Part 21
These being thus prepared, and placed in order on the table, one of the ladies was persuaded to draw the arrow out of the body of the stag, which being done the claret wine issued forth like blood from a wound and caused admiration in the spectators; which being over, after a little pause, all the guns on one side of the castle were by a train discharged against the ship; and afterwards the guns of one side of the ship were discharged against the castle; then, having turned the chargers, the other sides were fired off as in a battle. This causing a great smell of powder, the ladies or gentlemen took up the eggshells of perfumed water and threw them at one another. This pleasant disorder being pretty well laughed over, and the two great pies still remaining untouched, some one or other would have the curiosity to see what was in them and on lifting up the lid of one pie, out would jump the frogs, which would make the ladies skip and scamper; and on lifting up the lid of the other out would fly the birds, which would naturally fly at the light and so put out the candles. And so with the leaping of the frogs below, and the flying of the birds above, would cause a surprising and diverting hurley burley among the guests, in the dark. After which the candles being lighted, the banquet would be brought in, the music sound, and the particulars of each person's surprise and adventures furnish matter for diverting discourse.
_The Cook and Confectioner's Dictionary_, 1726
The Blessing of the Waters
I was anxious to be present at the early liturgy of the morning of Epiphany to witness the ceremony of the blessing of the waters in the pretty quaint village on the island of Skiathos in a far-away corner of Greece. It was a great effort, for the night had been cold and stormy; however, by some process which will never be quite clear to me, I managed to find myself at the door of the one church with its many storied bell-tower, soon after four o'clock. Very quaint indeed it looked as I went out of the cold darkness into the brilliantly lighted church, and saw the pious islanders kneeling all around on the cold floor as the liturgy was being chanted prior to the blessing of the waters. Near the entrance stood the font filled to the brim; and close to it was placed an eikon or sacred picture, representing the baptism of our Lord; around the font were stuck many candles fastened by their own grease; whilst pots and jugs of every size and description, full of water, stood about on the floor in the immediate vicinity of the font.
After the priest had chanted the somewhat tedious litany from the steps of the high altar, he set off dressed sumptuously in his gold brocaded vestments, round the church with a large cross in one hand, and a sprig of basil in the other, accompanied by two acolytes, who waved their censers and cast about a pleasant odor of frankincense. Every one was prostrate as the priest read the appointed Scripture, signed the water in the font and in the adjacent jugs with the cross and threw into the font his sprig of basil. No sooner was this solemn impressive ceremony over than there was a general rush from all sides with mugs and bottles to secure some of this consecrated water. Everybody laughed and hustled his neighbor; even the priest, with the cross in his hand, stood and watched them with a grin. The sudden change from the preceding solemnity was ludicrous in the extreme.
Before taking his departure for his home each person went up to kiss the cross which the priest held and to be sprinkled with water from the sprig of basil. Each person had brought his own sprig of basil which he presented to the priest to bless, and in return for this favor dropped a small coin into the plate held by one of the acolytes. Basil is always held to be a sacred plant in Greece. The legend says that it grew on Christ's tomb, and they imagine that this is the reason why its leaves grow in a cruciform shape. In nearly every humble Greek dwelling you may see a dried sprig of basil hanging in the household sanctuary. It is this sprig which has been blessed at the Feast of Lights. It is most effectual say they in keeping off the influence of the evil eye.
The day broke fine and the violence of the storm was over. Yet our captain still lingered saying that perhaps toward evening we might start, and for this delay I believe I discovered the reason. Towards midday on Epiphany it is customary among these seafaring islanders to hold a solemn function, closely akin to the one I had witnessed in the church that morning, namely, the blessing of the sea.
From their homes by the shore the fishermen came, and all the inhabitants of Skiathos assembled on the quay to join the procession which descended from the church by a zigzag path, headed by two priests and two acolytes behind them waving censers, and men carrying banners and the large cross.
Very touching it was to watch the deep devotion of these hardy seafaring men as they knelt on the shore whilst the litany was being chanted, and whilst the chief priest blest the waves with his cross and invoked the blessing of the most High on the many and varied crafts which were riding at anchor in Skiathos harbor. When the service was over there followed, as in the morning, an unseemly bustle, so ready are these vivacious people to turn from the solemn to the gay. Every one chatted with his neighbor and pressed forward toward a little jetty to see the fun. Presently the priest advanced to the end of this jetty with the cross in his hand, and after tying a heavy stone to it he threw it into the sea. Thereupon there was a general rush into the water; men and boys with their clothes on plunged and dived until at length to the applause of the bystanders one young man succeeded in bringing the cross to the surface, stone and all. A subscription was then raised for the successful diver, the proceeds of which were spent by him in ordering many glasses of wine at the nearest coffee shop, and the wet men sat down for a heavy drink--to drive out the chill, I suppose.
In many places you will find the boats hauled upon the beach the day before Christmas, and nothing will induce their owners to launch them again until after the blessing of the sea. I am sure the captain of our steamer shared the superstition, though he chose to laugh at the islanders' ways; for a few hours after the sea had been blessed we put out into it, and I imagine could have started hours before if the captain had been so inclined.
J. T. BENT
La Galette du Roi
In France, where it probably originated, the Twelfth Night cake, known as La Galette du Roi ("the king's cake"), still survives.
The cake is generally made of pastry, and baked in a round sheet like a pie. The size of the cake depends on the number of persons in the company. In former times a broad bean was baked in the cake, but now a small china doll is substituted.
The cake is the last course in the dinner. One of the youngest people at the table is asked to say to whom each piece shall be given. This creates a little excitement and all watch breathlessly to see who gets the doll. The person who gets it is king or queen, and immediately chooses a king or queen for a partner. So soon as the king and queen are announced they are under the constant observation of the rest of the party and whatever they do is immediately commented upon. In a short time there is a perfect uproar: "The king drinks," "the queen speaks," "the queen laughs." This is kept up for a long time; then there are games, music and dancing.
WILLIAM HONE in the _Everyday Book_
Drawing King and Queen on Twelfth Night
Hone, in his _Everyday Book_, describes a drawing as it was conducted in 1823: "First, buy your cake. Then, before your visitors arrive, buy your characters (painted cards), each of which should have a pleasant verse beneath. Next, look at your invitation list and count the number of ladies you expect; and afterwards the number of gentlemen. Then take as many female characters as you have invited ladies; fold them up, exactly of the same size, and number each on the back, taking care to make the King No. 1 and the Queen No. 2. Then prepare and number the gentlemen's characters. Cause tea and coffee to be handed to your visitors as they drop in. When all are assembled, and tea over, put as many ladies' characters in a reticule as there are ladies present; next put the gentlemen's characters in a hat. Then call a gentleman to carry the reticule to the ladies, as they sit, from which each lady is to draw one ticket and preserve it unopened. Select a lady to bear the hat to the gentlemen for the same purpose. There will be one ticket left in the reticule and another in the hat, which the lady and gentleman who carried each is to interchange, as having fallen to each. Next arrange your visitors according to their numbers--the King No. 1, the Queen No. 2, and so on. The king is then to recite the verse on his ticket, then the queen the verse on hers, and so the characters are to proceed in numerical order.
This done, let the cake and refreshments go round, and hey! for merriment.
St. Distaff's Day and Plough Monday
The day after Epiphany was called St. Distaff's day by country people, because the Christmas holidays being ended the time had come for the resumption of the distaff and other industrious employments of good housewives.
The Monday after Twelfthday was a similar occasion for the resumption of agricultural labors. Another writer connects the day with a custom which among farm servants corresponded somewhat to the 'prentices Boxing Day. The usage was "to draw around a plough and solicit money with guisings, and dancing with swords, preparatory to beginning to plough after the Christmas holidays."
Olaus Magnus describes the "dance with swords": First, with swords sheathed and erect in their hands, they dance in a triple round; then with their drawn swords held erect as before; afterwards extending them from hand to hand, they lay hold of each other's hilts and points, and while they are wheeling more moderately around and changing their order, they throw themselves into the figure of a hexagon which they call a rose: but presently raising and drawing back their swords, they undo that figure, in order to form with them a four-square rose so that they may rebound over the head of each other. Lastly, they dance rapidly backwards, and vehemently rattling the sides of their swords together, conclude their sport. Pipes or songs (sometimes both) direct the measure which at first is slow, increasing to a very quick movement at the close. Olaus Magnus adds: "It is scarcely to be understood how gamely and decent it is."
WILLIAM HONE in _Year Book_
XII
THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT
"As Little Children in a Darkened Hall" Christmas Dreams The Professor's Christmas Sermon Awaiting the King Elizabeth's Christmas Sermon Nichola's "Reason Why" The Changing Spirit of Christmastide A Prayer for Christmas Peace Under the Holly Bough Christmas Music A Christmas Sermon
As little children in a darkened hall At Christmas-tide await the opening door, Eager to tread the fairy-haunted floor About the tree with goodly gifts for all, And into the dark unto each other call-- Trying to guess their happiness before,-- Or of their elders eagerly implore Hints of what fortune unto them may fall: So wait we in Time's dim and narrow room, And with strange fancies, or another's thought, Try to divine, before the curtain rise, The wondrous scene. Yet soon shall fly the gloom, And we shall see what patient ages sought, The Father's long-planned gift of Paradise.
CHARLES HENRY CRANDALL in _Wayside Music_
Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons
Christmas Dreams
To-morrow is Merry Christmas; and when its night descends there will be mirth and music, and the light sounds of the merry-twinkling feet within these now so melancholy walls--and sleep now reigning over all the house save this one room, will be banished far over the sea--and morning will be reluctant to allow her light to break up the innocent orgies.
Were every Christmas of which we have been present at the celebration, painted according to nature--what a Gallery of Pictures! True that a sameness would pervade them all--but only that kind of sameness that pervades the nocturnal heavens. One clear night always is, to common eyes, just like another; for what hath any night to show but one moon and some stars--a blue vault, with here a few braided, and there a few castellated, clouds? yet no two nights ever bore more than a family resemblance to each other before the studious and instructed eye of him who has long communed with Nature, and is familiar with every smile and frown on her changeful, but not capricious, countenance. Even so with the Annual Festivals of the heart. Then our thoughts are the stars that illumine those skies--and on ourselves it depends whether they shall be black as Erebus, or brighter than Aurora.
"Thoughts! that like spirits trackless come and go"--is a fine line of Charles Lloyd's. But no bird skims, no arrow pierces the air, without producing some change in the Universe, which will last to the day of doom. No coming and going is absolutely trackless; nor irrecoverable by Nature's law is any consciousness, however ghostlike; though many a one, even the most blissful, never does return, but seems to be buried among the dead. But they are not dead--but only sleep; though to us who recall them not, they are as they had never been, and we, wretched ingrates, let them lie for ever in oblivion! How passing sweet when of our own accord they arise to greet us in our solitude!--as a friend who, having sailed away to a foreign land in our youth, has been thought to have died many long years ago, may suddenly stand before us, with face still familiar and name reviving in a moment, and all that he once was to us brought from utter forgetfulness close upon our heart.
My Father's House! How it is ringing like a grove in spring, with the din of creatures happier, a thousand times happier, than all the birds on earth. It is the Christmas holidays--Christmas Day itself--Christmas Night--and Joy in every bosom intensifies Love. Never before were we brothers and sisters so dear to one another--never before had our hearts so yearned towards the authors of our being--our blissful being! There they sat--silent in all that outcry--composed in all that disarray--still in all that tumult; yet, as one or other flying imp sweeps round the chair, a father's hand will playfully strive to catch a prisoner--a mother's gentler touch on some sylph's disordered symar be felt almost as a reproof, and for a moment slacken the fairy flight. One old game treads on the heels of another--twenty within the hour--and many a new game never heard of before nor since, struck out by the collision of kindred spirits in their glee, the transitory fancies of genius inventive through very delight. Then, all at once, there is a hush, profound as ever falls on some little plat within a forest when the moon drops behind the mountain, and small green-robed People of Peace at once cease their pastime, and vanish. For she--the Silver-Tongued--is about to sing an old ballad, words and air alike hundreds of years old--and sing she doth, while tears begin to fall, with a voice too mournfully beautiful long to breathe below--and, ere another Christmas shall have come with the falling snows, doomed to be mute on earth--but to be hymning in Heaven....
Then came a New Series of Christmases, celebrated, one year in this family, another year in that--none present but those whom Charles Lamb the Delightful calleth the "old familiar faces"; something in all features, and all tones of voice, and all manners, betokening origin from one root--relations all, happy, and with no reason either to be ashamed or proud of their neither high nor humble birth, their lot being cast within that pleasant realm, "the Golden Mean," where the dwellings are connecting links between the hut and the hall--fair edifices resembling manse or mansionhouse, according as the atmosphere expands or contracts their dimensions--in which Competence is next-door neighbor to Wealth, and both of them within the daily walk of Contentment. Merry Christmases they were indeed--one Lady always presiding, with a figure that once had been the stateliest among the stately, but then somewhat bent, without being bowed down, beneath an easy weight of most venerable years. Sweet was her tremulous voice to all her grandchildren's ears. Nor did these solemn eyes, bedimmed into a pathetic beauty, in any degree restrain the glee that sparkled in orbs that have as yet shed not many tears, but tears of joy or pity. Dearly she loved all those mortal creatures whom she was soon about to leave; but she sat in sunshine even within the shadow of death; and the "voice that called her home" had so long been whispering in her ear, that its accents had become dear to her, and consolatory every word that was heard in the silence, as from another world.
Whether we were indeed all so witty as we thought ourselves--uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, cousins, and "the rest," it might be presumptuous in us, who were considered by ourselves and a few others not the least amusing of the whole set, at this distance of time to decide--especially in the affirmative; but how the roof did ring with sally, pun, retort, and repartee! Ay, with pun--a species of impertinence for which we have therefore a kindness even to this day. Had incomparable Thomas Hood had the good fortune to have been born a cousin of ours, how with that fine fancy of his would he have shone at those Christmas festivals, eclipsing us all! Our family, through all its different branches, had ever been famous for bad voices, but good ears; and we think we hear ourselves--all those uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, and cousins--singing now! Easy it is to "warble melody" as to breathe air. But we hope harmony is the most difficult of all things to people in general, for to us it was impossible; and what attempts ours used to be at Seconds! Yet the most woful failures were rapturously encored; and ere the night was done we spoke with most extraordinary voices indeed, every one hoarser than another, till at last, walking home with a fair cousin, there was nothing left it but a tender glance of the eye--a tender pressure of the hand--for cousins are not altogether sisters, and although partaking of that dearest character, possess, it may be, some peculiar and appropriate charms of their own; as didst thou, Emily the "Wildcap!"--That soubriquet all forgotten now--for now thou art a matron, nay a Grandam, and troubled with an elf fair and frolicsome as thou thyself wert of yore, when the gravest and wisest withstood not the witchery of thy dancing, thy singings, and thy showering smiles.
On rolled Suns and Seasons--the old died--the elderly became old--and the young, one after another, were wafted joyously away on the wings of hope, like birds almost as soon as they can fly, ungratefully forsaking their nests and the groves in whose safe shadow they first essayed their pinions; or like pinnaces that, after having for a few days trimmed their snow-white sails in the land-locked bay, close to whose shores of silvery sand had grown the trees that furnished timber both for hull and mast, slip their tiny cables on some summer day, and gathering every breeze that blows, go dancing over the waves in sunshine, and melt far off into the main. Or, haply, some were like young trees, transplanted during no favorable season, and never to take root in another soil, but soon leaf and branch to wither beneath the tropic sun, and die almost unheeded by those who knew not how beautiful they had been beneath the dews and mists of their own native climate.
Vain images! and therefore chosen by fancy not too plainly to touch the heart. For some hearts grew cold and forbidding with selfish cares--some, warm as ever in their own generous glow, were touched by the chill of Fortune's frowns, ever worst to bear when suddenly succeeding her smiles--some, to rid themselves of painful regrets, took refuge in forgetfulness, and closed their eyes to the past--duty banished some abroad, and duty imprisoned others at home--estrangements there were, at first unconscious and unintended, yet erelong, though causeless, complete--changes were wrought insensibly, invisibly, even in the innermost nature of those who being friends knew no guile, yet came thereby at last to be friends no more--unrequited love broke some bonds--requited love relaxed others--the death of one altered the conditions of many--and so--year after year--the Christmas Meeting was interrupted--deferred--till finally it ceased with one accord, unrenewed and unrenewable. For when Some Things cease for a time--that time turns out to be forever....
For a good many years we have been tied to town in winter by fetters as fine as frost-work, which we could not break without destroying a whole world of endearment. That seems an obscure image; but it means what the Germans would call in English--our winter environment. We are imprisoned in a net; yet we can see it when we choose--just as a bird can see, when he chooses, the wires of his cage, that are invisible in his happiness, as he keeps hopping and fluttering about all day long, or haply dreaming on his perch with his poll under his plumes--as free in confinement as if let loose into the boundless sky. That seems an obscure image too; but we mean, in truth, the prison unto which we doom ourselves no prison is; and we have improved on that idea, for we have built our own--and are prisoner, turnkey, and jailer all in one, and 'tis noiseless as the house of sleep. Or what if we declare that Christopher North is a king in his palace, with no subjects but his own thoughts--his rule peaceful over those lights and shadows--and undisputed to reign over them his right divine.
The opening year in a town, now answers in all things to our heart's desire. How beautiful the smoky air! The clouds have a homely look as they hang over the happy families of houses, and seem as if they loved their birthplace;--all unlike those heartless clouds that keep stravaiging over mountain-tops, and have no domicile in the sky! Poets speak of living rocks, but what is their life to that of houses? Who ever saw a rock with eyes--that is, with windows? Stone-blind all, and stone-deaf, and with hearts of stone; whereas who ever saw a house without eyes--that is, windows? Our own is an Argus; yet the good old Conservative grudges not the assessed taxes--his optics are as cheerful as the day that lends them light, and they love to salute the setting sun, as if a hundred beacons, level above level, were kindled along a mountain side. He might safely be pronounced a madman who preferred an avenue of trees to a street. Why, trees have no chimneys; and, were you to kindle a fire in the hollow of an oak, you would soon be as dead as a Druid. It won't do to talk to us of sap, and the circulation of sap. A grove in winter, bole and branch--leaves it has none--is as dry as a volume of sermons. But a street, or a square, is full of "vital sparks of heavenly flame" as a volume of poetry, and the heart's blood circulates through the system like rosy wine.