The ball was thrown high in the air, “and when it fell Bros and Blaenaus scrambled for its possession.... If the Bros, by hook or by crook, could succeed in taking the ball up the mountain to their hamlet of Rhyddlan they won the day, while the Blaenaus were successful if they got the ball to their end of the parish at New Court.” Many severe kicks were given, and the whole thing was taken so keenly “that a Bro or a Blaenau would as soon lose a cow from his cowhouse as the football from his portion of the parish.” There is plainly more than a mere pastime here; the thing appears to have been originally a struggle between two clans.[{51}]