Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan Part 22

"Once upon a time there was a woman who starved her cat and dog. At midnight on Christmas Eve she heard the dog say to the cat, 'It is quite time we lost our mistress; she is a regular miser. To-night burglars are coming to steal her money; and if she cries out they will break her head.' ''Twill be a good deed,' the cat replied. The woman in terror got up to go to a neighbour's house; as she went out the burglars opened the door, and when she shouted for help they broke her head."{13}

Again a story is told of a farm servant in the German Alps who did not believe that the beasts could speak, and hid in a stable on Christmas Eve to learn what went on. At midnight he heard surprising things. "We shall have hard work to do this day week," said one horse. "Yes, the farmer's servant is heavy," answered the other. "And the way to the churchyard is long and steep," said the first. The servant was buried that day week.{14}

234 It may well have been the traditional a.s.sociation of the ox and a.s.s with the Nativity that fixed this superst.i.tion to Christmas Eve, but the conception of the talking animals is probably pagan.

Related to this idea, but more Christian in form, is the belief that at midnight all cattle rise in their stalls or kneel and adore the new-born King. Readers of Mr. Hardy's "Tess" will remember how this is brought into a delightful story told by a Wess.e.x peasant. The idea is widespread in England and on the Continent,{15} and has reached even the North American Indians. Howison, in his "Sketches of Upper Canada," relates that an Indian told him that "on Christmas night all deer kneel and look up to Great Spirit."{16} A somewhat similar belief about bees was held in the north of England: they were said to a.s.semble on Christmas Eve and hum a Christmas hymn.{17} Bees seem in folk-lore in general to be specially near to humanity in their feelings.

It is a widespread idea that at midnight on Christmas Eve all water turns to wine. A Guernsey woman once determined to test this; at midnight she drew a bucket from the well. Then came a voice:--

"Toute l'eau se tourne en vin, Et tu es proche de ta fin."

She fell down with a mortal disease, and died before the end of the year.

In Sark the superst.i.tion is that the water in streams and wells turns into blood, and if you go to look you will die within the year.{18}

There is also a French belief that on Christmas Eve, while the genealogy of Christ is being chanted at the Midnight Ma.s.s, hidden treasures are revealed.{19} In Russia all sorts of buried treasures are supposed to be revealed on the evenings between Christmas and the Epiphany, and on the eves of these festivals the heavens are opened, and the waters of springs and rivers turn into wine.{20}

Another instance of the supernatural character of the night is found in a Breton story of a blacksmith who went on working after the sacring bell had rung at the Midnight Ma.s.s. To him 235 came a tall, stooping man with a scythe, who begged him to put in a nail. He did so; and the visitor in return bade him send for a priest, for this work would be his last. The figure disappeared, the blacksmith felt his limbs fail him, and at c.o.c.k-crow he died. He had mended the scythe of the _Ankou_--Death the reaper.{21}

In the Scandinavian countries simple folk have a vivid sense of the nearness of the supernatural on Christmas Eve. On Yule night no one should go out, for he may meet uncanny beings of all kinds. In Sweden the Trolls are believed to celebrate Christmas Eve with dancing and revelry.

"On the heaths witches and little Trolls ride, one on a wolf, another on a broom or a shovel, to their a.s.semblies, where they dance under their stones.... In the mount are then to be heard mirth and music, dancing and drinking. On Christmas morn, during the time between c.o.c.k-crowing and daybreak, it is highly dangerous to be abroad."{22}

Christmas Eve is also in Scandinavian folk-belief the time when the dead revisit their old homes, as on All Souls' Eve in Roman Catholic lands.

The living prepare for their coming with mingled dread and desire to make them welcome. When the Christmas Eve festivities are over, and everyone has gone to rest, the parlour is left tidy and adorned, with a great fire burning, candles lighted, the table covered with a festive cloth and plentifully spread with food, and a jug of Yule ale ready. Sometimes before going to bed people wipe the chairs with a clean white towel; in the morning they are wiped again, and, if earth is found, some kinsman, fresh from the grave, has sat there. Consideration for the dead even leads people to prepare a warm bath in the belief that, like living folks, the kinsmen will want a wash before their festal meal.[96] Or again beds were made ready for them while the living slept on straw. Not always is it consciously the dead for whom these preparations are made, sometimes they are said to be for the Trolls and sometimes even for 236 the Saviour and His angels.{24} (We may compare with this Christian idea the Tyrolese custom of leaving some milk for the Christ Child and His Mother{25} at the hour of Midnight Ma.s.s, and a Breton practice of leaving food all through Christmas night in case the Virgin should come.{26})

It is difficult to say how far the other supernatural beings--their name is legion--who in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland are believed to come out of their underground hiding-places during the long dark Christmas nights, were originally ghosts of the dead. Twenty years ago many students would have accounted for them all in this way, but the tendency now is strongly against the derivation of all supernatural beings from ancestor-wors.h.i.+p. Elves, trolls, dwarfs, witches, and other uncanny folk--the beliefs about their Christmas doings are too many to be treated here; readers of Danish will find a long and very interesting chapter on this subject in Dr. Feilberg's "Jul."{27} I may mention just one familiar figure of the Scandinavian Yule, Tomte Gubbe, a sort of genius of the house corresponding very much to the "drudging goblin" of Milton's "L'Allegro," for whom the cream-bowl must be duly set. He may perhaps be the spirit of the founder of the family. At all events on Christmas Eve Yule porridge and new milk are set out for him, sometimes with other things, such as a suit of small clothes, spirits, or even tobacco. Thus must his goodwill be won for the coming year.{28}

In one part of Norway it used to be believed that on Christmas Eve, at rare intervals, the old Norse G.o.ds made war on Christians, coming down from the mountains with great blasts of wind and wild shouts, and carrying off any human being who might be about. In one place the memory of such a visitation was preserved in the nineteenth century. The people were preparing for their festivities, when suddenly from the mountains came the warning sounds. "In a second the air became black, peals of thunder echoed among the hills, lightning danced about the buildings, and the inhabitants in the darkened rooms heard the clatter of hoofs and the weird shrieks of the hosts of the G.o.ds."{29}

237 The Scandinavian countries, Protestant though they are, have retained many of the outward forms of Catholicism, and the sign of the cross is often used as a protection against uncanny visitors. The cross--perhaps the symbol was originally Thor's hammer--is marked with chalk or tar or fire upon doors and gates, is formed of straw or other material and put in stables and cowhouses, or is smeared with the remains of the Yule candle on the udders of the beasts--it is in fact displayed at every point open to attack by a spirit of darkness.{30}

Christmas Eve is in Germany a time for auguries. Some of the methods already noted on other days are practised upon it--for instance the pouring of molten lead into water, the flinging of shoes, the pulling out of pieces of wood, and the floating of nutsh.e.l.ls--and there are various others which it might be tedious to describe.{31}

Among the southern Slavs if a girl wants to know what sort of husband she will get, she covers the table on Christmas Eve, puts on it a white loaf, a plate, and a knife, spoon, and fork, and goes to bed. At midnight the spirit of her future husband will appear and fling the knife at her. If it falls without injuring her she will get a good husband and be happy, but if she is hurt she will die early. There is a similar mode of divination for a young fellow. On Christmas Eve, when everybody else has gone to church, he must, naked and in darkness, sift ashes through a sieve. His future bride will then appear, pull him thrice by the nose, and go away.{32}

In eastern Europe Christmas, and especially Christmas Eve, is the time for the singing of carols called in Russian _Kolyadki_, and in other Slav countries by similar names derived from _Kalendae_.{33} More often than not these are without connection with the Nativity; sometimes they have a Christian form and tell of the doings of G.o.d, the Virgin and the saints, but frequently they are of an entirely secular or even pagan character.

Into some the sun, moon, and stars and other natural objects are introduced, and they seem to be based on myths to which a Christian appearance has been given by a sprinkling of names of holy persons of the 238 Church. Here for instance is a fragment from a Carpathian song:--

"A golden plough goes ploughing, And behind that plough is the Lord Himself.

The holy Peter helps Him to drive, And the Mother of G.o.d carries the seed corn, Carries the seed corn, prays to the Lord G.o.d, 'Make, O Lord, the strong wheat to grow, The strong wheat and the vigorous corn!

The stalks then shall be like reeds!'"{34}

Often they contain wishes for the prosperity of the household and end with the words, "for many years, for many years." The Roumanian songs are frequently very long, and a typical, oft-recurring refrain is:--

"This evening is a great evening, White flowers; Great evening of Christmas, White flowers."{35}

Sometimes they are ballads of the national life.

In Russia a carol beginning "Glory be to G.o.d in heaven, Glory!" and calling down blessings on the Tsar and his people, is one of the most prominent among the _Kolyadki_, and opens the singing of the songs called _Podblyudnuiya_. "At the Christmas festival a table is covered with a cloth, and on it is set a dish or bowl (_blyudo_) containing water. The young people drop rings or other trinkets into the dish, which is afterwards covered with a cloth, and then the _Podblyudnuiya_ Songs commence. At the end of each song one of the trinkets is drawn at random, and its owner deduces an omen from the nature of the words which have just been sung."{36}

THE TWELVE DAYS.

Whatever the limits fixed for the beginning and end of the Christmas festival, its core is always the period between Christmas 239 Eve and the Epiphany--the "Twelve Days."[97] A cycle of feasts falls within this time, and the customs peculiar to each day will be treated in calendarial order. First, however, it will be well to glance at the character of the Twelve Days as a whole, and at the superst.i.tions which hang about the season. So many are these superst.i.tions, so "bewitched" is the time, that the older mythologists not unnaturally saw in it a Teutonic festal season, dating from pre-Christian days. In point of fact it appears to be simply a creation of the Church, a natural linking together of Christmas and Epiphany. It is first mentioned as a festal tide by the eastern Father, Ephraem Syrus, at the end of the fourth century, and was declared to be such by the western Council of Tours in 567.{37}

While Christmas Eve is the night _par excellence_ of the supernatural, the whole season of the Twelve Days is charged with it. It is hard to see whence Shakespeare could have got the idea which he puts into the mouth of Marcellus in "Hamlet":--

"Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time."{38}

Against this is the fact that in folk-lore Christmas is a quite peculiarly uncanny time. Not unnatural is it that at this midwinter season of darkness, howling winds, and raging storms, men should have thought to see and hear the mysterious shapes and voices of dread beings whom the living shun.

Throughout the Teutonic world one finds the belief in a "raging 240 host" or "wild hunt" or spirits, rus.h.i.+ng howling through the air on stormy nights. In North Devon its name is "Yeth (heathen) hounds";{40} elsewhere in the west of England it is called the "Wish hounds."{41} It is the train of the unhappy souls of those who died unbaptized, or by violent hands, or under a curse, and often Woden is their leader.{42} At least since the seventeenth century this "raging host" (_das wuthende Heer_) has been particularly a.s.sociated with Christmas in German folk-lore,{43} and in Iceland it goes by the name of the "Yule host."{44}

In Guernsey the powers of darkness are supposed to be more than usually active between St. Thomas's Day and New Year's Eve, and it is dangerous to be out after nightfall. People are led astray then by Will o' the Wisp, or are preceded or followed by large black dogs, or find their path beset by white rabbits that go hopping along just under their feet.{45}

In England there are signs that supernatural visitors were formerly looked for during the Twelve Days. First there was a custom of cleansing the house and its implements with peculiar care. In Shrops.h.i.+re, for instance, "the pewter and brazen vessels had to be made so bright that the maids could see to put their caps on in them--otherwise the fairies would pinch them, but if all was perfect, the worker would find a coin in her shoe." Again in Shrops.h.i.+re special care was taken to put away any suds or "back-lee" for was.h.i.+ng purposes, and no spinning might be done during the Twelve Days.{46} It was said elsewhere that if any flax were left on the distaff, the Devil would come and cut it.{47}

The prohibition of spinning may be due to the Church's hallowing of the season and the idea that all work then was wrong. This churchly hallowing may lie also at the root of the Danish tradition that from Christmas till New Year's Day nothing that runs round should be set in motion,{48} and of the German idea that no thras.h.i.+ng must be done during the Twelve Days, or all the corn within hearing will spoil. The expectation of uncanny visitors in the English traditions calls, however, for special attention; it is perhaps because of their coming that the house must be left spotlessly clean and with as little as possible about on which they can work mischief.{49} Though I know of no distinct English belief in the 241 return of the family dead at Christmas, it may be that the fairies expected in Shrops.h.i.+re were originally ancestral ghosts. Such a derivation of the elves and brownies that haunt the hearth is very probable.{50}

The belief about the Devil cutting flax left on the distaff links the English superst.i.tions to the mysterious _Frau_ with various names, who in Germany is supposed to go her rounds during the Twelve Nights. She has a special relation to spinning, often punis.h.i.+ng girls who leave their flax unspun. In central Germany and in parts of Austria she is called Frau Holle or Holda, in southern Germany and Tyrol Frau Berchta or Perchta, in the north down to the Harz Mountains Frau Freen or Frick, or Fru G.o.de or Fru Harke, and there are other names too.{51} Attempts have been made to dispute her claim to the rank of an old Teutonic G.o.ddess and to prove her a creation of the Middle Ages, a representative of the crowd of ghosts supposed to be specially near to the living at Christmastide.{52} It is questionable whether she can be thus explained away, and at the back of the varying names, and much overlaid no doubt with later superst.i.tions, there may be a traditional G.o.ddess corresponding to that old divinity Frigg to whom we owe the name of Friday. The connection of Frick with Frigg is very probable, and Frick shares characteristics with the other _Frauen_.{53}

All are connected with spinning and spinsters (in the literal sense). Fru Frick or Freen in the Uckermark and the northern Harz permits no spinning during the time when she goes her rounds, and if there are lazy spinsters she soils the unspun flax on their distaff. In like manner do Holda, Harke, Berchta, and G.o.de punish lazy girls.{54}

The characters of the _Frauen_ can best be shown by the things told of them in different regions. They are more dreaded than loved, but if severe in their chastis.e.m.e.nts they are also generous in rewarding those who do them service.

Frau Gaude (also called G.o.de, Gaue, or Wode) is said in Mecklenburg to love to drive through the village streets on the Twelve Nights with a train of dogs. Wherever she finds a street-door open she sends a little dog in. Next morning he wags his 242 tail at the inmates and whines, and will not be driven away. If killed, he turns into a stone by day; this, though it may be thrown away, always returns and is a dog again by night. All through the year he whines and brings ill luck upon the house; so people are careful to keep their street-doors shut during the Twelve Nights.{55}

Good luck, however, befalls those who do Frau Gaude a service. A man who put a new pole to her carriage was brilliantly repaid--the chips that fell from the pole turned to glittering gold. Similar stories of golden chips are told about Holda and Berchta.{56}

A train of dogs belongs not only to Frau Gaude but also to Frau Harke; with these howling beasts they go raging through the air by night.{57} The _Frauen_ in certain aspects are, indeed, the leaders of the "Wild Host."

Holda and Perchta, as some strange stories show, are the guides and guardians of the _heimchen_ or souls of children who have died unbaptized. In the valley of the Saale, so runs a tale, Perchta, queen of the _heimchen_, had her dwelling of old, and at her command the children watered the fields, while she worked with her plough. But the people of the place were ungrateful, and she resolved to leave their land. One night a ferryman beheld on the bank of the Saale a tall, stately lady with a crowd of weeping children. She demanded to be ferried across, and the children dragged a plough into the boat, crying bitterly. As a reward for the ferrying, Perchta, mending her plough, pointed to the chips. The man grumblingly took three, and in the morning they had turned to gold-pieces.{58}

Holda, whose name means "the kindly one," is the most friendly of the _Frauen_. In Saxony she brings rewards for diligent spinsters, and on every New Year's Eve, between nine and ten o'clock, she drives in a carriage full of presents through villages where respect has been shown to her. At the crack of her whip the people come out to receive her gifts. In Hesse and Thuringia she is imagined as a beautiful woman clad in white with long golden hair, and, when it snows hard, people say, "Frau Holle is shaking her featherbed."{59}

243 More of a bugbear on the whole is Berchte or Perchte (the name is variously spelt). She is particularly connected with the Eve of the Epiphany, and it is possible that her name comes from the old German _giper(c)hta Na(c)ht_, the bright or s.h.i.+ning night, referring to the manifestation of Christ's glory.{60} In Carinthia the Epiphany is still called _Berchtentag_.{61}

Berchte is sometimes a bogey to frighten children. In the mountains round Traunstein children are told on Epiphany Eve that if they are naughty she will come and cut their stomachs open.{62} In Upper Austria the girls must finish their spinning by Christmas; if Frau Berch finds flax still on their distaffs she will be angered and send them bad luck.{63}

In the Orlagau (between the Saale and the Orle) on the night before Twelfth Day, Perchta examines the spinning-rooms and brings the spinners empty reels with directions to spin them full within a very brief time; if this is not done she punishes them by tangling and befouling the flax.

She also cuts open the body of any one who has not eaten _zemmede_ (fasting fare made of flour and milk and water) that day, takes out any other food he has had, fills the empty s.p.a.ce with straw and bricks, and sews him up again.{64} And yet, as we have seen, she has a kindly side--at any rate she rewards those who serve her--and in Styria at Christmas she even plays the part of Santa Klaus, hearing children repeat their prayers and rewarding them with nuts and apples.{65}

There is a charming Tyrolese story about her. At midnight on Epiphany Eve a peasant--not too sober--suddenly heard behind him "a sound of many voices, which came on nearer and nearer, and then the Berchtl, in her white clothing, her broken ploughshare in her hand, and all her train of little people, swept clattering and chattering close past him. The least was the last, and it wore a long s.h.i.+rt which got in the way of its little bare feet, and kept tripping it up. The peasant had sense enough left to feel compa.s.sion, so he took his garter off and bound it for a girdle round the infant, and then set it again on its way. When the Berchtl saw what he had done, she turned back and thanked him, and told him that in return for his compa.s.sion his children should never come to want."{66}

244 In Tyrol, by the way, it is often said that the Perchtl is Pontius Pilate's wife, Procula.{67} In the Italian dialects of south Tyrol the German Frau Berchta has been turned into _la donna Berta_.{68} If one goes further south, into Italy itself, one meets with a similar being, the Befana, whose name is plainly nothing but a corruption of _Epiphania_. She is so distinctly a part of the Epiphany festival that we may leave her to be considered later.