The Rural Life of England

by William Howitt

“On the next day, in the great parlour, the parents lay on the table the presents for the children. A scene of more sober joy succeeds; as on this day, after an old custom, the mother says privately to each of her daughters, and the father to his sons, that which he has observed most praiseworthy, and that which was most faulty in their conduct. Formerly, and still in all the smaller towns and villages throughout North Germany, these presents are sent by all the parents to some one fellow, who, in high buskins, a white robe, a mask, and an enormous flax wig, personates Knecht Rupert, i. e. the servant Rupert. On Christmas night he goes round to every house, and says that Jesus Christ, his master, sent him thither. The parents and elder children receive him with great pomp and reverence, while the little ones are most terribly frightened. He then inquires for the children, and according to the character which he hears from the parents he gives them the intended presents, as if they came out of heaven from Jesus Christ. Or if they should have been bad children, he gives the parents a rod, and, in the name of his master, recommends them to use it frequently. About seven or eight years old, the children are let into the secret, and it is curious how faithfully they keep it.”

The bough mentioned by Coleridge as yew, is by other writers said to be of birch. The Christ-child is said to come flying through the air on golden wings; and causes the birch-bough fixed in the corner of the room to grow, and to produce in the night, all manner of fruit; gilt sweetmeats, apples, nuts, etc., for the good children. Richter makes Quintus Fixlein recal one of these scenes of his youth, very beautifully. “I will,” said he to himself, “go through the whole Christmas-eve, from the very dawn, as I had it of old. At his very rising he finds spangles on the table, sacred spangles from the gold-leaf and silver-leaf with which the Christ-child has been emblazoning and coating his apples and nuts, the presents of the night. Then comes his mother, bringing him both Christianity and clothes; for in drawing on his trousers, she easily recapitulated the ten commandments; and in tying his garters, the Apostles’ creed. So soon as candlelight was over, and daylight come, he clambers to the arm of the settle, and then measures the nocturnal growth of the yellow wiry grove of Christmas-birch. There was no such thing as school all day. About three o’clock the old gardener takes his place on his large chair, with his Cologne tobacco-pipe, and, after this, no mortal shall work a stroke. He tells nothing but lies, of the aeronautic Christ-child, and the jingling Ruprecht with his bells. In the dark our little Quintus takes an apple, and divides it with all the figures of stereometry, and spreads the fragments in two heaps on the table. Then, as the lighted candle enters, he starts up in amazement at the unexpected present, and says to his mother, ‘Look what the good Christ-child has given thee and me, and I saw one of his wings glittering!’ And for this same glittering he himself lies in wait the whole evening.

“About eight o’clock, both of them with necks almost excoriated with washing, and clean linen, and in universal anxiety lest the Holy Christ-child find them up, are put to bed. What a magic night! What tumult of dreaming hopes! The populous, motley, glittering cave of fancy opens itself in the length of the night, and in the exhaustion of dreaming effort, still darker and darker, fuller and more grotesque; but the waking gives back to the thirsty heart its hopes. All accidental tones, the cries of animals, of watchmen, are, for the timidly devout fancy, sounds out of heaven; singing voices of angels in the air; church music of the morning worship.

“At last come rapid lights from the neighbourhood, playing through the window on the walls, and the Christmas trumpets, and the crowing from the steeple hurries both the boys from their bed. With their clothes in their hands, without fear for the darkness, without feeling for the morning frost, rushing, intoxicated, shouting, they hurry down stairs into the dark room. Fancy riots in the pastry and fruit perfume of the still eclipsed treasures, and haunts her air-castles by the glimmering of the Hesperides-fruit with which the birch-tree is laden. While their mother strikes a light, the falling sparks sportfully open and shroud the dainties on the table, and the many-coloured grove on the wall; and a single atom of that fire bears on it a hanging garden of Eden.”

I am informed by a lady friend that German families in Manchester have introduced this custom of the Christmas-tree, and that it is spreading fast amongst the English there,—pine-tops being brought to market for the pupose, which are generally illuminated with a taper for every day in the year.

Such are the rites, fancies, and ceremonies with which other, and especially Catholic countries, have invested this ancient festival. What now remain in our Protestant nation of these customs?—Much is gone; many are the changes that have taken place in our manners and opinions; and yet it is certain that we regard this season of festivity with a strong and sacred affection. It is true that there is commonly but one day of thorough holiday to the people; one day on which all shops are shut; on which labour in a great measure ceases, and the poor join with the rich in repose and worship. The poor, indeed, do not partake the benefit of this season, as the poor of old time did; the houses of the great are not, as they were then, open to all tenants and dependents. There is now, indeed, upon the great man’s table,

No mark to part the squire and lord;

but there is a mark more immobile than the salt, set in the grain of our minds. The distinctions of society have grown with our commercial wealth, and have multiplied grades and relations. A sense of independence too has sprung up in the lower classes, with commerce and the growth of intelligence. The great man might, indeed, condescend to call his tenants and dependents to his hall to a Christmas revel, but if they went at all they would go reluctantly, and feel ill at ease. They would feel it as a condescension, and not as springing out of the heartiness of old customs. They would feel that they were out of their element; for all classes know instinctively the broad differences of habits, manners, and modes of thinking that separate them from each other more effectually than any feudal institutions did their ancestors. The pride of the yeoman would be more in danger of suffering than the pride of the lord; the pride of the cottager than that of the farmer, if invited to his table. When the brick floor and the wooden bench gave way in the farm-house to the carpet and the mahogany chair, the feet of the labourer ceased to tread familiarly round the farmer’s table. Harvest meals and harvest-home suppers bring them together in rustic districts; they are the remaining links of the old chain of society; but the Christmas custom is broken, and is therefore no longer observable with full content. This great difference between the past and present exists, and therefore the rejoicing of the poor at this time is short and small: would to heaven that the kindly feeling of the community would make it greater!

But, independent of this, to the rest of the community Christmas brings much of its ancient pleasure. Each class within itself, enjoys it, perhaps more deeply, if less noisily than of old. It is, as I have before said, the festival of the fireside. Friends and families are brought together by many circumstances. Summer tourists and out-of-door pleasure-seekers have all turned home at the frown of winter. As it was their delight in the early year to plan excursions, to make parties, and then to fly forth in all directions, to enjoy new scenes, new faces, summer skies, and sea-breezes; it is now their delight to assemble again round their familiar firesides, with the old familiar faces, to talk over all that they have seen, and said, and done. Parliament has adjourned, and weary senators and their families have fled from London, and are, once more, at their country seats. Children are come home from school; business seems to pause, or to move less urgently in the dead season of the year, and releases numbers from its tread-mill round to an interval of relaxation. All the branches of families meet with spirits eager for enjoyment; and storms, frosts, and darkness without, send them for that enjoyment to the fire-bright hearth.

Christmas-eve approaches, and with it signs of observance, and feasting, and amusement. Holly, ivy, and mistletoe appear in vast quantities in the markets, and almost every housekeeper, except those of the Society of Friends, furnishes herself with a quantity to decorate her windows, if not always to sport a kissing-bush. Churches, halls, city houses and country cottages, are all seen with their windows stuck over with sprigs of green and scarlet-berried holly. Mistletoe is said never to be introduced into churches except by ignorance of the sextons, being held in abhorrence by the early Christians on account of its prominence in the Druidical ceremonies. And this is likely enough; but in the house it maintains its station, and well merits it, by the beauty of its divaricated branches of pale-green, and its pearly-white berries. But Christmas-eve brings not only evergreens into request, but abundance of more substantial things. The coaches to town are fairly loaded to the utmost with geese, turkeys and game, as those downwards are with barrels of oysters. The grocers are busy selling currants, raisins, spices, and other good things, for the composition of mince-pies and Christmas sweetmeats. Pigs are killed, and pork-pies, sausages, and spareribs abound, from the greatest hall to the lowest hut. Heaven be thanked that the blessing goes so far in this instance. It is a delight to think of all the little children in the poor man’s house, that the year through have lived coarsely if not sparely, now watching the fat pig from their own sty cut up, and pies and spareribs, boiling pieces, black puddings and sausages, springing up as from a magical storehouse unlocked by the key of Old Christmas. O! it is a delicious time, when the father and the mother can sit down amongst their throng of eager little ones, that “feel their life in every limb,” and feast them to their hearts’ content; and live with them for a short time amid substantial things and savoury smells, and, after all, hang in the chimney-corner two noble flitches for the coming year.