That sweet luck may
Come while the Log is a teending.[195:A]
Drink now the strong beere,
Cut the white loafe here,[195:B]
The while the meat is a shredding
For the rare mince-pie,
And the plums stand by
To fill the paste that's a kneading."[195:C]
It was customary on this eve, likewise, to decorate the windows of every house, from the nobleman's seat to the cottage, with bay, laurel, ivy, and holly leaves, which were continued during the whole of the Christmas-holidays, and frequently until Candlemas. Stowe, in his Survey of London, particularly mentions this observance:
—"Against the feast of Christmas," says he, "every man's house, as also their parish churches, were decked with holm, ivie, bayes, and whatsoever the season of the yeere aforded to be greene: The conduits and standards in the streetes were likewise garnished. Amongst the which, I read, that in the yeere 1444, by tempest of thunder and lightning, on the first of February at night, Paul's steeple was fired, but with great labour quenched, and toward the morning of Candlemas day, at the Leaden Hall in Cornhill, a standard of tree, beeing set up in the midst of the pavement fast in the ground, nayled full of holme and ivy, for disport of Christmas to the people; was torne up, and cast downe by the malignant spirit (as was thought) and the stones of the pavement all about were cast in the streetes, and into divers houses, so that the people were sore agast at the great tempests."[196:A]