[ [91] “Raise the glass at Martinmas, drink wine all through the year.”
[ [92] It is interesting to note that in the Italian province of Venetia, as well as in more northerly regions, Martinmas is especially a children's feast. In the sweetshops are sold little sugar images of the saint on horseback with a long sword, and in Venice itself children go about singing, playing on tambourines, and begging for money.[{93}]
[ [93] “At St. Andrew's Mass winter is certain.”
[ [94] This custom may be compared with the Scotch eating of sowans in bed on Christmas morning (see [Chapter XII.]).
[ [95] In a legend of the saint she is said to have plucked out her own eyes when their beauty caused a prince to seek to ravish her away from her convent.[{54}]
[ [96] The bath-house in the old-fashioned Swedish farm is a separate building to which everyone repairs on Christmas Eve, but which is, or was, seldom used except on this one night of the year.[{23}]
[ [97] Sometimes Christmas is reckoned as one of the Twelve Days, sometimes not. In the former case, of course, the Epiphany is the thirteenth day. In England we call the Epiphany Twelfth Day, in Germany it is generally called Thirteenth; in Belgium and Holland it is Thirteenth; in Sweden it varies, but is usually Thirteenth. Sometimes then the Twelve Days are spoken of, sometimes the Thirteen. “The Twelve Nights,” in accordance with the old Teutonic mode of reckoning by nights, is a natural and correct term.[{39}]
[ [98] Those who wish to pursue further the study of the Kallikantzaroi should read the elaborate and fascinating, if not altogether convincing, theories of Mr. J. C. Lawson in his “Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion.” He distinguishes two classes of Kallikantzaroi, one of which he identifies with ordinary werewolves, while the other is the type of hairy, clawed demons above described. He sets forth a most ingenious hypothesis connecting them with the Centaurs.
[ [99] It is to be borne in mind that the oak was a sacred tree among the heathen Slavs; it was connected with the thunder-god Perun, the counterpart of Jupiter, and a fire of oak burned night and day in his honour. The neighbours of the Slavs, the Lithuanians, had the same god, whom they called Perkunas; they too kept up a perpetual oak-fire in his honour, and in time of drought they used to pour beer on the flames, praying to Perkunas to send showers.[{10}] The libations of wine on the Yule log may conceivably have had a similar purpose.
[ [100] Kindling.