YULE LOG AND MODERN GRATES.
Modern grates, and still more our modern stoves, have gradually deprived town-dwelling Englishmen of the Yule log, which Dickens ranked high among the delights of Christmas. What the word " Yule " means is a problem that puzzled even the late Professor Skcat. But the Yule log, like the mistletoe, has undoubtedly come down to us from heathen times, and was perhaps originally a sacrifice of Odin, or Wodin, whose name we keep in Wednesday. It is called in Devonshire the " Ashtoii faggot," probably because generally cut from the ash, a tree credited with many supernatural virtues. The cult of the Yule log is not confined to nations of Scandinavian or Teutonic descent, but plays a very prominent part in the Christmas festivities of Serbia.
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Otago Witness, Issue 3275, 20 December 1916, Page 63
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128YULE LOG AND MODERN GRATES. Otago Witness, Issue 3275, 20 December 1916, Page 63
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