THE SUPERSTITIONS OF CHRISTMAS

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVII, Issue 26, 29 December 1906, Page 19

THE SUPERSTITIONS OF CHRISTMAS

A great Christian festival has its penumbra. Usually it shines through a haze of Pagan myth, which it was at first unable wholly to disperse, and which formed a halo, fantastic in colour, around the central fact. This has been specially the case with Christmas in Northern Europe, where it coincided roughly with the Teutonic and Scandinavian Yule. Indeed, in Norway, King Hakon Athelston’s foster son deliberately altered the day of the beginning of the northern feast so as to make it coincide with the Christian festival, and imposed a fine to the Crown on every householder who did not brew a vat. of ale against December 25th. There were three holy nights to Pagan Yule, and so at Christmas the Church had. after the Nativity, St. Stephen’s, St. John's, and Innocents’ Days. The Pagan Yule began with slaughtering cattle for the festivities and sacrifices; a kettle of blood was taken into the Temple and splashed over the images of the gods. During the Yule season, especially during the three holy nights, it was thought risky to go abroad, as then the gods and the dead raced about the world on the wind. Odin, the wild huntsman, with fire-breathing dogs, snaring souls and putting them in his huntsman's pouch, and the moon-eyed Tutursel, a white owl flying before him; Thor, also, in his chariot drawn by goats, whirling his hammer, and with liis red beard streaming as auroral lights athwart- the sky.; Freyr as well, riding on a boar; there were godesses also, hunting- with their hounds through the clouds, and in the train followed all the souls of those who had been hanged for crimes, and all the souls of,little children, piping, wailing at the windows and in the chimnev.

The wind blows cold on waste and wold. It bloweth niafiit and day. The souls go by. ’twixt earth and sky. They tarry not nor stay. They fly in clouds, and flap their shrouds, When full doth Cynthia sail: At dead of night, when lacketh light. We har them sob and wail.

And many a soul witii shout and howl. Doth rattle at the door. Or rave and rant, with dance and shout. Around the lonely tor. And eke a soul, i' th’ chimney growl, Atlrippiug witfl the rain. To wring the wet from winding sheet. And gather warmth were fain.

To the present day, in the North of England, it is supposed that the wailing of the wind at the window, mainly at Christinas and New Year, is due to the souls of unbaptised children drifting on the wind, who sob when they see the fire flicker and the candles burn in Christian homes, to which they cannot, enter to obtain light and heat, aye, and rest from driving with the gale. It was probably to travesty the Pagan gods and their Yuletide ride that mummers were associated with Christmas. These wore disguises, and an invariable concomitant is the old white horse that snaps its jaws. Sometimes a horse's skull is used, sometimes a hobbyhorse is ridden.

This white horse nt Yule is Odin’s steed, Sleipnir; but all this is forgotten, and now the mummers sing a song about the poor old hunter neglected and left to die.

Oh. once I lay in stable, a hunter, well ami warm. I had the best of shelter, from cold nna rain, and harm; But now in open meadow, a hedge I’m glad to find. To shield my sides from tempest, from driving sleet and wind. Foor old horse, let him die!

But, apparently, before Christianity had laid hold of the Northern and other peoples of Europe, some sort of Yuletide mumming went on. Perhaps there was an \dea that men must represent the gods in masquerade, for wo find in two or three of the lives of early saints that they .were nearly frightened qut of their,wits by having their cells invaded by parties of mummers representing the gods of the heathen world. In Yorkshire, the mummers insist on entering

the house, and they invade the kitchen, and brush the hearth, and see that alt is clean and in order. The heathen festival was to commemorate mid-winter, the solstice, the pause before the sun returned in fresh strength and light and warmth. The Icelandic Sagas teem with ghastly stories of the murderous power possessed by the dead who were free to walk and do all the evil they liked during the Yuletide nights; and the waits and carol singers owe their origin to the efforts of Christian people to bin the evil spirits, the wandering ghosts, and prevent them from doing injury in those nights when they have power. A curious custom exists in a good many Yorkshire towns, that of ringing the devil’s knell at midnight at Christmas. There it is usual to toll the passing bell, giving a stroke to each year of life, then separately, after . an interval, three, three, three for a man; three, three, two for a woman; three, three, two for a boy; and two. two. two for a girl. Now, one Christmas Eve when I was curate at Horbury, near Wakefield, the first time I had been there, I had tumbled into bed at midnight, when I was startled Iw hearing the bell knell one hundred, then three, three, three. My bedroom looked out on the churchyard opposite the town. So I threw up the sash of the window, leant out, and awaited the sexton, in dismay at the idea of some parishioner having been allowed to die unvisited. When the ringer issued from the belfry door. “Joe!” T shouted, “who is dead?” He sniggered, and gave no articulate reply.’ “He must have been very old,” said I. “Eli!” replied he; “I reckon ’twere t’owd chap." ' “T’owd chap” is a delicate and expressive sobriquet for the devil. The Christmas tree is an introduction from Germany—that is to say, the tree loaded with presents for children. But something like it existed formerly in England, but postponed to Twelfth Night. Bone, in his Table-Book, describes the custom as Brough in Westmoreland, and gives an illustration. A holly or an ash- tree was prepared with a torch attached to every bough. At eight o’clock in the evening it was carried through the town flaming at the end of every branch, attended by the town band To every brancli a torch flier tie, To every torch n light apply: At each new light send forth huzzas. Till all the tree is In a blaze; Aud then bear it flaming through -the town, With minstrelsy and rockets thrown. The Yule tree is really a reminiscence of the Pagan World-tree, called Ygdrassil, that had its roots in hell, and whose boughs reached to heaven, where they were hung with golden apples—the stars. The Fates sat at the root of the tree by a well spinning, and cutting short the lives of men. The usual method of recalling Ygdrassil in England was the reverse of that employed in Germany and Scandinavia. There the tree was consecrated. The Star of Bethlehem was placed above it, and the cradle of the Holy Child, with ox and ass, was set at the foot. But in England th.- great World-tree was typified by the ashen faggot or Yule log;’ it was cut down,as a figure of Paganism. destroyed, and was brought into the kitehen or ball and there burnt. Nevertheless the old mysterious tree could not be got so easily out of the minds of men. It thrust , its way into every home, and. aye, into every church, as the holly with its scarlet berries, symbols of the branches of Ygdrassil, hung with the stars of heaven. The mistletoe has the same significance. Another Christinas custom, now confined to a few college halls, is the bringing in of the boar’s head, “bedecked with holly and rosemary,” for the Christmas feast. This was universal in baronial and squirearclial halls. It is ndw replaced by the roast bpef. But that head had its meaning, as the song

attending it shows plainly enough. That. like the ashen faggot, represented the triumph of Christianity over Paganism. for the head was that of the sacred beast on which Freyr rode through storm and snow at Yuk. It was more—it was the head of th. slaughtered beast offered in sacrifice in the temples at Yule, but now brought in “reddens laudes Domino.” no longer to be the food of the gods, but for the delectation of men.