THE HOLY NIGHT. Correggio.

The BOOK of
Christmas

With an
Introduction
by
Hamilton W
Mabie

and an
Accompaniment of
Drawings by
George Wharton
Edwards

New York
The Macmillan
Company
1909

Copyright, 1909,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1909

Norwood Press

J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

INTRODUCTION

CAROLS are still sung in almost numberless churches, lights glow on altars bound and wreathed with spruce and holly, trees are set up in innumerable homes, and mobs of merry children sing and dance around them, stockings take on grotesque shapes and hang gaping with treasures for early marauders on Christmas morning, and hosts of men and women keep the day in their hearts in all peace and piety.

The festival, dear to the heart of sixty generations, has survived the commercial uses which it has been compelled to serve; the weariness of buying and selling in the vast bazaar of nations, stocked with all manner of things which stimulate the offerings of friendship; the wide-spread sense of irony which success without happiness breeds; the indifference of feeling and satiety of emotion fostered by great prosperity without that grace of culture which subdues wealth to the finer uses of life. It has survived the cynical spirit that distrusts sentiment and sneers at emotion as weaknesses which have no place in a scientific age and among men and women who know life. It has survived that preoccupation with affairs which leaves little time for feelings, and that resolute determination to make men good which leaves scant room for efforts to make them happy.

But even in this age of hard-headed practical sagacity and hard-minded goodness ruthlessly bent on doing the Lord's work by the methods of a police magistrate, Christmas carols are still sung; and the organization of virtue in numberless societies with presidents and secretaries, and, above all, with treasurers, has not dimmed the glow of the love which bears fruit in a forest of Christmas trees, with mobs of merry children shouting around them.

The plain truth is that the world is not half so heartless as it pretends to be. In its desire to wear that air of weary omniscience which is supposed to bear witness to a wide experience of life it often pooh-poohs appeals which make its well-regulated heart beat with painful irregularity. There is as much hypocrisy in the scornful as in the sentimental; and the worldly-wise man often sniffles behind the handkerchief with which he pretends to stifle a sneeze. We pretend to have become too wise to be moved by lighted candles or stirred by children's voices singing of angels and shepherds; but in our heart of hearts the old story is dear to us, and we are eager eavesdroppers when the ancient mysteries of love and sympathy and friendship are talked about by the poets or novelists.

We speak patronizingly of those old-fashioned Christmas essays in the "Sketch Book," and we pretend to be amused by the recollection that "The Christmas Carol" once filled us with an almost insane desire to make somebody happy. But it is noticeable that the old text-books of Christmas sentiment reappear year after year in an almost endless variety of forms; and that in an age when the strong man boasts of his distrust of emotion, and the strong woman holds sentiment in the contempt one feels for out-grown toys, books that have to do with Christmas are read with surreptitious pleasure. We apologize publicly for our interest in them and deprecate the attempt to revive a faded interest and recall a decayed tradition; but in private we read with avidity these survivals of archaic feeling and prehistoric emotion. When "The Birds' Christmas Carol" appeared, we laughed over it so as to hide our tears. Mr. Janvier's charming account of Christmas ways in Provence captivated us, and we found excuse for its tender regard for old habits and observances in the fact that Mr. Janvier has been in the habit of spending a good deal of time with a group of unworldly old poets who still dream of joy and beauty as the precious things of life, and hold to the fellowship of artists instead of forming a labor union. Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, Mr. F. Marion Crawford, and Mr. F. Hopkinson Smith have written undisguised Christmas stories with as little sense of detachment from modern life as if they were telling detective tales; and, what is more astonishing to the worldly-wise man, these stories have a glow of life, a vitality of charm and sweetness in them, that make scorn and cynicism seem cheap and vulgar. And here comes Dr. Crothers and stirs the smouldering Christmas fire into a blaze and sits down before it as if it were real logs in combustion and not a trick with gas, and makes gentle sport of the wisdom of the sceptic. These recent revivals of Christmas literature show a surprising vitality, and have met with a surprising response from a generation popularly believed to be given over to the making of money and the extirpation of human feeling. It is even said that there are men and women of such insistent hopefulness that they anticipate a time when the aged in feeling, the worn-out in sentiment, the infirm in imagination, and the crippled in heart will be brought again within sound of Christmas bells.

There is little hope of bringing in the reign of good feeling by lighting a single Christmas fire, but a long line of such fires touching the receding horizon of the past with a happy glow is like a revival of a fading memory; it makes us suddenly aware of half-forgotten associations with the days that were once full of life and rippling with merriment like a mountain stream suffused with sunlight. We surrender ourselves so completely to the noisy activities of our own age that we forget how infinitesimal a portion of time it is and how misleading its emphasis often is. It is only a point on the face of the dial; but we accept it as if it were a present eternity, a final stage in the evolution of men. That many of its sacred texts are the maxims of a short-sighted prudence, many of its major interests as short-lived as the passions of children, many of its ideas of life the cheapest parvenus in the world of thought, does not occur to us; its cynicisms are often reflections of its spiritual shallowness, and its scepticisms mere records of its meanness or corruption. Like all the times that have gone before it, it is a fragment of a fragment, and the only way to see life whole is to get away from it and look down on it as it takes its little place in the larger order of history.

In this greater order of time the long line of Christmas fires glows like a great truth binding the fleeting generations into a unity of faith and feeling. When we light our fire, we are one with our ancestors of a thousand years ago; we evade the isolation of our time and escape its provincial narrowness; we rejoin the race from whose growth we have unconsciously separated ourselves; we open long-unused rooms and are amazed to find how large the house of life is and how hospitable. It has hearth room for all experience and for every kind of emotion; for the thoughts that move in the order of logic; for the emotions that rise and fall like great tides that flow in from the infinite; for the vigor that is born of will, and for the power evoked by discipline. It is when the different ages, with their diversities of interest and growth, send their children to sit together before the Christmas fire that we realize how wide life is, and how impossible it is for any age to compass it. The faith against which one age shuts the door stands serene and smiling in the centre of the next age; the joy which one generation denies itself lies radiant on the face of a later generation; the imagination which the reign of logic in one epoch sends into the wilderness returns with full hands to be the master of a wiser period.

Before the Christmas fire that for two thousand years has sunk into embers to blaze again into a great light at the end of the twelfth month, men are not only reunited in the unbroken continuity of their fortunes, but in the wholeness of their life; in their power of vision as well as of sight, in their power of feeling as well as of thought, in their power of love as well as of action.

This large hospitality of the Christmas fire, before which kings and beggars sit at ease and every human faculty finds its place, makes room for every gift and grace; for reason, with severe and wrinkled face; for sentiment, tender and reverent of all sweet and beautiful things; for the imagination, seeing heavenly visions, and the fancy catching glimpses of quaint or grotesque or fairy-like images, in the flame; for poetry, singing full-throated with Milton, or homely, familiar and domestic with the makers of the carols; for the story-tellers, spinning their fascinating tales within the circle of the embracing glow; for humor, full of smiles or filling the room with Homeric laughter; for the players, whose mimic art shows the manger, the shepherds and the kings to successive generations crowding the playhouse with the eager joy of children or with the sacred memories of age; for the preachers, to whom the season brings a text apart from the disputes and antagonisms of the schools and churches; for companies of children, impatiently waiting for the mysterious noise in the chimney; and for graybeards recalling old days and ways,—yule logs, country dances, waits singing under the frosty sky, stage coaches bearing guests and hampers filled with dainties to country houses standing with open doors and broad hearths for the fun and frolic, the tenderness and sentiment, the poetry and piety, of Christmas-tide.

At the end of nearly two thousand years Christmas shows no signs of decrepitude or weariness; its danger lies not in forgetfulness but in perverted uses and overstimulated activities. Its commercial availability is pushed so far that its sentiment often loses spontaneity and charm in excessive organization and prodigal distribution. The Christmas shopper suffers such a perversion of feeling that she hates the season she ought to bless; and the modern Santa Claus is so intent on the ingenuity or the cost of his gifts that he overlooks the only gift that warms the heart and translates Christmas into the vernacular.

If Christmas is to be saved from desecration and kept sacred, not only to faith but to friendship, its sentiment must be revived year by year in the joyful celebration of the old rites. We have been so eager of late years to rid ourselves of superstition and "see things as they are," that we have lost that vision of the large relations of things in which alone their meaning and use is revealed. We have studied the field at our doorsteps so thoroughly that we have lost sight of the landscape in which its little cup of fruitfulness is poured as into a great bowl rimmed by the horizon. One day out of three hundred and sixty-five, detached from its ancient history and isolated from the celebrations of centuries, cannot keep our hearts and hearths warm; we must rekindle the old fires and join hands with the vanished companies of friends who have kept the day and made it merry in the long ago. The echoes of ancient song and laughter give it a rich merriment, a ripe and tender wealth of associations. The mirth of one Christmas overflows into another until the sense of an unbroken joy, sinking and rising year after year like the tide of life in the fields, is borne in upon us. This sense of the unity of men in the great experiences steals back again into our hearts when we hear the old songs and read the old stories. Alexander Smith, whose book of essays, "Dreamthorp," is one of the books of the heart,—for there are books of the heart as well as books of knowledge and books of power,—kindled his imagination into a responsive glow by rereading every Christmas Day Milton's "Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity." When one opens the volume at this great song, it is like going into a church and hearing the organ played by unseen hands; the silence is flooded by a vast music which lifts the heart into the presence of great mysteries. But there is a time for private devotions as well as for public worship, for domestic as well as religious celebrations; and for every hour and place and mood there is a song and story. There are tender hymns for the devout, and spirited songs for those who celebrate together old days and ancient friendships; there are quaint carols for those whose hearts long for the quiet and pleasant ways of an olden time, and there are roaring catches for those whose gayety rises to the flood; there are meditations for the solitary, and there are stories for the little groups about the fire.

A Book of Christmas is a text-book of piety, friendship, merriment; a record of the real business of the race, which is not to make money, but to make life full and sweet and satisfying. It is a book to put into the hands of young men eager to start on the race and of young women to whom the future holds out a dazzling vision of a prosperity of pleasure and success; for it translates the word on all lips into its only comprehensible terms. In the glow of the Christmas fire the man who has made a fortune without making friends is a tragic failure, and the woman who has won the place and power she saw shining with delusive splendor on the far horizon and missed happiness faces one of life's bitterest ironies. It is a book for those who have fallen under the delusion that action is the only form of effective expression, and that to be useful one must rush along the road with the ruthless speed of an automobile; forgetting that action is only a path to being, and that the joy of life is largely found by the way. It is a book for those ardent spirits to whom the one interest in life is making people over and fitting them into their places in a rigid order of arbitrary goodness, forgetting that to the heart of a child the Kingdom of Heaven is always open, and the ultimate grace of it is the purity which is free and unconscious. It is a book for the sceptical and cynical, whose blighted sympathy and insight regain their vitality in the atmosphere of its love and kindness, its fun and frolic, its fellowship of loyal hearts and true.

Above all, the Book of Christmas is a book of joy in the sadness of the world, a book of play in the work of the world, a book of consolation in the sorrow of the world.

Hamilton W. Mabie

CONTENTS

LIST OF PLATES

I
SIGNS OF THE SEASON

• SIGNS OF THE SEASON
• An Hue and Cry after Christmas
• The Doge's Christmas Shooting
• Thursday Processions in Advent
• The Glastonbury Thorn
• In the Kitchen
• Christmas in England
• Christmas Invitation
• A Christmas Market
• The Star of Bethlehem in Holland
• The Pickwick Club goes down to Dingley Dell
• A Visit from St. Nicholas
• Crowded Out

THE time draws near the birth of Christ:

The moon is hid; the night is still;

The Christmas bells from hill to hill

Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round,

From far and near, on mead and moor,

Swell out and fail, as if a door

Were shut between me and the sound:

Each voice four changes on the wind,

That now dilate, and now decrease,

Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,

Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

Alfred Tennyson

An Hue and Cry after Christmas

"Any man or woman ... that can give any knowledge, or tell any tidings, of an old, old, very old gray-bearded gentleman, called Christmas, who was wont to be a verie familiar ghest, and visite all sorts of people both pore and rich, and used to appear in glittering gold, silk, and silver, in the Court, and in all shapes in the Theater in Whitehall, and had ringing, feasts, and jollitie in all places, both in the citie and countrie, for his comming: ... whosoever can tel what is become of him, or where he may be found, let them bring him back againe into England."

THAT curious little tract "An Hue and Cry after Christmas" bears the date of 1645; and we shall best give our readers an idea of its character by setting out that title at length, as the same exhibits a tolerable abstract of its contents. It runs thus: "The arraignment, conviction, and imprisoning of Christmas on St. Thomas day last, and how he broke out of prison in the holidayes and got away, onely left his hoary hair and gray beard sticking between two iron bars of a window. With an Hue and Cry after Christmas, and a letter from Mr. Woodcock, a fellow in Oxford, to a malignant lady in London. And divers passages between the lady and the cryer about Old Christmas; and what shift he was fain to make to save his life, and great stir to fetch him back again. Printed by Simon Minc'd Pye for Cissely Plum-Porridge, and are to be sold by Ralph Fidler Chandler at the signe of the Pack of Cards in Mustard Alley in Brawn Street."

Besides the allusions contained in the latter part of this title to some of the good things that follow in the old man's train, great pains are taken by the "cryer" in describing him, and by the lady in mourning for him, to allude to many of the cheerful attributes that made him dear to the people. His great antiquity and portly appearance are likewise insisted upon. "For age this hoarie-headed man was of great yeares, and as white as snow. He entered the Romish Kallendar, time out of mind, as old or very neer as Father Mathusalem was,—one that looked fresh in the Bishops' time, though their fall made him pine away ever since. He was full and fat as any divine doctor of them all; he looked under the consecrated lawne sleeves as big as Bul-beefe,—just like Bacchus upon a tunne of wine, when the grapes hang shaking about his eares; but since the Catholike liquor is taken from him he is much wasted, so that he hath looked very thin and ill of late." "The poor," says the "cryer" to the lady, "are sorry for" his departure; "for they go to every door a-begging, as they were wont to do (good Mrs., Somewhat against this good time); but Time was transformed, Away, be gone; here is not for you." The lady, however, declares that she for one will not be deterred from welcoming old Christmas. "No, no!" says she; "bid him come by night over the Thames, and we will have a back-door open to let him in;" and ends by anticipating better prospects for him another year.

T. K. Hervey

The Doge's Christmas Shooting

AT certain fixed times the Doge was allowed the relaxation of shooting, but with so many restrictions and injunctions that the sport must have been intolerably irksome. He was allowed or, more strictly speaking, was ordered to proceed for this purpose, and about Christmas time, to certain islets in the lagoons, where wild ducks bred in great numbers. On his return he was obliged to present each member of the Great Council with five ducks. This was called the gift of the "Oselle," that being the name given by the people to the birds in question. In 1521, about five thousand brace of birds had to be killed or snared in order to fulfil this requirement; and if the unhappy Doge was not fortunate enough, with his attendants, to secure the required number, he was obliged to provide them by buying them elsewhere and at any price, for the claims of the Great Council had to be satisfied in any case. This was often an expensive affair.

There was also another personage who could not have derived much enjoyment from the Christmas shooting. This was the Doge's chamberlain, whose duty it was to see to the just distribution of the game, so that each bunch of two-and-a-half brace should contain a fair average of fat and thin birds, lest it should be said that the Doge showed favour to some members of the Council more than to others.

By and by a means was sought of commuting this annual tribute of ducks. The Doge Antonio Grimani requested and obtained permission to coin a medal of the value of a quarter of a ducat, equal to about four shillings or one dollar, and to call it "a Duck," "Osella," whereby it was signified that it took the place of the traditional bird.

F. Marion Crawford in Salve Venetia!

Thursday Processions in Advent

The Eve of the festival of St. Nicholas, December 5, in mediæval days was the occasion when choir and altar boys met and in solemn mimicry of the procedure of their elders elected a boy-bishop and his prebendaries who remained in office and moreover exercised practically full episcopal functions until Holy Innocents Day.

In the full vestments of the church these minor clergy made "visitations" in the neighborhood usually on three successive Thursdays, and collected small sums of money known as the "Bishop's Subsidy." Says Barnaby Googe:—

"Three weeks before the day whereon was borne the Lorde of Grace,
And on the Thursdays boyes and gyrles do runne in every place
And bounce and beat at every doore, with blowes and lustie snaps
And crie the Advent of the Lord, not borne as yet perhaps,
And wishing to the neighbors all, that in the houses dwell,
A happy year, and everything to spring and prosper well;
Here have they peares, and plumbs and pence, each man gives willinglie,
For these three nights are always thought unfortunate to bee,
Where in they are afrayde of sprites, cankred witches spight,
And dreadful devils blacke and grim, that then have chiefest might.

* * * * * * *

In these same dayes yong, wanton gyrles that meete for marriage bee,
Doe search to know the names of them that shall their husbands bee
Four onyons, five, or eight, they take, and make in every one
Such names as they do fansie most and best do think upon;
Thus neere the chimney them they set, and that same onyon than,
That first doth sproute, doth surely beare the name of their good man."

In these same December nights it is that these "yong gyrles," according to Barnaby, creep to the woodpile after nightfall and at random each pulls out the first stick the hand touches.

"Which if it streight and even be, and have no knots at all,
A gentle husband then they thinke shall surlie to them fall;
But if it fowle and crooked bee, and knotties here and there,
A crabbed churlish husband then they earnestly do feare."

In the last days before Christmas, says Lady Morgan, Italian pifferari descend from the mountains to Naples and Rome in order to play their pipes before the pictures of the Virgin and the Child, and—out of compliment to Joseph—in front of the carpenters' shops.

Somewhat akin is the old English custom of the carrying about the images of the Virgin and Christ in the week before Christmas by poor women who expect a dole from every house visited.

In certain parts of Normandy the farmers give to their children, or to little ones borrowed from their neighbors, prepared torches, well dried; with which these little folk—no one over twelve is eligible for the office—run hither and yon, under the tree boughs, into fence corners, singing the spell supposed to command the vermin of the field. W. S. Walsh gives this translation of their incantation:—

Mice, caterpillars, and moles,

Get out, get out of my field; or

I will burn your blood and bones:

Trees and shrubs,

Give me bushels of apples.

Condensed from Some Curiosities of Popular Customs.

The Glastonbury Thorn and other Plant Lore
of Christmastide

THE legend of the Glastonbury Thorn is that after the death of Christ, Joseph of Arimathea came over to England and a few days before Christmas rested on the summit of Weary-all Hill, Glastonbury. There he thrust into the ground his staff which on Christmas Eve was found to be covered with snow white blossoms; and until it was destroyed during the Civil wars the bush continued so to bloom, as cuttings from the original thorn are said to bloom in the same wonderful way even yet; but, with a fine disregard for the Gregorian reformation of the Calendar, the blossoms do not appear until the 5th of January.

The Sicilian children, so Folkard tells us, put pennyroyal in their cots on Christmas Eve, "under the belief that at the exact hour and minute when the infant Jesus was born this plant puts forth its blossom." Another belief is that the blossoming occurs again on Midsummer Night.

In the East the Rose of Jericho is looked upon with favour by women with child, for "there is a cherished legend that it first blossomed at our Saviour's birth, closed at the Crucifixion, and opened again at Easter, whence its name of Resurrection Flower."

Gerarde, the old herbalist, tells us that the black hellebore is called "Christ's Herb," or "Christmas Herb," because it "flowreth about the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Many plants, trees, and flowers owe their peculiarities to their connection with the birth or the childhood of Christ. The Ornithogalum umbellatum is called the "Star of Bethlehem," according to Folkard, because "its white stellate flowers resemble the pictures of the star that indicated the birth of the Saviour of mankind." The Galium verum, "Our Lady's Bedstraw," receives its name from the belief that the manger in which the infant Jesus lay was filled with this plant.

"The brooms and the chick-peas began to rustle and crackle, and by this noise betrayed the fugitives. The flax bristled up. Happily for her, Mary was near a juniper; the hospitable tree opened its branches as arms and enclosed the Virgin and the Child within their folds, affording them a secure hiding-place. Then the Virgin uttered a malediction against the brooms and the chick-peas, and ever since that day they have always rustled and crackled." The story goes on to tell us that the Virgin "pardoned the flax its weakness, and gave the juniper her blessing," which accounts for the use of the latter in some countries for Christmas decorations,—like the holly in England and France.

"One Christmas Eve a peasant felt a great desire to eat cabbage and, having none himself, he slipped into a neighbour's garden to cut some. Just as he had filled his basket, the Christ-Child rode past on his white horse, and said: 'Because thou hast stolen on the holy night, thou shalt immediately sit in the moon with thy basket of cabbage.'" And so, we are told, "the culprit was immediately wafted up to the moon," and there he can still be seen as "the man in the moon."

Alexander F. Chamberlain

The Signs of the Season in the Kitchen

"THE cooks shall be busied, by day and by night,

In roasting and boiling, for taste and delight,

Their senses in liquor that's happy they'll steep,

Though they be afforded to have little sleep;

They still are employed for to dress us, in brief,

Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast beef.

"Although the cold weather doth hunger provoke,

'Tis a comfort to see how the chimneys do smoke;

Provision is making for beer, ale, and wine,

For all that are willing or ready to dine:

Then haste to the kitchen for diet the chief,

Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast beef.

"All travellers, as they do pass on their way,

At gentlemen's halls are invited to stay,

Themselves to refresh and their horses to rest,

Since that he must be old Christmas's guest;

Nay, the poor shall not want, but have for relief

Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast beef."

From Evans' Collection of English Ballads

Christmas in England

THERE is nothing in England that exercises a more delightful spell over my imagination than the lingerings of the holiday customs and rural games of former times. They recall the pictures my fancy used to draw in the May morning of life when as yet I only knew the world through books, and believed it to be all that poets had painted it; and they bring with them the flavour of those honest days of yore, in which, perhaps with equal fallacy, I am apt to think the world was more home-bred, social, and joyous than at present. I regret to say that they are daily growing more and more faint, being gradually worn away by time, but still more obliterated by modern fashion. They resemble those picturesque morsels of Gothic architecture which we see crumbling in various parts of the country, partly dilapidated by the waste of ages, and partly lost in the additions and alterations of latter days. Poetry, however, clings with cherishing fondness about the rural game and holiday revel, from which it has derived so many of its themes—as the ivy winds its rich foliage about the Gothic arch and mouldering tower, gratefully repaying their support by clasping together their tottering remains, and, as it were, embalming them in verdure.

Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality, and lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment. The services of the church about this season are extremely tender and inspiring. They dwell on the beautiful story of the origin of our faith, and the pastoral scenes that accompanied its announcement. They gradually increase in fervour and pathos during the season of Advent, until they break forth in jubilee on the morning that brought peace and good-will to men. I do not know a grander effect of music on the moral feelings than to hear the full choir and the pealing organ performing a Christmas anthem in a cathedral, and filling every part of the vast pile with triumphant harmony.

It is a beautiful arrangement, also derived from days of yore, that this festival, which commemorates the announcement of the religion of peace and love, has been made the season for gathering together of family connections, and drawing closer again those bonds of kindred hearts which the cares and pleasures and sorrows of the world are continually operating to cast loose; of calling back the children of a family who have launched forth in life, and wandered widely asunder, once more to assemble about the paternal hearth, that rallying-place of the affections, there to grow young and loving again among the endearing mementoes of childhood.

There is something in the very season of the year that gives a charm to the festivity of Christmas. At other times we derive a great portion of our pleasures from the mere beauties of nature.

* * * * * * *

In the course of a December tour in Yorkshire, I rode for some distance in one of the public coaches, on the day preceding Christmas. The coach was crowded, both inside and out, with passengers, who, by their talk, seemed principally bound to the mansions of relations and friends to eat the Christmas dinner. It was loaded also with hampers of game, and baskets and boxes of delicacies; and hares hung dangling their long ears about the coachman's box—presents from distant friends for the impending feasts. I had three fine rosy-cheeked schoolboys for my fellow-passengers inside, full of the buxom health and manly spirits which I have observed in the children of this country. They were returning home for the holidays in high glee, and promising themselves a world of enjoyment. It was delightful to hear the gigantic plans of pleasure of the little rogues, and the impracticable feats they were to perform during their six weeks' emancipation from the abhorred thraldom of book, birch, and pedagogue. They were full of anticipations of the meeting with the family and household, down to the very cat and dog; and of the joy they were to give their little sisters by the presents with which their pockets were crammed; but the meeting to which they seemed to look forward with the greatest impatience was with Bantam, which I found to be a pony, and, according to their talk, possessed of more virtues than any steed since the days of Bucephalus. How he could trot! how he could run! and then such leaps as he would take—there was not a hedge in the whole country that he could not clear.

They were under the particular guardianship of the coachman, to whom, whenever an opportunity presented, they addressed a host of questions, and pronounced him one of the best fellows in the whole world. Indeed, I could not but notice the more than ordinary air of bustle and importance of the coachman, who wore his hat a little on one side, and had a large bunch of Christmas greens stuck in the button-hole of his coat. He is always a personage full of mighty care and business, and he is particularly so during this season, having so many commissions to execute in consequence of the great interchange of presents.

* * * * * * *

Perhaps the impending holiday might have given a more than usual animation to the country, for it seemed to me as if everybody was in good looks and good spirits. Game, poultry, and other luxuries of the table, were in brisk circulation in the villages; the grocers', butchers', and fruiterers' shops were thronged with customers. The housewives were stirring briskly about, putting their dwellings in order; and the glossy branches of holly, with their bright red berries, began to appear at the windows. The scene brought to mind an old writer's account of Christmas preparations:—"Now capons and hens, besides turkeys, geese, and ducks, with beef and mutton—must all die; for in twelve days a multitude of people will not be fed with a little. Now plums and spice, sugar and honey, square it among pies and broth. Now or never must music be in tune, for the youth must dance and sing to get them a heat, while the aged sit by the fire. The country maid leaves half her market, and must be sent again, if she forgets a pack of cards on Christmas eve. Great is the contention of Holly and Ivy, whether master or dame wears the breeches. Dice and cards benefit the butler; and if the cook do not lack wit, he will sweetly lick his fingers."

Washington Irving

Christmas Invitation

COME down to marra night, an' mind

Don't leave thy fiddle-bag behind.

We'll shiake a lag an' drink a cup

O' yal to kip wold Chris'mas up.

An' let thy sister tiake thy yarm,

The wa'k woont do 'er any harm:

Ther's noo dirt now to spwile her frock

Var 'tis a-vroze so hard's a rock.

Ther bent noo stranngers that 'ull come,

But only a vew naighbours: zome

Vrom Stowe, an' Combe, an' two ar dree

Vrom uncles up at Rookery.

An' thee woot vine a ruozy fiace,

An' pair ov eyes so black as sloos,

The pirtiest oones in al the pliace.

I'm sure I needen tell thee whose.

We got a back bran', dree girt logs

So much as dree ov us can car:

We'll put 'em up athirt the dogs,

An' miake a vier to the bar,

An' ev'ry oone wull tell his tiale,

An' ev'ry oone wull zing his zong,

An' ev'ry oone wull drink his yal,

To love an' frien'ship al night long.

We'll snap the tongs, we'll have a bal,

We'll shiake the house, we'll rise the ruf,

We'll romp an' miake the maidens squal,

A catchen o'm at bline-man's buff.

Zoo come to marra night, an' mind

Don't leave thy fiddle-bag behind.

We'll shiake a lag, an' drink a cup

O' yal to kip wold Chris'mas up.

William Barnes

THE HOLY NIGHT. C. Müller.

A Christmas Market

OUT of doors the various market-places are covered with little stalls selling cheap clothing, cheap toys, jewellery, sweets, and gingerbread; all the heterogeneous rubbish you have seen a thousand times at German fairs, and never tire of seeing if a fair delights you.

But better than the Leipziger Messe, better even than a summer market at Freiburg or at Heidelberg, is a Christmas market in any one of the old German cities in the hill country, when the streets and the open places are covered with crisp clean snow, and the mountains are white with it, and the moon shines on the ancient houses, and the tinkle of sledge bells reaches you when you escape from the din of the market, and look down at the bustle of it from some silent place, a high window, perhaps, or the high empty steps leading into the cathedral. The air is cold and still, and heavy with the scent of the Christmas trees brought from the forest for the pleasure of the children. Day by day you see the rows of them growing thinner, and if you go to the market on Christmas Eve itself you will find only a few trees left out in the cold. The market is empty, the peasants are harnessing their horses or their oxen, the women are packing up their unsold goods. In every home in the city one of the trees that scented the open air a week ago is shining now with lights and little gilded nuts and apples, and is helping to make that Christmas smell, all compact of the pine forest, wax candles, cakes, and painted toys, you must associate so long as you live with Christmas in Germany.

Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick in Home Life in Germany

The Star of Bethlehem as Seen in Holland

THE Star of Bethlehem, as seen in Holland, is a pretty but a cheap sight, for it costs nothing. 'Tis the Harbinger of Christmas—a huge illuminated star which is carried through the silent, dark, Dutch streets, shining upon the crowding people, and typical of the star which once guided the wise men of the East.

The young men of a Dutch town who go to the expense of this star, which, carried through the streets, is the signal that Christmas has come once again, are swayed by the full intention of turning the Star of Bethlehem to account.

They gather money for the poor from the crowds who come out to welcome the symbol of peace, and having done this for the good of those whom fortune has not befriended, they betake them to the head burgomaster of the town, who is bound to set down the youths who form the Star company to a very comfortable meal. 'Tis a great institution, the Star of Bethlehem, in many Dutch towns and cities; and may it never die out, for it does harm to no man, and good to many.

Bow-Bells Annual

The Pickwick Club goes down to keep Christmas
at Dingley Dell

AS brisk as bees, if not altogether as light as fairies, did the four Pickwickians assemble on the morning of the twenty-second day of December, in the year of grace in which these, their faithfully-recorded adventures, were undertaken and accomplished. Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness; the old year was preparing, like an ancient philosopher, to call his friends around him, and amidst the sound of feasting and revelry to pass gently and calmly away. Gay and merry was the time; and right gay and merry were at least four of the numerous hearts that were gladdened by its coming.

* * * * * * *

The portmanteaus and carpet-bags have been stowed away, and Mr. Weller and the guard are endeavouring to insinuate into the fore-boot a huge cod-fish several sizes too large for it, which is snugly packed up, in a long brown basket, with a layer of straw over the top, and which has been left to the last, in order that he may repose in safety on the half-dozen barrels of real native oysters, all the property of Mr. Pickwick, which have been arranged in regular order, at the bottom of the receptacle. The interest displayed in Mr. Pickwick's countenance is most intense, as Mr. Weller and the guard try to squeeze the cod-fish into the boot, first head first, and then tail first, and then top upwards, and then bottom upwards, and then side-ways, and then long-ways, all of which artifices the implacable cod-fish sturdily resists, until the guard accidentally hits him in the very middle of the basket, whereupon he suddenly disappears into the boot, and with him, the head and shoulders of the guard himself, who, not calculating upon so sudden a cessation of the passive resistance of the cod-fish, experiences a very unexpected shock, to the unsmotherable delight of all the porters and by-standers. Upon this, Mr. Pickwick smiles with great good humour, and drawing a shilling from his waistcoat pocket, begs the guard, as he picks himself out of the boot, to drink his health in a glass of hot brandy and water, at which the guard smiles too, and Messrs. Snodgrass, Winkle, and Tupman, all smile in company. The guard and Mr. Weller disappear for five minutes, most probably to get the hot brandy and water, for they smell very strongly of it, when they return; the coachman mounts to the box, Mr. Weller jumps up behind, the Pickwickians pull their coats round their legs, and their shawls over their noses; the helpers pull the horse-cloths off, the coachman shouts out a cheery "All right," and away they go.

They have rumbled through the streets, and jolted over the stones, and at length reach the wide and open country. The wheels skim over the hard and frosty ground; and the horses, bursting into a canter at a smart crack of the whip, step along the road as if the load behind them, coach, passengers, cod-fish, oyster barrels, and all, were but a feather at their heels. They have descended a gentle slope, and enter upon a level, as compact and dry as a solid block of marble, two miles long. Another crack of the whip, and on they speed, at a smart gallop, the horses tossing their heads and rattling the harness as if in exhilaration at the rapidity of the motion, while the coachman holding whip and reins in one hand, takes off his hat with the other, and resting it on his knees, pulls out his handkerchief, and wipes his forehead partly because he has a habit of doing it, and partly because it's as well to show the passengers how cool he is, and what an easy thing it is to drive four-in-hand, when you have had as much practice as he has. Having done this very leisurely (otherwise the effect would be materially impaired), he replaces his handkerchief, pulls on his hat, adjusts his gloves, squares his elbows, cracks the whip again, and on they speed, more merrily than before.

A few small houses scattered on either side of the road, betoken the entrance to some town or village. The lively notes of the guard's key-bugle vibrate in the clear cold air, and wake up the old gentleman inside, who carefully letting down the window-sash half way, and standing sentry over the air, takes a short peep out, and then carefully pulling it up again, informs the other inside that they're going to change directly; on which the other inside wakes himself up, and determines to postpone his next nap until after the stoppage. Again the bugle sounds lustily forth, and rouses the cottager's wife and children, who peep out at the house-door, and watch the coach till it turns the corner, when they once more crouch round the blazing fire, and throw on another log of wood against father comes home, while father himself, a full mile off, has just exchanged a friendly nod with the coachman, and turned round, to take a good long stare at the vehicle as it whirls away.

And now the bugle plays a lively air as the coach rattles through the ill-paved streets of a country town; and the coachman, undoing the buckle which keeps his ribands together, prepares to throw them off the moment he stops. Mr. Pickwick emerges from his coat collar, and looks about him with great curiosity: perceiving which, the coachman informs Mr. Pickwick of the name of the town, and tells him it was market-day yesterday, both which pieces of information Mr. Pickwick retails to his fellow-passengers, whereupon they emerge from their coat collars too, and look about them also. Mr. Winkle, who sits at the extreme edge, with one leg dangling in the air, is nearly precipitated into the street, as the coach twists round the sharp corner by the cheesemonger's shop, and turns into the market-place; and before Mr. Snodgrass, who sits next to him, has recovered from his alarm, they pull up at the inn yard, where the fresh horses, with cloths on, are already waiting. The coachman throws down the reins and gets down himself, and the other outside passengers drop down also, except those who have no great confidence in their ability to get up again, and they remain where they are, and stamp their feet against the coach to warm them; looking with longing eyes and red noses at the bright fire in the inn bar, and the sprigs of holly with red berries which ornament the window.

But the guard has delivered at the corn-dealer's shop, the brown paper packet he took out of the little pouch which hangs over his shoulder by a leathern strap, and has seen the horses carefully put to, and has thrown on the pavement the saddle which was brought from London on the coach-roof, and has assisted in the conference between the coachman and the hostler about the grey mare that hurt her off-fore-leg last Tuesday, and he and Mr. Weller are all right behind, and the coachman is all right in front, and the old gentleman inside, who has kept the window down full two inches all this time, has pulled it up again, and the cloths are off, and they are all ready for starting, except the "two stout gentlemen," whom the coachman enquires after with some impatience. Hereupon the coachman and the guard, and Sam Weller, and Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass, and all the hostlers, and every one of the idlers, who are more in number than all the others put together, shout for the missing gentlemen as loud as they can bawl. A distant response is heard from the yard, and Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman come running down it, quite out of breath, for they have been having a glass of ale a-piece, and Mr. Pickwick's fingers are so cold that he has been full five minutes before he could find the sixpence to pay for it. The coachman shouts an admonitory "Now, then, gen'l-m'n," the guard re-echoes it—the old gentleman inside, thinks it a very extraordinary thing that people will get down when they know there isn't time for it—Mr. Pickwick struggles up on one side, Mr. Tupman on the other, Mr. Winkle cries "All right," and off they start. Shawls are pulled up, coat collars are re-adjusted, the pavement ceases, the houses disappear; and they are once again dashing along the open road, with the fresh clear air blowing in their faces, and gladdening their very hearts within them.

Such was the progress of Mr. Pickwick and his friends by the Muggleton Telegraph, on their way to Dingley Dell; and at three o'clock that afternoon, they all stood high and dry, safe and sound, hale and hearty, upon the steps of the Blue Lion, having taken on the road enough of ale and brandy, to enable them to bid defiance to the frost that was binding up the earth in its iron fetters, and weaving its beautiful network upon the trees and hedges.

Charles Dickens

A Visit from St. Nicholas

'TWAS the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap—

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow

Gave a lustre of midday to objects below;

When what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer,

With a little old driver, so lively and quick

I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick!

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled and shouted, and called them by name:

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!

On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!

To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall!

Now dash away, dash away, dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,

So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,

With the sleigh full of toys—and St. Nicholas, too.

And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew in my head, and turning around,

Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,

And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes, how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.

He had a broad face and a little round belly

That shook, when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

He was chubby and plump—a right jolly old elf;

And I laughed, when I saw him, in spite of myself.

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose,

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.

He sprang in his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle;

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight:

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

Clement C. Moore

Crowded Out

NOBODY ain't Christmas shoppin'

Fur his stockin',

Nobody ain't cotch no turkkey,

Nobody ain't bake no pie.

Nobody's laid nuthin' by;

Santa Claus don't cut no figger

Fur his mammy's little nigger.

Seems lak everybody's rushin'

An' er crushin';

Crowdin' shops an' jammin' trolleys,

Buyin' shoes an' shirts an' toys

Fur de white folks' girls an' boys;

But no hobby-horse ain't rockin'

Fur his little wore-out stockin'.

He ain't quar'lin, recollec',

He don't 'spec'

Nuthin'—it's his not expectin'

Makes his mammy wish—O Laws!—

Fur er nigger Santy Claus,

Totin' jus' er toy balloon

Fur his mammy's little coon.

Rosalie M. Jonas

II
HOLIDAY SAINTS AND LORDS

• HOLIDAY SAINTS AND LORDS
• My Lord of Misrule
• St. Nicholas
• An Old Saint in a New World
• St. Thomas
• Kriss Kringle
• II Santissimo Bambino
• The Christ Child
• The April Baby is Thankful
• Good King Wenceslas
• Jean Valjean plays the Christmas Saint
• St. Brandan
• St. Stephen's, or Boxing Day
• St. Basil in Trikkola

"HERE comes old Father Christmas,

With sound of fife and drums;

With mistletoe about his brows,

So merrily he comes!"

Rose Terry Cooke

My Lord of Misrule

"FIRSTE," says Master Stubs, "all the wilde heades of the parishe conventynge together, chuse them a grand Capitaine (of mischeef) whom they innoble with the title of my Lorde of Misserule, and hym they crown with great solemnitie, and adopt for their kyng. This kyng anoynted, chuseth for the twentie, fourtie, threescore, or a hundred lustie guttes like hymself, to waite uppon his lordely majestie, and to guarde his noble persone. Then every one of these his menne he investeth with his liveries of greene, yellowe or some other light wanton colour. And as though that were not (baudie) gaudy enough I should saie, they bedecke themselves with scarffes, ribons and laces, hanged all over with golde rynges, precious stones and other jewelles: this doen, they tye about either legge twentie or fourtie belles with rich hankercheefes in their handes, and sometymes laied acrosse over their shoulders and neckes, borrowed for the moste parte of their pretie Mopsies and loovyng Bessies, for bussyng them in the darcke. Thus thinges sette in order, they have their hobbie horses, dragons, and other antiques, together with their baudie pipers, and thunderyng drommers, to strike up the Deville's Daunce withall" (meaning the Morris Dance), "then marche these heathen companie towardes the church and churche yarde, their pipers pipyng, drommers thonderyng, their stumppes dauncyng, their belles iynglyng, their handkerchefes swyngyng about their heades like madmen, their hobbie horses and other monsters skyrmishyng amongst the throng: and in this sorte they goe to the churche (though the minister bee at praier or preachyng) dauncyng and swingyng their handkercheefes over their heades, in the churche, like devilles incarnate, with suche a confused noise that no man can heare his owne voice. Then the foolishe people, they looke, they stare, they laugh, they fleere, and mount upon formes and pewes, to see these goodly pageauntes, solemnized in this sort."

Quoted by T. K. Hervey

St. Nicholas

ACCORDING to Hone's "Ancient Mysteries" Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, was a saint of great virtue and piety.... The old legend is that the sons of a rich Asiatic, on their way to Athens for education, were slain by a robber innkeeper, dismembered, and their parts hidden in a brine tub. In the morning came the Saint, whose visions had warned him of the crime, whose authority forced confession, and whose prayers restored the boys to life. The Salisbury Missal of 1534 contains a curious engraving of the scene, in which the bodies of the children are leaping from the brine tub at the Bishop's call even while the innkeeper at the table above their heads is busily cutting a leg and foot into pieces small enough for his purposes.

Ever since, St. Nicholas has been the special saint of the school-boy, and certain of the customs of montem day at Eton College are said to have originated in old festivals in his honor.

St. Nicholas is the grand patron of the children of France, to whom he brings bonbons for the good, but a cane for the naughty child. In Germany he acts as an advance courier examining into the conduct of the children, distributes goodies and promises to those with good records a further reward which the Christ Child brings at Christmas time. But his own peculiar celebration takes place in a tiny seaport of southern Italy where it is curiously interwoven with ancient usages possibly remaining from some worship of Neptune.

On St. Nicholas's Day, the 6th of December, the sailors of the port take the saint's image from the beautiful church of St. Nicholas and with a long procession of boats carry it far out to sea. Returning with it at nightfall they are met by bonfires, torches, all the townspeople, and hundreds of quaintly dressed pilgrims, who welcome the returning saint with songs and carry him to visit one shrine after another, before returning him to the custody of the canons.

W. S. Walsh quotes a writer in Chambers' "Book of Days" as saying: "Through the native rock which formes the tomb of the saint, water constantly exudes, which is collected by the canons on a sponge attached to a reed, squeezed into bottles and sold to pilgrims as a miraculous specific under the name of the "manna of St. Nicholas."

An Old Saint in a New World

WHILE Catholicism prevailed, St. Nicholas was everywhere the children's saint. In Holland, where his personality was modified by memories of Woden, god of the elements and the harvest, he had a peculiar hold on popular affection which persisted into Protestant times. The children of the Dutch still believe that St. Nicholas brings the gifts that they always get on the eve of his titular day, December 6. In New Amsterdam this day was one of the five chief feastdays of the year. After New Orange became New York the characteristic traits of the Dutch children's festival were transferred to the near-by Christmas festival which was English as well as Dutch. It cannot now be said when the change began or when it was firmly established. It is known, indeed, that by the middle of the eighteenth century St. Nicholas Day had been dropped from the list of official holidays which, religious and patriotic together, then numbered twenty-seven. But, on the other hand, more than one memoir and book of reminiscences says that as late as the middle of the nineteenth century some conservative old Dutch families still celebrated the true St. Nicholas Day in their homes in the true old fashion, then bestowing the children's annual meed of gifts. Nor is any light thrown on the question by certain entries in a local newspaper, Rivington's Gazetteer, dated in December, 1773 and 1774, and referring to celebrations of "the anniversary of St. Nicholas, otherwise called Santa Claus," for they speak of social meetings of the "sons of that ancient saint" in which children can hardly have participated, and they indicate days which were neither Christmas Day nor the true St. Nicholas Day.

It is clear, however, that on Manhattan by a gradual consolidation of the two old festivals Christmas became pre-eminently a children's festival presided over by the children's saint whose modern name, Santa Claus, is a variant of the Dutch St. Niclaes or San Claas. In all European countries Christmas still means simply the day of Christ's nativity; for the "Old Christmas" whom we meet in English ballads of earlier times, the "Father Christmas" of Charles Dickens, and the "Père Noël" of the French are abstractly mythical figures in no way related to St. Nicholas. But anywhere in our America the domestic observance of Christmas centres around Santa Claus with his burden of gifts. The stockings that our children hang on Christmas Eve were once the shoes that the children of Amsterdam and New Amsterdam set in the chimney corners on the eve of December 6; and the reindeer whose hoofs our children hear represent the horse, descended from Woden's horse Sleipner, upon whose back St. Nicholas still makes his rounds in Holland. The Christmas-tree is not Dutch but German; about the middle of the nineteenth century we acquired it from our German immigrants. But even this the American child accepts at the hands of Santa Claus, not of the Christ Child as does the little German. "Kriss Kringle," it may be added, a name now often mistakenly used as though it were a synonym of Santa Claus, is a corruption of the German Christkindlein (Christ Child).

Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer
From the History of the City of New York

St. Thomas

ANOTHER of the Saints of the holiday season is doubting Thomas, whose festival appropriately comes on Dec. 21, just when the child mind is almost ready to doubt the efficacy of all those letters to Santa Claus, and has more than doubts whether conduct has been so perfect as to warrant hope for the Christmas stocking.

St. Thomas seems to have remained a doubter to the end, for in the cathedral of Prato is shown the girdle of the "Madonnadella Cintola"; her ascension into heaven took place when Thomas was not with his brother apostles, whose account of the miracle he refused to believe; whereon the indignant Madonna threw her girdle back to him from heaven as evidence,—or so the legend reads,—with the girdle to prove it.

His emblem as an apostle is a builder's rule or square; possibly associated with that other legend of the king of the Indies who ordered the saint to build him a magnificent palace. On the return of the king and his discovery that the money for this building had all been given to the poor, the saint was thrown into a dungeon. Before worse befel, the king died and four days later appeared to his heir with an account of the splendid palace of gold and precious stones built for him in heaven by the charities of the saint on earth.

W. P. R.

Kriss Kringle

JUST as the moon was fading

Amid her misty rings,

And every stocking was stuffed

With childhood's precious things,

Old Kriss Kringle looked round,

And saw on the elm-tree bough,

High-hung, an oriole's nest,

Silent and empty now.

"Quite like a stocking," he laughed,

"Pinned up there on the tree!

Little I thought the birds

Expected a present from me!"

Then old Kriss Kringle, who loves

A joke as well as the best,

Dropped a handful of flakes

In the oriole's empty nest.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

By permission of the Houghton Mifflin Company

Il Santissimo Bambino

"IL SANTISSIMO BAMBINO," of the Ara Cœli in Rome, smiles placidly with the gravity of a sphinx on all alike. Wee little folk before it clasp dimpled hands and lispingly recite their speeches of praise. Older folk lift up a prayer for the safe return of friends afar; sometimes, as a concession to the faithful—at a price—it is driven out in a bannered coach to bless the sick. If the patient is to live, the image will turn red; if he is to die, it will turn pale. Should its attendant monks by chance forget to return it to the gorgeous manger of the Franciscan church to which it belongs, perchance it will return of its own will, borne by no human hands, while all the bells of churches and convents are set a-swaying by the touch of angel hosts—or so the Roman peasants say.

In England similar images have been used in the service which follows the midnight mass of Christmas Eve; so soon as the Host is safely returned to its receptacle there is disclosed to the view of the reverently adoring monks the tiny waxen doll, elaborately swathed yet so as to leave visible the pink, expressionless face, and half hidden hands and feet. The officiating priest lifts the image and facing the waiting monks holds it reverently while in circling procession, one after another, each bends for a moment to kiss the tiny figure on face or hands, crosses himself and passes on. The ceremony is one to be seen only among the Trappist monks and only at this one service of the Christmas season.

W. P. R.

The Christ Child

ELISE Traut relates the legend that on every Christmas eve the little Christ-child wanders all over the world bearing on its shoulders a bundle of evergreens. Through city streets and country lanes, up and down hill, to proudest castle and lowliest hovel, through cold and storm and sleet and ice, this holy child travels, to be welcomed or rejected at the doors at which he pleads for succor. Those who would invite him and long for his coming set a lighted candle in the window to guide him on his way hither. They also believe that he comes to them in the guise of any alms-craving, wandering person who knocks humbly at their doors for sustenance, thus testing their benevolence. In many places the aid rendered the beggar is looked upon as hospitality shown to Christ.

The April Baby is Thankful

DECEMBER 27th.—It is the fashion, I believe, to regard Christmas as a bore of rather a gross description, and as a time when you are invited to overeat yourself, and pretend to be merry without just cause. As a matter of fact, it is one of the prettiest and most poetic institutions possible, if observed in the proper manner, and after having been more or less unpleasant to everybody for a whole year, it is a blessing to be forced on that one day to be amiable, and it is certainly delightful to be able to give presents without being haunted by the conviction that you are spoiling the recipient, and will suffer for it afterward. Servants are only big children, and are made just as happy as children by little presents and nice things to eat, and, for days beforehand, every time the three babies go into the garden they expect to meet the Christ Child with His arms full of gifts. They firmly believe that it is thus their presents are brought, and it is such a charming idea that Christmas would be worth celebrating for its sake alone.

As great secrecy is observed, the preparations devolve entirely on me, and it is not very easy work, with so many people in our own house and on each of the farms, and all the children, big and little, expecting their share of happiness. The library is uninhabitable for several days before and after, as it is there that we have the trees and presents. All down one side are the trees, and the other three sides are lined with tables, a separate one for each person in the house. When the trees are lighted, and stand in their radiance shining down on the happy faces, I forget all the trouble it has been, and the number of times I have had to run up and down stairs, and the various aches in head and feet, and enjoy myself as much as anybody. First the June baby is ushered in, then the others and ourselves according to age, then the servants, then come the head inspector and his family, and other inspectors from the different farms, the mamsells, the bookkeepers and secretaries, and then all the children, troops and troops of them—the big ones leading the little ones by the hand and carrying the babies in their arms, and the mothers peeping round the door. As many as can get in stand in front of the trees, and sing two or three carols; then they are given their presents, and go off triumphantly, making room for the next batch. My three babies sang lustily too, whether they happened to know what was being sung or not. They had on white dresses in honour of the occasion, and the June baby was even arrayed in a low-necked and short-sleeved garment, after the manner of Teutonic infants, whatever the state of the thermometer. Her arms are like miniature prize-fighter's arms—I never saw such things; they are the pride and joy of her little nurse, who had tied them up with blue ribbons, and kept on kissing them. I shall certainly not be able to take her to balls when she grows up, if she goes on having arms like that.

When they came to say good-night, they were all very pale and subdued. The April baby had an exhausted-looking Japanese doll with her, which she said she was taking to bed, not because she liked him, but because she was so sorry for him, he seemed so very tired. They kissed me absently, and went away, only the April baby glancing at the trees as she passed and making them a curtesy.

"Good-bye, trees," I heard her say; and then she made the Japanese doll bow to them, which he did, in a very languid and blasé fashion. "You'll never see such trees again," she told him, giving him a vindictive shake, "for you'll be brokened long before next time."

She went out, but came back as though she had forgotten something.

"Thank the Christkind so much, Mummy, won't you, for all the lovely things He brought us. I suppose you're writing to Him now, isn't you?"

From Elizabeth and her German Garden

THE ARRIVAL OF THE SHEPHERDS. Lerolle.

Good King Wenceslas

GOOD King Wenceslas looked out,

On the Feast of Stephen,

When the snow lay round about,

Deep, and crisp, and even:

Brightly shone the moon that night,

Though the frost was cruel,

When a poor man came in sight,

Gath'ring winter fuel.

"Hither, page, and stand by me,

If thou know'st it, telling,

Yonder peasant, who is he?

Where and what his dwelling?"

"Sire, he lives a good league hence,

Underneath the mountain;

Right against the forest fence,

By St. Agnes' fountain."

"Bring me flesh, and bring me wine,

Bring me pine logs hither;

Thou and I will see him dine,

When we bear them thither."

Page and monarch forth they went,

Forth they went together;

Through the rude wind's wild lament,

And the bitter weather.

"Sire, the night is darker now,

And the wind blows stronger;

Fails my heart, I know not how,

I can go no longer."

"Mark my footsteps, good my page!

Tread thou in them boldly;

Thou shalt find the winter's rage

Freeze thy blood less coldly."

In his master's steps he trod,

Where the snow lay dinted;

Heat was in the very sod

Which the saint had printed.

Therefore, Christian men, be sure,

Wealth or rank possessing,

Ye who now will bless the poor,

Shall yourselves find blessing.

Version by John Mason Neale

Jean Valjean plays the Christmas Saint

AS for the traveller, he had deposited his cudgel and his bundle in a corner. The landlord once gone, he threw himself into an arm-chair and remained for some time buried in thought. Then he removed his shoes, took one of the two candles, blew out the other, opened the door, and quitted the room, gazing about him like a person who is in search of something. He traversed a corridor and came upon a staircase. There he heard a very faint and gentle sound like the breathing of a child. He followed this sound, and came to a sort of triangular recess built under the staircase, or rather formed by the staircase itself. This recess was nothing else than the space under the steps. There, in the midst of all sorts of old papers and potsherds, among dust and spiders' webs, was a bed—if one can call by the name of bed a straw pallet so full of holes as to display the straw, and a coverlet so tattered as to show the pallet. No sheets. This was placed on the floor.

In this bed Cosette was sleeping.

The man approached and gazed down upon her.

Cosette was in a profound sleep; she was fully dressed. In the winter she did not undress, in order that she might not be so cold.

Against her breast was pressed the doll, whose large eyes, wide open, glittered in the dark. From time to time she gave vent to a deep sigh as though she were on the point of waking, and she strained the doll almost convulsively in her arms. Beside her bed there was only one of her wooden shoes.

A door which stood open near Cosette's pallet permitted a view of a rather large, dark room. The stranger stepped into it. At the further extremity, through a glass door, he saw two small, very white beds. They belonged to Éponine and Azelma. Behind these beds, and half hidden, stood an uncurtained wicker cradle, in which the little boy who had cried all the evening lay asleep.

The stranger conjectured that this chamber connected with that of the Thénardier pair. He was on the point of retreating when his eye fell upon the fireplace—one of those vast tavern chimneys where there is always so little fire when there is any fire at all, and which are so cold to look at. There was no fire in this one, there was not even ashes; but there was something which attracted the stranger's gaze, nevertheless. It was two tiny children's shoes, coquettish in shape and unequal in size. The traveller recalled the graceful and immemorial custom in accordance with which children place their shoes in the chimney on Christmas eve, there to await in the darkness some sparkling gift from their good fairy. Éponine and Azelma had taken care not to omit this, and each of them had set one of her shoes on the hearth.

The traveller bent over them.

The fairy, that is to say, their mother, had already paid her visit, and in each he saw a brand-new and shining ten-sou piece.

The man straightened himself up, and was on the point of withdrawing, when far in, in the darkest corner of the hearth, he caught sight of another object. He looked at it, and recognized a wooden shoe, a frightful shoe of the coarsest description, half dilapidated and all covered with ashes and dried mud. It was Cosette's sabot. Cosette, with that touching trust of childhood, which can always be deceived yet never discouraged, had placed her shoe on the hearth-stone also.

Hope in a child who has never known anything but despair is a sweet and touching thing.

There was nothing in this wooden shoe.

The stranger fumbled in his waistcoat, bent over and placed a louis d'or in Cosette's shoe.

Then he regained his own chamber with the stealthy tread of a wolf.

Victor Hugo in Les Miserables

Saint Brandan

SAINT BRANDAN sails the northern main;

The brotherhoods of saints are glad.

He greets them once, he sails again;

So late! such storms! The saint is mad!

He heard, across the howling seas,

Chime convent-bells on wintry nights;

He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides,

Twinkle the monastery-lights;

But north, still north, Saint Brandan steered;

And now no bells, no convents more!

The hurtling Polar lights are neared,

The sea without a human shore.

At last (it was the Christmas-night;

Stars shone after a day of storm)

He sees float past an iceberg white,

And on it—Christ!—a living form.

That furtive mien, that scowling eye,

Of hair that red and tufted fell,

It is—oh, where shall Brandan fly?—

The traitor Judas, out of hell!

Palsied with terror, Brandan sate;

The moon was bright, the iceberg near.

He hears a voice sigh humbly, "Wait!

By high permission I am here.

"One moment wait, thou holy man!

On earth my crime, my death, they knew;

My name is under all men's ban:

Ah! tell them of my respite too.

"Tell them, one blessed Christmas-night

(It was the first after I came,

Breathing self-murder, frenzy, spite,

To rue my guilt in endless flame),—

"I felt, as I in torment lay

'Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power,

An angel touch mine arm, and say,—

'Go hence, and cool thyself an hour!'

"'Ah! whence this mercy, Lord?' I said.

'The leper recollect,' said he,

'Who asked the passers-by for aid,

In Joppa, and thy charity.'

"Then I remembered how I went,

In Joppa, through the public street,

One morn when the sirocco spent

Its storms of dust with burning heat;

"And in the street a leper sate,

Shivering with fever, naked, old;

Sand raked his sores from heel to pate,

The hot wind fevered him fivefold.

"He gazed upon me as I passed,

And murmured, 'Help me, or I die!'

To the poor wretch my cloak I cast,

Saw him look eased, and hurried by.

* * * *

"Once every year, when carols wake,

On earth, the Christmas-night's repose,

Arising from the sinner's lake,

I journey to these healing snows.

"I stanch with ice my burning breast,

With silence balm my whirling brain.

O Brandan! to this hour of rest,

That Joppan leper's ease was pain."

Tears started to Saint Brandan's eyes;

He bowed his head, he breathed a prayer,

Then looked—and lo, the frosty skies!

The iceberg, and no Judas there!

Matthew Arnold

St. Stephen's, or Boxing Day

IN old England St. Stephen's Day is chiefly celebrated under the name of Boxing Day,—not for pugilistic reasons, but because on that day it was the custom for persons in the humbler walks of life to go the rounds with a Christmas-box and solicit money from patrons and employers. Hence the phrase Christmas-box came to signify gifts made at this season to children or inferiors, even after the boxes themselves had gone out of use. This custom was of heathen origin and carries us back to the Roman Paganalia when earthen boxes in which money was slipped through a hole were hung up to receive contributions at these rural festivals.

Aubrey in his "Wiltshire Collections" describes a trouvaille of Roman relics: "Among the rest was an earthen pot of the color of a crucible, and of the shape of a Prentice's Christmas-box with a slit in it, containing about a quart which was near full of money. This pot I gave to the Repository of the Royal Society at Gresham College."

Of the Prentice's Christmas-box, a recognized institution of the seventeenth century, several specimens are preserved,—small and wide bottles of thin clay from three to four inches in height, surrounded by imitation stoppers covered with a green baize. On one side is a slit for the introduction of money; the box must be broken before the money can be extracted.

W. P. R.

St. Basil in Trikkola

TRIKKOLA is very Turkish, having only been in Greek hands for eight years; but though you see mosques and latticed windows at every turn, there is not a Greek left; when his rule is over the Mussulman packs his luggage; he will not live subject to the infidel. It is very squalid indeed, and down the bazaar ran an open drain; but nevertheless the walk by the river is pretty and towards evening women came down to the stream to wash and fetch home water in quaint round bottles. I think one of the most marked distinctions between Turk and Greek is whitewash. Greeks love whitewash; houses, churches, public buildings are excessively clean outside, and promise what the interior fails to fulfill. This is especially remarkable at Trikkola, where the brown mud houses of Turkish days are being rapidly converted into white Greek ones.

St. Basil's Eve—that is to say the Greek New Year's Eve—is a very marked day in the period of the twelve days, and one on which all make merry. The squalid streets of Trikkola even looked bright as bands of gaily dressed children, nay, even grown-up young men, went round singing the Kalends songs—Greek Kalends that is to say, which though it is twelve days later than ours came at last. And on this the eve of the Kalends these bands paraded the streets, each carrying a long pole to the top of which was tied a piece of brushwood, within which was concealed a bell, and to which were tied many scraps of colored ribbon. At each house the singers stopped. The inhabitants came out to greet them and offer them refreshments,—figs, nuts, eggs and other food,—which were stowed away by one of the band who carried a basket. Their songs to our ears were exceedingly ugly, long chanted stories. I asked a priest whose acquaintance I had made to copy down one of them, of which the following is a rough translation:—

From Cæsarea came the holy Basil;

Ink and paper in his hands he held.

Cried the crowd who saw him coming,

"Teach us letters, dear St. Basil."

His rod he left them for instruction—

His rod which buds with verdant leaves,

On which the partridges sit singing

And the swallows make their nests.

Jangle went the bell in the brushwood—"the thicket" as they call it—and out came the housewife when the singing was over, her hands full of homely gifts, in return for which she was presented with one of the silk ribbons from the trophy. This she will keep for the whole of the ensuing year, for it will bring her good luck. And after many good wishes for the coming year the troupe moved on to another house.... It seems that this is the most favorite Greek method of celebrating a festive season. The people in no way resent these constant visitors and claims on their hospitality; nay, rather they would be deeply hurt if the bands of children passed them by.

J. Theodore Bent

III
CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS AND
BELIEFS

• CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS
• The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ
• Folk-lore of Christmas Tide
• Hunting the Wren
• The Presepio
• Hodening in Kent
• Origin of the Christmas Tree
• Origin of the Christmas Card
• The Yule Clog
• Come bring with a Noise
• Shoe or Stocking
• Jule-Nissen
• "Lame Needles" in Eubœa
• "Who Rides behind the Bells?"
• Guests at Yule

SOME sayes, that ever 'gainst that Season comes

Wherein our Saviours Birth is celebrated,

The Bird of Dawning singeth all night long:

And then (they say) no Spirit can walke abroad,

The nights are wholesome, then no Planets strike,

No Faiery talkes, nor Witch hath power to Charme:

So hallowed, and so gracious is the time.

William Shakespeare

The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ

WHEN the world had endured five thousand and nine hundred years, after Eusebius the holy saint, Octavian the Emperor commanded that all the world should be described, so that he might know how many cities, how many towns, and how many persons he had in all the universal world. Then was so great peace in the earth that all the world was obedient to him. And therefore our Lord would be born in that time, that it should be known that he brought peace from heaven. And this Emperor commanded that every man should go into the towns, cities or villages from whence they were of, and should bring with him a penny in acknowledgment that he was subject to the Empire of Rome. And by so many pence as should be found received, should be known the number of the persons. Joseph, which was then of the lineage of David, and dwelleth in Nazareth, went into the city of Bethlehem, and led with him the Virgin Mary his wife. And when they were come thither, because the hostelries were all taken up, they were constrained to be without in a common place where all people went. And there was a stable for an ass that he brought with him, and for an ox. In that night our Blessed Lady and Mother of God was delivered of our Blessed Saviour upon the hay that lay in the rack. At which nativity our Lord shewed many marvels. For because that the world was in so great peace, the Romans had done made a temple which was named the Temple of Peace, in which they counselled with Apollo to know how long it should stand and endure. Apollo answered to them, that it should stand as long till a maid had brought forth and borne a child. And therefore they did do write on the portal of the Temple: Lo! this is the temple of peace that ever shall endure. For they supposed well that a maid might never bear ne bring forth a child. This temple that same time that our Lady was delivered and our Lord born, overthrew and fell all down. Of which christian men afterward made in the same place a church of our Lady which is called Sancta Maria Rotunda, that is to say, the Church of Saint Mary the Round. Also the same night, as recordeth Innocent the third, which was Pope, there sprang and sourded in Rome a well or a fountain, and ran largely all that night and all that day unto the river of Rome called Tiber. Also after that, recordeth S. John Chrysostom, the three kings were in this night in their orisons and prayers upon a mountain, when a star appeared by them which had the form of a right fair child, which had a cross in his forehead, which said to these three kings that they should go to Jerusalem, and there they should find the son of the Virgin, God and Man, which then was born. Also there appeared in the orient three suns, which little and little assembled together, and were all on one. As it is signified to us that these three things are the Godhead, the soul, and the body, which been in three natures assembled in one person. Also Octavian the Emperor, like as Innocent recordeth, that he was much desired of his council and of his people, that he should do men worship him as God. For never had there been before him so great a master and lord of the world as he was. Then the Emperor sent for a prophetess named Sibyl, for to demand of her if there were any so great and like him in the earth, or if any should come after him. Thus at the hour of mid-day she beheld the heaven, and saw a circle of gold about the sun, and in the middle of the circle a maid holding a child in her arms. Then she called the Emperor and shewed it him. When Octavian saw that he marvelled over much, whereof Sibyl said to him: Hic puer major te est, ipsum adora. This child is greater lord than thou art, worship him. Then when the Emperor understood that this child was greater lord than he was, he would not be worshipped as God, but worshipped this child that should be born. Wherefore the christian men made a church of the same chamber of the Emperor, and named it Ara cœli. After this it happed on a night as a great master which is of great authority in Scripture, which is named Bartholemew, recordeth that the Rod of Engadi which is by Jerusalem, which beareth balm, flowered this night and bare fruit, and gave liquor of balm. After this came the angel and appeared to the shepherds that kept their sheep, and said to them: I announce and shew to you a great joy, for the Saviour of the world is in this night born, in the city of Bethlehem, there may ye find him wrapt in clouts. And anon, as the angel had said this, a great multitude of angels appeared with him, and began to sing: Honour, glory and health be to God on high, and in the earth peace to men of goodwill. Then said the shepherds, let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing. And when they came they found like as the angel had said. In this time Octavian made to cut and enlarge the ways and quitted the Romans of all the debts that they owed to him. This feast of Nativity of our Lord is one of the greatest feasts of all the year, and for to tell all the miracles that our Lord hath shewed, it should contain a whole book; but at this time I shall leave and pass over save one thing that I have heard once preached of a worshipful doctor, that what person being in clean life desire on this day a boon of God, as far as it is rightful and good for him, our Lord at the reverence of this blessed high feast of his Nativity will grant it to him.

From The Golden Legend

Folk-Lore of Christmas Tide

SCOTTISH folk-lore has it that Christ was born "at the hour of midnight on Christmas Eve," and that the miracle of turning water into wine was performed by Him at the same hour. There is a belief current in some parts of Germany that "between eleven and twelve the night before Christmas water turns to wine"; in other districts, as at Bielefeld, it is on Christmas night that this change is thought to take place.

This hour is also auspicious for many actions, and in some sections of Germany it was thought that if one would go to the cross-roads between eleven and twelve on Christmas Day, and listen, he "would hear what most concerns him in the coming year." Another belief is that "if one walks into the winter-corn on Holy Christmas Eve, he will hear all that will happen in the village that year."

Christmas Eve or Christmas is the time when the oracles of the folk are in the best working-order, especially the many processes by which maidens are wont to discover the colour of their lover's hair, the beauty of his face and form, his trade and occupation, whether they shall marry or not, and the like.

The same season is most auspicious for certain ceremonies and practices (transferred to it from the heathen antiquity) of the peasantry of Europe in relation to agriculture and allied industries. Among those noted by Grimm are the following:—

On Christmas Eve thrash the garden with a flail, with only your shirt on, and the grass will grow well next year.

Tie wet strawbands around the orchard trees on Christmas Eve and it will make them fruitful.

On Christmas Eve put a stone on every tree, and they will bear the more.

Beat the trees on Christmas night, and they will bear more fruit.

In Herefordshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, in England, the farmers and peasantry "salute the apple-trees on Christmas Eve," and in Sussex they used to "worsle," i.e. "wassail," the apple-trees and chant verses to them in somewhat of the primitive fashion.

Some other curious items of Christmas folk-lore are the following, current chiefly in Germany.

If after a Christmas dinner you shake out the tablecloth over the bare ground under the open sky, crumbwort will grow on the spot.

If on Christmas Day, or Christmas Eve, you hang a wash-clout on a hedge, and then groom the horses with it, they will grow fat.

As often as the cock crows on Christmas Eve, the quarter of corn will be as dear.

If a dog howls the night before Christmas, it will go mad within the year.

If the light is let go out on Christmas Eve, some one in the house will die.

When lights are brought in on Christmas Eve, if any one's shadow has no head, he will die within a year; if half a head, in the second half-year.

If a hoop comes off a cask on Christmas Eve, some one in the house will die that year.

If on Christmas Eve you make a little heap of salt on the table, and it melts over night, you will die the next year; if, in the morning, it remain undiminished, you will live.

If you wear something sewed with thread spun on Christmas Eve, no vermin will stick to you.

If a shirt be spun, woven, and sewed by a pure, chaste maiden on Christmas Day, it will be proof against lead or steel.

If you are born at sermon-time on Christmas morning, you can see spirits.

If you burn elder on Christmas Eve, you will have revealed to you all the witches and sorcerers of the neighbourhood.

If you steal hay the night before Christmas, and give the cattle some, they thrive, and you are not caught in any future thefts.

If you steal anything at Christmas without being caught, you can steal safely for a year.

If you eat no beans on Christmas Eve, you will become an ass.

If you eat a raw egg, fasting, on Christmas morning, you can carry heavy weights.

The crumbs saved up on three Christmas Eves are good to give as physic to one who is disappointed.

It is unlucky to carry anything forth from the house on Christmas morning until something has been brought in.

It is unlucky to give a neighbour a live coal to kindle a fire with on Christmas morning.

If the fire burns brightly on Christmas morning, it betokens prosperity during the year; if it smoulders, adversity.

These, and many other practices, ceremonies, beliefs, and superstitions, which may be read in Grimm, Gregor, Henderson, De Gubernatis, Ortwein, Tilte, and others who have written of Christmas, show the importance attached in the folk-mind to the time of the birth of Christ, and how around it as a centre have fixed themselves hundreds of the rites and solemnities of passing heathendom, with its recognition of the kinship of all nature, out of which grew astrology, magic, and other pseudo-sciences.

Collected by A. F. Chamberlain

CHRISTMAS succeeds the Saturnalia, the same time, the same number of Holy-days; then the Master waited upon the Servant like the Lord of Misrule.

Our Meats and our Sports, much of them, have Relation to Church-works. The Coffin of our Christmas-Pies, in shape long, is in Imitation of the Cratch; our choosing Kings and Queens on Twelfth-Night, hath reference to the three Kings. So likewise our eating of Fritters, whipping of Tops, roasting of Herrings, Jack of Lents, etc., they were all in imitation of Church-works, Emblems of Martyrdom.

The Table-Talk of John Selden

Hunting the Wren

THE custom, which is called "hunting the wren," is generally practised by the peasantry of the south of Ireland on St. Stephen's Day. It bears a close resemblance to the Manx proceedings described by Waldron,—as taking place however on a different day. "On the 24th of December," says that writer, in his account of the Isle of Man, "towards evening the servants in general have a holiday; they go not to bed all night, but ramble about till the bells ring in all the churches, which is at twelve o'clock. Prayers being over, they go to hunt the wren; and after having found one of these poor birds, they kill her and lay her on a bier with the utmost solemnity, bringing her to the parish church and burying her with a whimsical kind of solemnity, singing dirges over her in the Manx language, which they call her knell; after which Christmas begins."

The Wren-boys in Ireland, who are also called Droleens, go from house to house for the purpose of levying contributions, carrying one or more of these birds in the midst of a bush of holly, gaily decorated with colored ribbons; which birds they have, like the Manx mummers, employed their morning in killing. The following is their song; of which they deliver themselves in most monotonous music:—

"The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,

St. Stephen's-day was caught in the furze,

Although he is little, his family's great.

I pray you, good landlady, give us a treat.

"My box would speak, if it had but a tongue,

And two or three shillings would do it no wrong;

Sing holly, sing ivy—sing ivy, sing holly,

A drop just to drink, it would drown melancholy.

"And if you draw it of the best,

I hope, in heaven your soul will rest;

But if you draw it of the small,

It won't agree with these Wren-boys at all."

If an immediate acknowledgment, either in money or drink, is not made in return for the civility of their visit, some such nonsensical verses as the following are added:—

"Last Christmas-day, I turned the spit,

I burned my fingers (I feel it yet),

A cock sparrow flew over the table,

The dish began to fight with the ladle.

"The spit got up like a naked man,

And swore he'd fight with the dripping pan;

The pan got up and cocked his tail,

And swore he'd send them all to jail."

The story told to account for the title of "king of all birds," here given to the wren, is a curious sample of Irish ingenuity, and is thus stated in the clever "Tales of the Munster Festivals," by an Irish servant in answer to his master's inquiry:—

"Saint Stephen! why, what the mischief, I ask you again, have I to do with Saint Stephen?"

"Nothen, sure, sir, only this being his day, when all the boys o' the place go about that way with the wran, the king of all birds, sir, as they say (bekays wanst when all the birds wanted to choose a king, and they said they'd have the bird that would fly highest, the aigle flew higher than any of 'em, till at last when he couldn't fly an inch higher, a little rogue of a wran that was a-hide under his wing took a fly above him a piece, and was crowned king, of the aigle an' all, sir), tied in the middle o' the holly that way you see, sir, by the leg, that is. An old custom, sir."

Vainly have we endeavored to arrive at the probable origin of hunting and killing these little birds upon this day. The tradition commonly related is by no means satisfactory. It is said that a Danish army would have been surprised and destroyed by some Irish troops, had not a wren given the alarm by pecking at some crumbs upon a drum-head,—the remains of the sleeping drummer's supper; which roused him, when he instantly beat to arms. And that from this circumstance the wren became an object of hatred to the Irish.

T. K. Hervey

The Presepio

AFTER Christmas Day, during the remainder of December, there is a Presepio, or representation of the manger in which our Savior was laid, to be seen in many of the churches at Rome. That of the Ara Cœli is best worth seeing; which church occupies the site of the temple of Jupiter, and is adorned with some of its beautiful pillars.

On entering we found daylight completely excluded from the church; and until we advanced we did not perceive the artificial light, which was so managed as to stream in fluctuating rays from intervening silvery clouds, and shed a radiance over the lovely babe and bending mother, who in a most graceful attitude lightly holds up the drapery which half conceals her sleeping infant from the bystanders. He lies in richly embroidered swaddling clothes, and his person as well as that of His virgin mother, is ornamented with diamonds and other precious stones; for which purpose we are informed the princesses and ladies of high rank lend their jewels. Groups of cattle grazing, peasantry engaged in different occupations, and other objects enliven the picturesque scenery; every living creature in the group, with eyes directed towards the Presepio, falls prostrate in adoration.

From Hone's Year Book

Hodening in Kent

WHEN I was a lad, about forty-five years since, it was always the custom on Christmas Eve, with the male farm-servants from every farm in our parish, to go round in the evening from house to house with the hodening horse, which consisted of the imitation of a horse's head made of wood, life size, fixed on a stick about the length of a broom handle. The lower jaw of the head was made to open with hinges; a hole was made through the roof of the mouth, then another through the forehead coming out by the throat; pulled through this was passed a cord attached at the lower jaw, which, when pulled by the cord at the throat, caused it to close and open; on the lower jaw large headed hobnails were driven in to form the teeth. The strongest of the lads was selected for the horse; he stooped and made as long a back as he could, supporting himself by the stick carrying the head; then he was covered with a horse-cloth, and one of his companions mounted his back. The horse had a bridle and reins. Then commenced the kicking, rearing, jumping, etc., and the banging together of the teeth.

There was no singing by the accompanying paraders. They simply by ringing or knocking at the houses on their way summoned the inmates to the doors and begged a gratuity. I have seen some of the wooden heads carved out quite hollow in the throat part, and two holes bored through the forehead to form the eyes. The lad who played the horse would hold a lighted candle in the hollow, and you can imagine how horrible it was to any one who opened the door to see such a thing close to his eyes.

A contributor to the Church Times, Jan. 23, 1891

Origin of the Christmas Tree

A SCANDINAVIAN myth of great antiquity speaks of a "service tree" sprung from the blood-drenched soil where two lovers had been killed by violence. At certain nights in the Christmas season mysterious lights were seen flaming in its branches, that no wind could extinguish.

One tale describes Martin Luther as attempting to explain to his wife and children the beauty of a snow-covered forest under the glittering star besprinkled sky. Suddenly an idea suggested itself. He went into the garden, cut off a little fir tree, dragged it into the nursery, put some candles on its branches and lighted them.

"It has been explained," says another authority, "as being derived from the ancient Egyptian practice of decking houses at the time of the winter solstice with branches of the date palm—the symbol of life triumphant over death, and therefore of perennial life in the renewal of each bounteous year." The Egyptians regarded the date palm as the emblem not only of immortality, but also of the starlit firmament.

Some of its traditions may have been strongly influenced by the fact that about this time the Jews celebrated their Feast of Chanuckah or Lights, known also as the Feast of Dedication, of which lighted candles are a feature. In Germany, the name for Christmas Eve is Weihnacht, the Night of Dedication, while in Greece at about this season the celebration is called the Feast of Lights.

As a regular institution, however, it can be traced back only to the sixteenth century. During the Middle Ages it suddenly appears in Strassburg; it maintained itself along the Rhine for two hundred years, when suddenly at the beginning of the nineteenth century the fashion spread all over Germany, and by fifty years later had conquered Christendom.

W. S. Walsh in Curiosities of Popular Customs
(condensed)

Origin of the Christmas Card

THE Christmas Card is the legitimate descendant of the "school pieces" or "Christmas pieces" which were popular from the beginning to the middle of the nineteenth century. These were sheets of writing-paper sometimes surrounded with those hideous and elaborate pen flourishes forming birds, scrolls, etc., so unnaturally dear to the hearts of writing masters, and sometimes headed with copper-plate engravings, plain or colored. These were used by school boys at the approach of holidays for carefully written letters exploiting the progress they had made in composition and chirography. Charity boys were large purchasers of these pieces, says one writer, and at Christmas time used to take them round their parish to show and at the same time solicit a trifle.

The Christmas Card proper had its tentative origin in 1846. Mr. Joseph Cundall, a London artist, claims to have issued the first in that year. It was printed in lithography, colored by hand, and was of the usual size of a lady's card.

Not until 1862, however, did the custom obtain any foothold. Then experiments were made with cards of the size of an ordinary carte de visite, inscribed simply "A Merry Christmas" and "A Happy New Year." After that came to be added robins and holly branches, embossed figures and landscapes. "I have the original designs before me now," wrote "Luke Limner" (John Leighton) to the London Publishers' Circular, Dec. 31, 1883: "they were produced by Goodall & Son. Seeing a growing want and the great sale obtained abroad, this house produced (1868) a Little Red Riding Hood, a Hermit and his Cell, and many other subjects in which snow and the robin played a part."

W. S. Walsh in Curiosities of Popular Customs

The Yule Clog

AMID the interior forms to be observed, on this evening, by those who would keep their Christmas after the old orthodox fashion, the first to be noticed is that of the Yule Clog. This huge block, which, in ancient times, and consistently with the capacity of its vast receptacle, was frequently the root of a large tree, it was the practice to introduce into the house with great ceremony, and to the sound of music.

In Drake's "Winter Nights" mention is made of the Yule Clog, as "lying, in ponderous majesty, on the kitchen floor," until "each had sung his Yule song, standing on its centre,"—ere it was consigned to the flames that

"Went roaring up the chimney wide."

This Yule Clog, according to Herrick, was to be lighted with the brand of the last year's log, which had been carefully laid aside for the purpose, and music was to be played during the ceremony of lighting.

This log appears to have been considered as sanctifying the roof-tree, and was probably deemed a protection against those evil spirits over whom this season was in every way a triumph. Accordingly, various superstitions mingled with the prescribed ceremonials in respect of it. From the authority already quoted on this subject, we learn that its virtues were not to be extracted unless it were lighted with clean hands—a direction, probably, including both a useful household hint to the domestics, and, it may be, a moral of a higher kind:—

"Wash your hands or else the fire

Will not tend to your desire;

Unwash'd hands, ye maidens, know,

Dead the fire though ye blow."

Around this fire, when duly lighted, the hospitalities of the evening were dispensed; and as the flames played about it and above it, with a pleasant song of their own, the song and the tale and the jest went cheerily round.

T. K. Hervey

Come bring with a Noise

COME bring with a noise,

My merry merry boys,

The Christmas log to the firing;

While my good dame, she

Bids ye all be free,

And drink to your heart's desiring.

With the last year's brand

Light the new block, and

For good success in his spending,

On your psaltries play,

That sweet luck may

Come while the log is a tending.

Drink now the strong beer,

Cut the white loaf here,

The while the meat is a shredding,

For the rare mince-pies;

And the plums stand by,

To fill the paste that's a kneading.

Robert Herrick

Shoe or Stocking

IN Holland, children set their shoes,

This night, outside the door;

These wooden shoes Knecht Clobes sees,

And fills them from his store.

But here we hang our stockings up

On handy hook or nail;

And Santa Claus, when all is still,

Will plump them, without fail.

Speak out, you "Sober-sides," speak out,

And let us hear your views;

Between a stocking and a shoe,

What do you see to choose?

One instant pauses Sober-sides,

A little sigh to fetch—

"Well, seems to me a stocking's best,

For wooden shoes won't stretch!"

Edith M. Thomas

By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company

Jule-Nissen

I DO not know how the forty years I have been away have dealt with "Jule-nissen," the Christmas elf of my childhood in far-off Denmark. He was pretty old then, gray and bent, and there were signs that his time was nearly over. So it may be that they have laid him away. I shall find out when I go over there next time. When I was a boy we never sat down to our Christmas Eve dinner until a bowl of rice and milk had been taken up to the attic, where he lived with the martin and its young, and kept an eye upon the house—saw that everything ran smoothly. I never met him myself, but I know the house cat must have done so. No doubt they were well acquainted; for when in the morning I went in for the bowl, there it was, quite dry and licked clean, and the cat purring in the corner. So, being there all night, she must have seen and likely talked with him....

The Nisse was of the family, as you see,—very much of it,—and certainly not to be classed with the cattle. Yet they were his special concern; he kept them quiet, saw to it, when the stableman forgot, that they were properly bedded and cleaned and fed. He was very well known to the hands about the farm, and they said that he looked just like a little old man, all in gray and with a pointed red night-cap and long gray beard. He was always civilly treated, as indeed he deserved to be, but Christmas was his great holiday, when he became part of it, indeed, and was made much of. So, for that matter, was everything that lived under the husbandman's roof or within reach of it. Even the sparrows that burrowed in the straw-thatch and did it no good were not forgotten. A sheaf of rye was set out in the snow for them on the Holy Eve, so that on that night at least they should have shelter and warmth unchallenged, and plenty to eat. At all other times we were permitted to raid their nests and help ourselves to a sparrow roast, which was by long odds the greatest treat we had. Thirty or forty of them, dug out by the light of the stable-lantern and stuffed into Ane's long stocking, which we had borrowed for a game-bag, made a meal for the whole family, each sparrow a fat mouthful. Ane was the cook, and I am very certain that her pot roast of sparrow would pass muster at any Fifth Avenue restaurant as the finest dish of reed-birds that ever was. However, at Christmas their sheaf was their sanctuary, and no one as much as squinted at them. Only last winter, when Christmas found me stranded in a little Michigan town, wandering disconsolate about the streets, I came across such a sheaf raised on a pole in a dooryard, and I knew at once that one of my people lived in that house and kept Yule in the old way. So I felt as if I were not quite a stranger.

Blowing in the Yule from the grim old tower that had stood eight hundred years against the blasts of the North Sea was one of the customs of the old town that abide, however it fares with the Nisse; that I know. At sun-up, while yet the people were at breakfast, the town band climbed the many steep ladders to the top of the tower, and up there, in fair weather or foul—and sometimes it blew great guns from the wintry sea—they played four old hymns, one to each corner of the compass, so that no one was forgotten. They always began with Luther's sturdy challenge, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God," while down below we listened devoutly. There was something both weird and beautiful about those far-away strains in the early morning light of the northern winter, something that was not of earth and that suggested to my child's imagination the angels' songs on far Judean hills. Even now, after all these years, the memory of it does that. It could not have been because the music was so rare, for the band was made up of small store-keepers and artisans who thus turned an honest penny on festive occasions. Incongruously enough, I think the official town mourner, who bade people to funerals, was one of them. It was like the burghers' guard, the colonel of which—we thought him at least a general, because of the huge brass sword he trailed when he marched at the head of his men—was the town tailor, a very small but very martial man. But whether or no, it was beautiful. I have never heard music since that so moved me. When the last strain died away, came the big bells with their deep voices that sang far out over field and heath, and our Yule was fairly under way.

Jacob Riis in The Old Town

THE BELLS. Blashfield.

"Lame Needles" in Eubœa

IN the first place, it must be clearly understood that Christmas time to a Greek is by no means considered as festive; in fact they look upon the twelve days which intervene between Christmas and Epiphany rather with abhorrence than otherwise; it is to them the season when ghosts and hobgoblins are supposed to be most rampant; it is generally cold, ungenial weather, and the Greeks of to-day, like their ancestors, live contented only when the warm rays of the life-giving sun scorch them. They can get up no enthusiasm as we can about yule logs and blazing fires, for they have nothing to warm themselves with save small charcoal braziers capable of communicating heat to not more than one limb at a time; all the festive energies of the race are reserved for Carnival and Easter-tide, when the warmth of spring enables them once more to enjoy life out-of-doors—the only one tolerable when you know what their low dirty houses are like....

For a month before Christmas every pious Greek has observed a rigid fast; consequently the "table" which on that day is spread in every house produces something akin to festivity. On a small round table was placed a perfect mountain of maccaroni and cheese—coarse sheep's-milk cheese which stung the mouth like mustard and left a pungent taste which tarried therein for days. There were no plates, no forks, no spoons. What a meal it was indeed, as if it were a contest in gastronomic activity! I was left far behind in the contest, and great was my relief when it was removed and dried fruits and nuts took its place. To drink we had resinated wine—that is to say wine which had been stored in a keg covered with resin inside, which gives the flavor so much relished by the Greeks, but which is almost as unpalatable to an Englishman as beer must be to those who drink it for the first time. The wine, however, had the effect of loosening the tongues of my friends, who had been too busy as yet to talk, and they told me many interesting Christmas tales.

In the first place the conversation turned on certain spirits called "lame needles," which every Eubœan woman of low degree will tell you visit the earth at this season of the year; one lame needle, presumably the leader, comes on Christmas Eve, and the rest of the tribe put in an appearance on Christmas Day. They are dreadful creatures to look upon, and according to my friends, they live in caves whilst on earth, near which no wise person at this season of the year will venture.

They subsist, like the Amazons of old, on snakes and lizards, and sometimes on women, if they are lucky enough to entrap one.

These demons are only dangerous at night from sunset to cockcrow. When not engaged in dancing the lame needles wander about, and do any amount of mischief. It is their custom to enter houses by the chimney, so every housewife is careful at this season of the year to leave some embers burning all night, for they dread fire and also crosses, and it is for this reason that at Christmas time we see so many whitewash crosses on the cottage doors in Greece.... When Epiphany comes these lame needles are forced to flee again underground; but before they go they take a hack at the tree which supports the world, and which one day they will cut through. In appearance these ugly visitors are supposed to be goat-footed goblins, far taller than any man; in fact, I should imagine that they are lineal descendants of the satyrs of old still haunting their accustomed purlieus.... I will give you a specimen of one of the stories which my friends told me when I slightly threw discredit on the above described apparitions. It is not a very lively one, but will show the character of the Christmas stories which are current in Greece to-day.

"A lame needle once overheard two women settling to get up at night during the season of the twelve days to leaven bread at the house of one of them. Accordingly he knocked at the door of the woman who was going to carry her dough to the other's house and pretended to be a messenger sent to hurry her.

"Fearing nothing, the silly woman set off with her dough accompanied by the uncanny messenger. When they had got a little distance the lame needle turned round and said, 'Stop; I wish to eat you!' Whereat the woman recognized who he was, and mindful of the fact that lame needles are very inquisitive, she replied, 'Just wait till I tell you a story.' It was very long and very interesting, so the first cock crew before it was finished. 'It is only the black one; go on; I have yet time,' said the eager lame needle. Then the second cock crew, and he said, 'It is only the red one; I have nought yet to fear.' Just as the woman had reached the most thrilling part of her story the third cock crew, 'It is the white one,' exclaimed the terrified hobgoblin; 'I must be gone.'"

I am sure this story is believed by the peasants of Eubœa.

J. Theodore Bent

Who Rides behind the Bells?

OUR shabby drawing-room was ablaze with red candles; and what with holly red on the walls and the snow banking the casements and bells jingling up and down the avenue, the sense of Christmas was very real. For me, Christmas seems always to be just past or else on the way; and that sixth sense of Christmas being actually Now is thrice desirable.

On the stroke of nine we two, waiting before the fire, heard Nichola on the basement stairs; and by the way in which she mounted, with labor and caution, I knew that she was bringing the punch. We had wished to have it ready—that harmless steaming punch compounded from my mother's recipe—when our guests arrived, so that they should first of all hear the news and drink health to Eunice and Hobart.

Nichola was splendid in her scarlet merino and that vast cap effect managed by a starched pillow-case and a bit of string, and over her arm hung a huge holly wreath for the bowl's brim. When she had deposited her fragrant burden and laid the wreath in place she stood erect and looked at us solemnly for a moment, and then her face wrinkled in all directions and was lighted with her rare puckered smile.

"Mer—ry Christmas!" she said.

"Merry Christmas, Nichola!" we cried, and I think that in all her years with us we had never before heard the words from her lips.

"Who goes ridin' behind the sleigh-bells to-night?" she asked then abruptly.

"Who rides?" I repeated, puzzled.

"Yes," Nichola said; "this is a night when all folk stay home. The whole world sits by the fire on Christmas night. An' yet the sleigh-bells ring like mad. It is not holy."

Pelleas and I had never thought of that. But there may be something in it. Who indeed, when all the world keeps hearth-holiday, who is it that rides abroad on Christmas night behind the bells?

"Good spirits, perhaps, Nichola," Pelleas said, smiling.

"I do not doubt it," Nichola declared gravely; "that is not holy either—to doubt."

"No," we said, "to doubt good spirits is never holy."

Zona Gale in The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre

Guests at Yule

NÖEL! Nöel!

Thus sounds each Christmas bell

Across the winter snow.

But what are the little footprints all

That mark the path from the church-yard wall?

These are those of the children waked to-night

From sleep by the Christmas bells and light:

Ring sweetly, chimes! Soft, soft, my rhymes!

Their beds are under the snow.

Nöel! Nöel!

Carols each Christmas bell.

What are the wraiths of mist

That gather anear the window-pane

Where the winter frost all day has lain?

They are soulless elves, who fain would peer

Within, and laugh at our Christmas cheer:

Ring fleetly, chimes! Swift, swift, my rhymes!

They are made of the mocking mist.

Nöel! Nöel!

Cease, cease, each Christmas bell!

Under the holly bough,

Where the happy children throng and shout,

What shadows seem to flit about?

Is it the mother, then, who died,

Ere the greens were sere last Christmastide?

Hush, falling chimes! Cease, cease, my rhymes!

The guests are gathered now.

Edmund Clarence Stedman

By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company

IV
CHRISTMAS CAROLS

• CHRISTMAS CAROLS
• "I saw Three Ships"
• "Lordings, listen to Our Lay"
• The Cherry-Tree Carol
• "In Excelsis Gloria"
• "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen"
• The Golden Carol
• Caput apri refero resonens laudes domino
• "Villagers All, this Frosty Tide"
• Holly Song
• "Before the Paling of the Stars"
• The Minstrels played their Christmas Tune
• A Carol from the Old French
• "From Far Away we come to you"
• A Christmas Carol
• A Christmas Carol for Children

The First Christmas Carol

FEAR not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger.

Chorus

Glory to God in the highest, and on

earth peace, goodwill toward men.

St. Luke's Gospel

I saw Three Ships

I SAW three ships come sailing in,

On Christmas day, on Christmas day;

I saw three ships come sailing in,

On Christmas day in the morning.

And what was in those ships all three,

On Christmas day, on Christmas day?

And what was in those ships all three,

On Christmas day in the morning?

The Virgin Mary and Christ were there,

On Christmas day, on Christmas day;

The Virgin Mary and Christ were there,

On Christmas day in the morning.

Pray, whither sailed those ships all three,

On Christmas day, on Christmas day?

Pray, whither sailed those ships all three,

On Christmas day in the morning?

O they sailed into Bethlehem,

On Christmas day, on Christmas day;

O they sailed into Bethlehem,

On Christmas day in the morning.

And all the bells on earth shall ring,

On Christmas day, on Christmas day;

And all the bells on earth shall ring,

On Christmas day in the morning.

And all the Angels in Heaven shall sing,

On Christmas day, on Christmas day;

And all the Angels in Heaven shall sing,

On Christmas day in the morning.

And all the souls on earth shall sing,

On Christmas day, on Christmas day;

And all the souls on earth shall sing,

On Christmas day in the morning.

Then let us all rejoice amain,

On Christmas day, on Christmas day;

Then let us all rejoice amain,

On Christmas day in the morning.

Old English Carol

Lordings, listen to Our Lay

LORDINGS, listen to our lay—

We have come from far away

To seek Christmas;

In this mansion we are told

He his yearly feast doth hold:

'Tis to day!

May joy come from God above,

To all those who Christmas love.

Lordings, I now tell you true,

Christmas bringeth unto you

Only mirth:

His house he fills with many a dish,

Of bread and meat and also fish,

To grace the day.

May joy come from God above,

To all those who Christmas love.

Lordings, through our army's band

They say—who spends with open hand

Free and fast,

And oft regales his many friends—

God gives him double what he spends,

To grace the day.

May joy come from God above,

To all those who Christmas love.

Lordings, wicked men eschew,

In them never shall you view

Aught that's good;

Cowards are the rabble rout,

Kick and beat the grumblers out,

To grace the day.

May joys come from God above,

To all those who Christmas love.

Lords, by Christmas and the host

Of this mansion hear my toast—

Drink it well—

Each must drain his cup of wine,

And I the first will toss off mine:

Thus I advise,

Here then I bid you all Wassail,

Cursed be he who will not say Drinkhail.

Earliest Existing Carol; Thirteenth Century

The Cherry-Tree Carol

AS Joseph was a-walking,

He heard an angel sing,

"This night shall be the birth-time

Of Christ, the heavenly King.

"He neither shall be born

In housen nor in hall,

Nor in the place of paradise,

But in an ox's stall.

"He neither shall be clothèd

In purple nor in pall,

But in the fair white linen

That usen babies all.

"He neither shall be rockèd

In silver nor in gold,

But in a wooden manger

That resteth on the mould."

As Joseph was a-walking,

There did an angel sing,

And Mary's child at midnight

Was born to be our King.

Then be ye glad, good people,

This night of all the year,

And light ye up your candles,

For his star it shineth clear.

Old English

In Excelsis Gloria

WHEN Christ was born of Mary free,

In Bethlehem, in that fair citie,

Angels sang there with mirth and glee,

In Excelsis Gloria!

Herdsmen beheld these angels bright,

To them appearing with great light,

Who said, "God's Son is born this night,"

In Excelsis Gloria!

This King is come to save mankind,

As in Scripture truths we find,

Therefore this song have we in mind,

In Excelsis Gloria!

Then, Lord, for thy great grace,

Grant us the bliss to see thy face,

Where we may sing to thy solace,

In Excelsis Gloria!

From the Harleian MSS.

God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen

GOD rest you merry, gentlemen,

Let nothing you dismay,

For Jesus Christ, our Saviour,

Was born upon this day;

To save us all from Satan's power,

When we were gone astray.

O tidings of comfort and joy,

For Jesus Christ our Saviour

was born on Christmas Day.

In Bethlehem in Jewry

This blessed babe was born,

And laid within a manger

Upon this blessed morn;

The which His mother Mary

Nothing did take in scorn.

O tidings of comfort and joy,—

From God, our Heavenly Father,

A blessed Angel came,

And, unto certain shepherds,

Brought tidings of the same;

How, that in Bethlehem was born

The Son of God by name.

O tidings of comfort and joy,—

* * * *

The Shepherds at those tidings,

Rejoicèd much in mind,

And left their flocks a-feeding

In tempest, storm, and wind,

And went to Bethlehem straightway,

This blessed Babe to find.

O tidings of comfort and joy,—

But when to Bethlehem they came,

Where as this Infant lay,

They found him in a manger

Where oxen feed on hay,

His mother Mary kneeling

Unto the Lord did pray.

O tidings of comfort and joy,—

Now to the Lord sing praises

All you within this place,

And with true love and brotherhood

Each other now embrace,

This holy tide of Christmas

All others doth deface.

O tidings of comfort and joy,

For Jesus Christ our Saviour

was born on Christmas Day.

Old English

The Golden Carol

(Of Melchior, Balthazar, and Gaspar, the Three Kings of Cologne)

WE saw the light shine out a-far,

On Christmas in the morning,

And straight we knew Christ's Star it was,

Bright beaming in the morning.

Then did we fall on bended knee,

On Christmas in the morning,

And prais'd the Lord, who'd let us see

His glory at its dawning.

Oh! ever thought be of His Name,

On Christmas in the morning,

Who bore for us both grief and shame,

Afflictions sharpest scorning.

And may we die (when death shall come),

On Christmas in the morning,

And see in heav'n, our glorious home,

The Star of Christmas morning.

Old English

Caput apri refero resonens laudes domino

THE boar's head in hands I bring,

With garlands gay and birds singing!

I pray you all help me to sing,

Qui estis in convivio!

The boar's head I understand,

Is chief service in all this land,

Wheresoever it may be found,

Servitur cum sinapio!

The boar's head I dare well say,

Anon after the twelfth day,

He taketh his leave and goeth away!

Exivit tunc de patria!

From a Balliol MS. of about 1540

Villagers All, this Frosty Tide

VILLAGERS all, this frosty tide,

Let your doors swing open wide,

Though wind may follow, and snow beside,

Yet draw us in by your fire to bide;

Joy shall be yours in the morning!

Here we stand in the cold and the sleet,

Blowing fingers and stamping feet,

Come from far away you to greet—

You by the fire and we in the street—

Bidding you joy in the morning!

For ere one half of the night was gone,

Sudden a star has led us on,

Raining bliss and benison—

Bliss to-morrow and more anon,

Joy for every morning.

Goodman Joseph toiled through the snow—

Saw a star o'er a stable low;

Mary she might not further go—

Welcome thatch, and litter below!

Joy was hers in the morning!

And then they heard the angels tell

'Who were the first to cry Nowell?

Animals all, as it befell,

In the stable where they did dwell!

Joy shall be theirs in the morning!'

Quoted in The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame.

By permission of Charles Scribner's Sons

Holly Song

BLOW, blow, thou winter winde,

Thou art not so unkinde,

As mans ingratitude

Thy tooth is not so keene,

Because thou art not seene,

Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh ho, sing heigh ho, unto the greene holly,

Most frendship is fayning; most Loving, meere folly:

Then heigh ho, the holly,

This Life is most jolly.

Freize, freize, thou bitter skie

That dost not bight so nigh

As benefitts forgot:

Though thou the waters warpe,

Thy sting is not so sharpe,

As freind remembred not.

Heigh ho, sing heigh ho, unto the greene holly,

Most frendship is fayning; most Loving, meere folly:

Then heigh ho, the holly,

This Life is most jolly.

William Shakespeare

Before the Paling of the Stars

BEFORE the paling of the stars,

Before the winter morn,

Before the earliest cockcrow,

Jesus Christ was born:

Born in a stable,

Cradled in a manger,

In the world His hands had made

Born a stranger.

Priest and King lay fast asleep

In Jerusalem,

Young and old lay fast asleep

In crowded Bethlehem:

Saint and Angel, ox and ass,

Kept a watch together

Before the Christmas daybreak