Flame Heath. Erica flammea.
Dedicated to St. John.
December 28.
The Holy Innocents. St. Theodorus, Abbot of Tabenna, A. D. 367.
Innocents.
This is another Romish celebration preserved in the church of England calendar and the almanacs. It has another name—
Childermas-Day.
This is conjectured to have been derived from the masses said for the souls of the Innocents who suffered from Herod’s cruelty. It is to commemorate their slaughter that Innocents or Childermas-day is appropriated, and hence the name it bears.
It was formerly a custom to whip up the children on Innocent’s day morning, in order “that the memorial of Herod’s murder of the Innocents might stick the closer, and so, in a moderate proportion, to act over the crueltie again in kinde.”[434] The day itself was deemed of especial ill omen, and hence the superstitious never married on Childermas-day. Neither upon this day was it “lucky” to put on new clothes, or pare the nails, or begin any thing of moment. In the play of “Sir John Oldcastle” the prevalence of this belief is instanced by an objection urged to an expedition proposed on a Friday,—“Friday, quoth’a, a dismal day; Candlemas-day this year was Friday.” This vulgar superstition reached the throne; the coronation of king Edward IV. was put off till the Monday, because the preceding Sunday was Childermas-day.[435] Lastly, a mother in the “Spectator” is made to say, at that time, “No, child, if it please God, you shall not go into join-hand on Childermas-day.”