YULETIDE MYTHS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 303, 23 December 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

YULETIDE MYTHS

(By Wi] 1 iain Cloudeslcy). To the early pioneers Christmas time in New Zealand must have seemed a very topsy-turvydom of seasons—as indeed it does to-day to every newcomer from the Northern Hemisphere. For to them our midsummer Christmas would appear quite out of tune with old ideas lacking as it does so many of those time-honoured associations which in Europe cluster round the grand old festival. They had been used to a Christmas coming in ’.he dead of winter; accustomed to look upon that holiday as a most welcome oasis to break the monotony of tho long, tedious journey through the winter season—so welcome indeed that during the dreary period preceding the festival they would count the very weeks and days. To Christinas, with its family gatherings, its well-stocked larders, its blazing hearth-fires—-When mistletoe hung from the kitchen beam. And the church was decked with holly. What a change then, to come to a land where Christmas is the mid-day of the year, a time of Summer holidays, a season of picnics and outdoor pas-

times, of sunshine, flowers and biossowing trees. All life seems gay and glad: it is Nature’s own season of joy and good-fellowship. And we, which now behold these present days, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. Furthermore, this summer Christmas of ours puts us out of touch with most of the fancies that to our European forefathers were conjoined with the celebration of the festival; fancies which can be traced back to Celtic and Teutonic superstitions belonging to a pre-Christian era. Our geographical position being what it is, we have no holly and mistletoe, to hang at Christ mas, nor have we any need of yulelogs; so the ancient nature myths, of which these things are representatives, cannot be expected to have any appeal for us. And yet even we are not altogether free from these also prehistoric associations. For we not uncommonly use the name “Yuletide” as a variant for Christmas-time. And what is the meaning of “Yule”? This question we are unable to answer with any degree of certainty. We do know that it was tho name given to a heathen nature myth festival, observed in tho month of December: the Anglo-Saxon “Geel,” the Norse “Joi,” (both pronounced “Yole” or “Yule”). That the name was common to both of these people is proof of the antiquity of the festival; for the Anglo-Saxons migrated from the Continent to Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries. And what a mist of memories, what a halo of associations, surround the burning of the Yule-log and the hanging of the holly and the mistletoe! in old England the Yule-log was lighted by the head of the household with the charred remnants saved from the lust year’s fire to keep up some kind of continuity. But this custom has almost died out. The holly and the mistletoe, however. still decorate the home of rich land poor in every country round the North Sea. The holly, with its clusters of red berries, which, when borne in profusion, were considered of yore to foretell a hard, long winter. No wonder, then, that our forefathers ascribed to the holly tree some sort of supernatural prescience and that they held it in veneration accordingly. And the white-berried mistletoe! What fancies have gathered round this strange, parasitical plant. which grows without soil, is flourishing and green when its host is bare, and which blossoms and fruits when most other ■ plants are withered or resting! Because of those characteristics, the an-