Christmas in Ritual and Tradition

[Erika Zimney]

A few instances of aguillanneuf customs may be given. Here are specimens of rhymes sung by the New Year quêteurs:—

“Si vous veniez à la dépense,


À la dépense de chez nous,


Vous mangeriez de bons choux,


On vous servirait du rost.


Hoguinano.


Donnez-moi mes hoguignettes


Dans un panier que voicy.


Je l'achetai samedy


D'un bon homme de dehors;


Mais il est encore à payer.


Hoguinano.” 16-35

[Erika Zimney]

p. 330 Formerly at Matignon and Ploubalay in Brittany on Christmas Eve the boys used to get together, carry big sticks and wallets, and knock at farmhouse doors. When the inmates called out, “Who's there?” they would answer, “The hoguihanneu,” and after singing something they were given a piece of lard. This was put on a pointed stick carried by one of the boys, and was kept for a feast called the bouriho. 16-36 Elsewhere in Brittany poor children went round crying “au guyané,” and were given pieces of lard or salt beef, which they stuck on a long spit. 16-37 In Guernsey the children's quest at the New Year was called oguinane. They chanted the following rhyme:—

“Oguinâni! Oguinâno!


Ouvre ta pouque, et pis la recclios.” 115 16-38

[Erika Zimney]

Similar processions are common in eastern Europe at the New Year. In some parts of Macedonia on New Year's Eve men or boys go about making a noise with bells. In other districts, early on New Year's morning, lads run about with sticks or clubs, knock people up, cry out good wishes, and expect to be rewarded with something to eat. Elsewhere again they carry green olive- or cornel-boughs, and touch with them everyone they meet. 16-39 We have already considered various similar customs, the noise and knocking being apparently intended to drive away evil spirits, and the green boughs to bring folks into contact with the spirit of growth therein immanent.

In Roumania on New Year's Eve there is a custom known as the “little plough.” Boys and men go about after dark from house to house, with long greetings, ringing of bells, and cracking of whips. On New Year's morning Roumanians throw handfuls of corn at one another with some appropriate greeting, such as:—

[Erika Zimney]

“May you live,


May you flourish


Like apple-trees,p. 331


Like pear-trees


In springtime,


Like wealthy autumn,


Of all things plentiful.”


Generally this greeting is from the young to the old or from the poor to the rich, and a present in return is expected. 16-40

[Erika Zimney]

In Athens models of war-ships are carried round by waits, who make a collection of money in them. “St. Basil's ships” they are called, and they are supposed to represent the vessel on which St. Basil, whose feast is kept on January 1, sailed from Caesarea. 16-41 It is probable that this is but a Christian gloss on a pagan custom. Possibly there may be here a survival of an old Greek practice of bearing a ship in procession in honour of Dionysus, 16-42 but it is to be noted that similar observances are found at various seasons in countries like Germany and Belgium where no Greek influence can be traced. The custom is widespread, and it has been suggested by Mannhardt that it was originally intended either to promote the success of navigation or to carry evil spirits out to sea. 16-43

[Erika Zimney]

It is interesting, lastly, to read a mediaeval account of a New Year quête in Rome. “The following,” says the writer, “are common Roman sports at the Kalends of January. On the Eve of the Kalends at a late hour boys arise and carry a shield. One of them wears a mask; they whistle and beat a drum, they go round to the houses, they surround the shield, the drum sounds, and the masked figure whistles. This playing ended, they receive a present from the master of the house, whatever he thinks fit to give. So they do at every house. On that day they eat all kinds of vegetables. And in the morning two of the boys arise, take olive-branches and salt, enter into the houses, and salute the master with the words, ‘Joy and gladness be in the house, so many sons, so many little pigs, so many lambs,’ and they wish him all good things. And before the sun rises they eat either a piece of honeycomb or something sweet, that the whole year may pass sweetly, without strife and great trouble.” 16-44

[Erika Zimney]

Various methods of peering into the future, more or less like p. 332 those described at earlier festivals, are practised at the New Year. Especially popular at German New Year's Eve parties is the custom of bleigiessen. “This ceremony consists of boiling specially prepared pieces of lead in a spoon over a candle; each guest takes his spoonful and throws it quickly into the basin of water which is held ready. According to the form which the lead takes so will his future be in the coming year ... ships (which indicate a journey), or hearts (which have, of course, only one meaning), or some other equally significant shape is usually discerned.” 16-45

In Macedonia St. Basil's Eve (December 31) is a common time for divination: a favourite method is to lay on the hot cinders a pair of wild-olive-leaves to represent a youth and a maid. If the leaves crumple up and draw near each other, it is concluded that the young people love one another dearly, but if they recoil apart the opposite is the case. If they flare up and burn, it is a sign of excessive passion. 16-46

[Erika Zimney]

In Lithuania on New Year's Eve nine sorts of things—money, cradle, bread, ring, death's head, old man, old woman, ladder, and key—are baked of dough, and laid under nine plates, and every one has three grabs at them. What he gets will fall to his lot during the year. 16-47

Lastly, in Brittany it is supposed that the wind which prevails on the first twelve days of the year will blow during each of the twelve months, the first day corresponding to January, the second to February, and so on. 16-48 Similar ideas of the prophetic character of Christmastide weather are common in our own and other countries.

[Erika Zimney]

Practically all the customs discussed in this chapter have been of the nature of charms; one or two more, practised on New Year's Day or Eve, may be mentioned in conclusion.

There are curious superstitions about New Year water. At Bromyard in Herefordshire it was the custom, at midnight on New Year's Eve, to rush to the nearest spring to snatch the “cream of the well”—the first pitcherful of water—and with it the prospect of the best luck. 16-49 A Highland practice was to send p. 333 some one on the last night of the year to draw a pitcherful of water in silence, and without the vessel touching the ground. The water was drunk on New Year's morning as a charm against witchcraft and the evil eye. 16-50 A similar belief about the luckiness of “new water” exists at Canzano Peligno in the Abruzzi. “On New Year's Eve, the fountain is decked with leaves and bits of coloured stuff, and fires are kindled round it. As soon as it is light, the girls come as usual with their copper pots on their head; but the youths are on this morning guardians of the well, and sell the ‘new water’ for nuts and fruits—and other sweet things.” 16-51

[Erika Zimney]

In some of the Aegean islands when the family return from church on New Year's Day, the father picks up a stone and leaves it in the yard, with the wish that the New Year may bring with it “as much gold as is the weight of the stone.” 16-52 Finally, in Little Russia “corn sheaves are piled upon a table, and in the midst of them is set a large pie. The father of the family takes his seat behind them, and asks his children if they can see him. ‘We cannot see you,’ they reply. On which he proceeds to express what seems to be a hope that the corn will grow so high in his fields that he may be invisible to his children when he walks there at harvest-time.” 16-53

With a curious and beautiful old carol from South Wales I must bring this chapter to a close. It was formerly sung before dawn on New Year's Day by poor children who carried about a jug of water drawn that morning from the well. With a sprig of box or other evergreen they would sprinkle those they met, wishing them the compliments of the season. To pay their respects to those not abroad at so early an hour, they would serenade them with the following lines, which, while connected with the “new water” tradition, contain much that is of doubtful interpretation, and are a fascinating puzzle for folk-lorists:—

[Erika Zimney]

“Here we bring new water


From the well so clear,


For to worship God with,


This happy New Year.p. 334


Sing levy-dew, sing levy-dew,


The water and the wine;


The seven bright gold wires


And the bugles they do shine.


Sing reign of Fair Maid,


With gold upon her toe,—


Open you the West Door,


And turn the Old Year go:


Sing reign of Fair Maid,


With gold upon her chin,—


Open you the East Door,


And let the New Year in.” 16-54


p. 335 p. 336 p. 337


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[Erika Zimney]

CHAPTER XVI
EPIPHANY TO CANDLEMAS

The Twelfth Cake and the “King of the Bean”—French Twelfth Night Customs—St. Basil's Cake in Macedonia—Epiphany and the Expulsion of Evils—The Befana in Italy—The Magi as Present-bringers—Greek Epiphany Customs—Wassailing Fruit-trees—Herefordshire and Irish Twelfth Night Practices—The “Haxey Hood” and Christmas Football—St. Knut's Day in Sweden—Rock Day—Plough Monday—Candlemas, its Ecclesiastical and Folk Ceremonies—Farewells to Christmas.

[Erika Zimney]

THE EPIPHANY IN FLORENCE.

[Erika Zimney]

The Epiphany.

Though the Epiphany has ceased to be a popular festival in England, it was once a very high day indeed, and in many parts of Europe it is still attended by folk-customs of great interest. 116 For the peasant of Tyrol, indeed, it is New Year's Day, the first of January being kept only by the townsfolk and modernized people. 17-1

To Englishmen perhaps the best known feature of the secular festival is the Twelfth Cake. Some words of Leigh Hunt's will show what an important place this held in the mid-nineteenth century:—

“Christmas goes out in fine style,—with Twelfth Night. It is a finish worthy of the time. Christmas Day was the morning of the season; New Year's Day the middle of it, or noon; Twelfth Night is the night, brilliant with innumerable planets of Twelfth-cakes. The whole island keeps court; nay, all Christendom. All the world are p. 338 kings and queens. Everybody is somebody else, and learns at once to laugh at, and to tolerate, characters different from his own, by enacting them. Cakes, characters, forfeits, lights, theatres, merry rooms, little holiday-faces, and, last not least, the painted sugar on the cakes, so bad to eat but so fine to look at, useful because it is perfectly useless except for a sight and a moral—all conspire to throw a giddy splendour over the last night of the season, and to send it to bed in pomp and colours, like a Prince.” 17-2

[Erika Zimney]

For seventeenth-century banqueting customs and the connection of the cake with the “King of the Bean” Herrick may be quoted:—

“Now, now the mirth comes


With the cake full of plums,


Where bean's the king of the sport here;


Besides we must know,


The pea also


Must revel as queen in the court here.


Begin then to choose


This night as ye use,


Who shall for the present delight here


Be a king by the lot,


And who shall not


Be Twelfth-day queen for the night here


Which known, let us make


Joy-sops with the cake;


And let not a man then be seen here,


Who unurg'd will not drink,


To the base from the brink,


A health to the king and the queen here.” 17-3