"'Merry in the hall, when beards wag all!'"
Now, all men in those days appear to have had good stomachs, and, we presume, took care to provide themselves with sharp knives. The only recorded instance in which we find a failure of the latter is that portentous one which occurred, many a long day since, in the court of King Arthur, when the Christmas mirth was so strangely disturbed by the mischievous interference of the Boy with the Mantle. Under the test introduced by that imp of discord and which appears to have "taken the shine out of" the monarch's own good sword Excalibur itself, there was found but one knight, of all the hungry knights who sat at that Round Table, whose weapon was sharp enough to carve the boar's head or hand steady enough to carry the cup to his lip without spilling the lamb's wool; and even he had a very narrow escape from the same incapacities. But then, as we have said, this was at court, and under the influence of a spell (with whose nature we take it for granted that our readers are acquainted,—and, if not, we refer them to the Percy Ballads); and it is probable that, in those early as in later days, tests of such extreme delicacy were of far more dangerous introduction in the courts of kings than amongst assemblies of more mirth and less pretension. We could by no means feel sure that the intrusion, in our own times, of a similar test into a similar scene might not spoil the revels.
But to return. The old ballads which relate to this period of the year are redolent of good things, and not to be read by a hungry man with any degree of equanimity. Of course they are ex post facto ballads, and could only have been written under the inspiration of memory, at a time when men were at leisure to devote their hands to some other occupation than that of cooking or carving. But it is very difficult to understand how they ever found—as it appears they did—their mouths in a condition to sing them at the season itself. There is one amongst those ballads, of a comparatively modern date, printed in Evans's collection, which we advise no man to read fasting. It is directed to be sung to the tune of "The Delights of the Bottle," and contains in every verse a vision of good things, summed up by the perpetually recurring burthen of
"Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast beef."
Enjoying Christmas.—Page 46.
Our readers had better take a biscuit and a glass of sherry before they venture upon the glimpses into those regions of banqueting which we are tempted to lay before them. The ballad opens like the ringing of a dinner-bell, and, we conceive, should be sung to some such accompaniment:—
"All you that to feasting and mirth are inclin'd,
Come here is good news for to pleasure your mind,—
Old Christmas is come for to keep open house,
He scorns to be guilty of starving a mouse:
Then come, boys, and welcome for diet the chief,
Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast beef."