Quaint old customs in the country

Press, 20 December 1986, Page 21

Quaint old customs in the country

“It’s Christmas,” the features editor said the other day. “Holly and mistletoe and goodwill and all that stuff. You live in the country. There must be some quaint old Christmas customs out there. Tell us about them.”

I thought that was a bit of a laugh, because the leading quaint old Christmas custom around here involves a lot of bending of elbows. Apart from the time Santa Claus arrived at the domain in a governor’s cart, the last time any exciting Christmas ? v

happening happened was, I think, about 1978 when someone who had been bending the elbow too often missed the bridge and submerged his car in the creek. It was a wet year, and he was an Australian, so it probably didn’t count.

Elbows aside, Christmas is a time when many people unexpectedly profess a strong belief in tradition, and run around cutting down pine trees or painting squiggles on their windows to demonstrate it. Some hang a welcoming holly wreath on the front door, an attractive custom even when the w’reath is made of plastic and its symbolism is misunderstood.

Most people believe the Christmas wreath represents the “crown of thorns” placed on Christ’s head; if it does, plastic holly and mistletoe are inappropriate, because holly has

been a traditional festive decoration since pre-Christian times.

In early Britain the Druids decorated their dwellings in winter with holly twigs and branches to make resting places for sylvan spirits. They did not have much choice; other than holly few evergreens grew there.

Hawthorn at one time was frequently planted near churches as a crown-of-thorns symbol (a specimen at Glastonbury, in Somerset, was famous for flowering at Christmas); but neither it, nor holly, could have been associated with the Crucifixion — they just didn’t grow where it all happened. The real crown of thorns, if it existed, would have been made from some of the spiny trees - and bushes which grow in western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean. One of these, most likely,

would have been Paliurus spinachristii, a small west Asian tree which has clusters of spines at all its joints. There is, or was, a somewhat senescent specimen of this in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens.

For authenticity’s sake, the most appropriate species to substitute for it in a New Zealand wreath is our own matagouri. The two are, after all, related; both belong to the buckthorn family, Rhamnaceae. Or if you live at the seaside and are nonchauvinistic you could cut branches of the sea-buckthorn which is naturalised on the coast.

Holly has no relatives among New Zealand’s native plants but it is naturalised; it was one of the first trees from “home” introduction to New Zealand by European settlers and birds spread its seeds far and wide. Nowadays it

is common in regenerating bush and is dominant in the understorey of many old conifer plantations.

Holly carries a wealth of associations in folklore, as might be expected of a tree which, with its evergreen foliage and brightly coloured fruit, was a striking element in the gloomy winter landscape of Britain and Central Europe. Carols reflect its long association with Christmas: Christmastide Comes in like a bride With holly and ivy clad ...

And again: Deck the halls with boughs of holly ...

On early Christian calendars, Christmas Eve was often marked “Templa exornantor” — “Churches are adorned,” with holly.

Alas for carols and calendars, not only the Druids but the

Romans, too, included holly in their pre-Christian festive decor, and the date of the Christmas celebrations is curiously close to that of the Roman winter festival, known as Saturnalia. If you lived in that climate you had to do something to relieve the tedium of winter.

A Roman custom of sending gifts, accompanied by. holly branches, to friends at Saturnalia was the probable source of the Christian practice of exchanging gifts at Christmas. Once they got rid of the Romans the Christians developed their own legend to account for the origin of holly: apparently it never evolved in the Darwinian sense but sprang up in the footsteps of Christ, whose sufferings are reflected in the prickly leaves and berries like drops of blood. Herbals of the sixteenth cen-

tury called holly the “holy tree.” Sixteen centuries earlier, the Roman historian Pliny had opined that holly, planted nearby, protected a dwelling from poison, lightning and witchcraft. He also believed that a shepherd could stop a fleeing animal in its tracks by throwing a lump of holly wood at it. Even if the wood missed, its powers were such that the animal would double back, and lie down. Pliny also believed that geese grew from barnacles, if his translators are to be believed. Personally, I find it hard to accept that even a Roman historian could be so gullible. He might have been saying that in animal control, holly has the whip hand — or rather, whip handle, a function for which its hard, close-grained white timber is still used. Holly wood also makes teapot handles, mathematical instruments, wood-

blocks for fabric printing, and walking sticks. Holly leaves are edged with stout prickles which turn alternately up and down except the one at the tip, which lies level with the leaf. Often the leaves near the top of the tree have few or no prickles, and until quite recently many people believed this was a natural defence mechanism to protect the holly from browsing by deer, which sheltered among its branches in winter. We now know that the thorniness, or lack of it, is connected to physiological factors associated with the relative vigour of different parts of the plant. Birds thrive on holly berries, but humans are unwise to eat them; they contain toxic substances which can cause rapid and violent vomiting, followed by purging from the other end. Despite this, hollies are probably worth encouraging in shelter belts and woodlots. The berries are excellent bird fodder and the dense branches, prickly leaves and litter are excellent and'safe wildlife habitat.