Then farewell ladde and farewell lasse,
To' th' merry night of Martilmasse."[193:A]
Shakspeare has an allusion to this formerly convivial day in the Second Part of King Henry IV., where Poins, asking Bardolph after Falstaff, says: "How doth the martlemas, your master?" an epithet by which, as Johnson observes, he means the latter spring, or the old fellow with juvenile passions.[193:B]
We have now to record the closing and certainly the greatest festival of the year, the celebration of Christmas, a period which our ancestors were accustomed to devote to hospitality on a very large scale, to the indulgence indeed of hilarity and good cheer for, at least, twelve days, and sometimes, especially among the lower ranks, for six weeks.
Christmas was always ushered in by the due observance of its Eve, first in a religious and then in a festive point of view. "Our forefathers," remarks Bourne, "when the common devotions of the Eve were over, and night was come on, were wont to light up candles of an uncommon size, which were called Christmas-candles, and to lay a
log of wood upon the fire, which they termed a Yule-clog, or Christmas-block. These were to illuminate the house, and turn the night into day; which custom, in some measure, is still kept up in the northern parts."[194:A]
This mode of rejoicing, at the winter solstice, appears to have originated with the Danes and Pagan Saxons, and was intended to be emblematical of the return of the sun, and its increasing light and heat; gehol or Geol, Angl. Sax. Jel, Jul, Huil, or Yule, Dan. Sax. Swed., implying the idea of revolution or of wheel, and not only designating, among these northern nations, the month of December, called Jul-Month, but the great feast also of this period.[194:B] On the introduction of Christianity, the illuminations of the Eve of Yule were continued as representative of the true light which was then ushered into the world, in the person of our Saviour, the Day spring from on High.
The ceremonies and festivities which were observed on Christmas-Eve during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and which in some parts of the north have been partially continued, until within these last thirty years, consisted in bringing into the house, with much parade and with vocal and instrumental harmony, the Yule or Christmas-block, a massy piece of fire-wood, frequently the enormous root of a tree, and which was usually supplied by the carpenter attached to the family. This being placed in the centre of the great hall, each of the family, in turn, sate down upon it, sung a Yule-Song, and drank to a merry Christmas and a happy new year. It was then placed on the large open hearth in the hall chimney, and, being lighted with the last year's brand, carefully preserved for this express purpose, the music again struck up, when the addition of fuel already inflamed, expedited the process, and occasioned a brilliant conflagration. The family and their friends were then feasted with Yule-Dough or Yule-cakes, on which were impressed the figure of the child
Jesus; and with bowls of frumenty, made from wheat cakes or creed wheat, boiled in milk, with sugar, nutmeg, &c. To these succeeded tankards of spiced ale, while preparations were usually going on among the domestics for the hospitalities of the succeeding day.
In the curious collection of Herrick is preserved a poem descriptive of some of these observances, and which was probably written for the express purpose of being sung during the kindling of the Yule-clog.