[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.