Romance of Past Still Present in English Christmas.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18644, 22 December 1928, Page 19 (Supplement)

Romance of Past Still Present in English Christmas.

The festival is Always “Merry

WRITTEN FOR THE “STAR” BY

J. K. STONE.

gXOW-SWEPT fields and lanes . . . villages of thatched cottages clustering round ancient church towers . . . mellow bells pealing out over timbered gables . . . robins and holly . . . carols —old, yet ever new. . . . The traditional English Christmas in its colourful, snow-

laden setting, as de scribed by Dickens and others, is one of the beautiful institutions that bind the Empire to the Homeland. Whereever the English language is spoken, people make more or less successful attempts to keep Christmas in the English way—even though, as in New

Zealand, they may have to reconcile the festival with midsummer. “Approach to Christmas. ,, In a certain book of old coaching prints, there is a picture entitled “Approach to Christmas.” Now the old-time Christmas, whether described by Dickens or by anyone else, always has a coaching scene somewhere, and it is certain that nothing could have been more delightful than to ride into the gayest season of the j-ear on one of the brightly-painted mail coaches that travelled the length and breadth of England in the day’s before the railway drove them all int * museums. “Approach to Christmas” depicts just another such coach as that which conveyed the Pickwickians for part of their .journey to Manor Farm. The coach itself is painted black, red and yellow; but little of the colour is visible, the sides being covered wi T) suspended poultry—turkeys and fowl 1 - —and game. On top, numerous boxes and packages are stored, covered w'th piles of holly, while finally, half-hidden under all the luggage, appear the snowtopped hats of the “outsides.” Obviously, the poultry and the holly were thought to be of more importance th -n the passengers. It must have been a work of art to sandwich everything into the coaches, but one never reads >f anything being left behind, and th; incident of Mr Weller, the guard, ar.d the codfish illustrates the lengths to which it was sometimes necessary to go to get all aboard. ... It is interesting to compare a Dickensian description of a coach journey with that of a foreigner. Washington Irving gives an entertaining glimpse in “The Sketch Book” of a Christmastide joumev:—“1 he coach was crowded both inside and out, with passengers who, bv their talk, seemed principally l*ound to the mansions of relations or friends, to eat the Christmas dinner.

... A stage-coach carries animation always with it. and the horn produces a general bustle. ... As the coa' h rattles through the village, everyone runs to the window, and you have glances on every side of fresh count" 1 ' faces. . . . “In the evening we reached a village where I had determined to pass the night. As we drove into the great gateway of the inn, I saw on one side the light of a rousing kitchen fire. . I entered and admired, for the hundredth time, that picture of conveni ence. neatness, and broad, honest enjoyment, the kitchen of an Englio.i Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve—that is, the traditional Christmas Eve —was usually frosty, with clear

moonlight shining on a blanket of frozen snow. In the past there were hun dreds of customs observed—most oi them pre-dating Christianity. Quite a considerable number have survived in parts of Eng land, and it is stili possible to find there Christmas Eve celebrated in

tiic old-time way. So at Manor Farm. Dickens tells us, the whole family assembled in the kitchen—“according to annual custom on Christmas Eve observed from time immemorial”—where a huge branch of mistletoe had been suspended from the centre of the ceiling. After games “the company sat down by a huge fire of blazing logs to a substantial supper and a mighty bowl of wassail.” Then there was the ancient superstition of the Yule Log (Irving calls it the Yule Clog) observed by squire and farmer throughout the country. In a note in “The Sketch Book,” Irving says: “The Yule Clog is a great log of wood, brought with ceremony into the house on Christmas Eve and lighted with the brand of last year’s clog. It was to burn all night; if it went out, it was a sign of ill-luck.” Finally, in the silent stillness of the night, came the waits. These cheerful and long-suffering carol-singers are too well known, even in the colonies, to need description. Thomas Hardy pays a sympathetic tribute to their trials and joys in “Under the Greenwood Tree.” Church and Cathedral. Christmas Eve and Christmas morning bring changes to England's churches. Carols and pealing anthems spar up through the arches of minster and village church alike. . . . There is

everywhere an atmosphere that belongs to Christmastide alone, and everywhere the sound of pealing bells. There is nothing more inspiring than to hear the Christmas chimes and Christmas music flooding a great cathedral witl pulsating sound. It is the pealing oi bells that gives some quiet undercurrent to blend with the merriment of the English Christmas. . . . Festivities. Christmas in the *old times meant 1 now. When travel

v&s a somewhat | lifficult and I iengthy underI taking, it was - only at this time I that families and I friends were re-un-j ited. In those days, I too, England was still a farming nation. As such she jealously preserved the ancient customs, games and I ceremonials that

had been handed down from forgotten, half-legendary days and made for the light-hearted-ness which earned for the Motherland the name of “Merrie England.” The nation lost a great deal when the contented (more or less) English peasantry disappeared during the Industrial Revolution, and when the old Christmas went to a large extent out of fashion. The convivialities described by Dickens and Washington Irving were, however, set in a period when the English countryside was practically unspoiled. On Christmas Day houses, whether manor or cottage, were still thrown open to rich and poor alike. Welcomes were open and free, though, of course, within reason! Then, as to-day, the piece de resistance was the Christmas dinner—a meal that must-have been capable of putting the New Health Society out of existence. One old authority gives several menus obviously intended for people with gargantuan appetites. For stately entertainments, it appears, the peacock was “anciently in great demand.” It was usually made into a pie, with the head appearing at one end “above the crust, in all its plumage, with the beak richly gilt,” and at the other end was arranged the com plete tail. An old verse describing Christmas dinners also mentions the peacock. It sounds impossible, but at the end is the statement that it was necessary to have the “carcases of three fat wethers bruised for gravy to make sauce for a single peacock”! . .

And, lastly, the Wassail Bowl arrived to conclude matters. One very old recipe gives the ingredients as “ale,

with nutmeg, sugar, toast, ginger and roasted crabs. In spite of it ail, however, there seems to have been time for witty conversation. As a contrast to these tremendous evels, comes that famous celebration of the Cratchit family. Dickens makes the remarkable statement that this family lived on a salary of fifteen shillings a week. Consequently, no peacocks figured on their board. The goose and the pudding were both small, but “no-one said they were small for so large a family—that would have been flat heresy! ” Christmas is always “merry” with Dickens, whether it is celebrated in an historic manor or in a London slum. And To-day. The English Christmas, in fiction and tradition is set always in a snow scene. The win-

triness of the landscape seems' to add to the warmth of invitation offered by cottage and farmhouse fireside. The frozen beauty of the fields, hedges and woods makes a vivid contrast to the peaceful, happy life of the villages of typically English houses, with

tnatchecl roots, latticed windows, and gardens sheltered by magnificent trees. There is no other countryside in the world so picturesquely intimate as that of England. . . But to-day, when the coaches and most of the roadside inns and farms have gone out of business, and little is left of England as the English people love to think of her, the old snowy Christmas scenes have apparently gone, too. There are exceptions (last Christmas was one), but usually the day breaks mild and muggy, with a dispiriting southerly wind to disappoint those vvho had hoped for an “old-time” setting for the festival. Again, superstition has gone from the old customs. They may still be observed, but there is no belief in them—animals no longer recieve the power of speech at the time between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. . . .

Ghostly forms no longer hold revels hu the night silences when the last embers of the Yule Log glow red. . Nevertheless, there is still some shadow of former glories in Christmas in England. Carols still have power to stir the imagination, and on Christmas Eve it is still possible to catch some of the spirit of the past. . . Modernity and “progress” have yet a long way to go before they can rob the English peoplt of all reverence for the romance of the past.