YULE LOG IN PROVENCE

Taranaki Daily News, 18 December 1929, Page 6 (Supplement)

YULE LOG IN PROVENCE

If you should chance to spend a Christmas in the South of France, you should try to get invited by a Provencal farmer for "lou gros soupar” on Christmas Eve, not so much for the sake of the extremely interesting meal itself, as for the unique ceremony which precedes it, namely, the solemn lighting of the Yule log, the so-called "trefoil.” • Imagine the vast low-ceilinged, Whitewashed living room of the farmhouse, the big table at one end laden with many a piled-on dish; there is a crudely timbered "creche” in one corner and innumerable tiny multi-coloured wax candles play a fitful dance of light and shadow over the gaily tinted "santons,” those queer earthenware dolls which —each and . all —represent the chief actors of the Bethlehem . story. Yet neither the inviting ’ table, nor yet the crcche will rivet your attention at first. The ciiornious hearth, of a size fit to

shelter an ox, is piled high with logs and the traditional “tfefoir” is lying in front of it. Custom demands that it be always cut from a.. fruit tree. Big and broad it lies there, but woe befall you if you dare sit upon it, since all sorts of misfortunes are supposed to come into your life if you do. With a glass of special “vin cuit” in your .hand, you stand up and watch the head of the family pour some wine over the log. A brief prayer follows; then, amid the chorus of the first Noel, the “trefoir” is thrown on the hearth. From the moment that it catches the flames, the real Christmas begins. So, back to the table you go, there to iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiinfiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiniflif

enjoy specially fried cod and buttered cauliflower, to follow these by chunks and chunk* of richly-spiced nougat. - . ' , Meanwhile, the white walls turn to ro«0 and red from the fierce flames on the hearth. “Lou trefoir” is burning well—what a good omen,” you hear someone say and you know that all these people, whilst apparently absorbed in eating and drinking, are keenly watching the Yule log, for it must not be ah lowed to burn away completely on Christmas Eve. In a little while they lift it out of th* fire and throw another pile of "ordinary’* logs on to the hearth. The latter must bo kept aglow till after midnight when they will all return from church—to eat some more fish and some more nougat and to sing yet another set of carols. For .in Provence ’ they think nothing of sitting through the whole Christmas night, • ,• . • “Noel, Noel”-~floats ’ the • soft refraW' through the vast room. The numberless wax Candies : have reached the sockets, blit who needs any candlelight with the fatige hearth ablaze ? Queer shadows dance and flicker along the walls. The women's white bonnets become- opal and roseate arid purple and the fire sends its reflections across the whitewashed ceiling and plays a golden riot on the age-darkcncd oak beams. And gradually you forget all about your half-emptied glass and the chunk of spicy nougat on your plate. The multi-coloured "santons” in the creche seem almost alive in the dancing shadows. You imagine that the trefoir rite is, after all, one of the most proper ways of ushering Christmas in. Your mind spins one wild fancy after another, as the fire glows on. And then the church bells break in on the sudden hush. The midnight bells—but you feel'loath to go and leave the enchanting hearth. All your unshared dreams and wishes . seem to be. hidden away in those dancing shadows.