"When rosemary and bays, the poet's crown, Among the ancient annual disbursements of the church of St. Mary-at-Hill, in the city of London, I find the following entry : "Holme and ivy at Christmas Eve, iiijd." In Coates's History of Reading, 1802, p. 216, in the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Laurence's parish, 1505, we read: "It. payed to Makrell for the holy bush agayn Christmas, ijd." In_the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Martin Outwich, London, 1524, is: "Item for holy and ivy at Chrystmas, ijd. ob. 1525, Payd for holy and ivye at Chrystmas, ijd." In similar accounts for the parish of St. Margaret Westminster, 1647, we read: Item, paid for rosemarie and bayes that was stuck about the church at Christmas, 18. 6d." The following carol in praise of the holly, written during the reign of the sixth Henry, is in the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts, 5396: 66 "Nay, Ivy nay, it shall not be i-wys; Let Holy hafe the maystery, as the maner ys. Ivy stond without the dore; she is full sore acold. Holy and hys mery men they dawnsyn and they syng, Ivy hath a lybe; she laghtit with the cold, So mot they all hafe that wyth Ivy hold, Nay Ivy, nay, hyt, &c. Holy hat berys as red as any rose, The foster the hunters, kepe hem from the doo. Ivy hath berys as black as any slo; Nay, Ivy, nay, hyt, &c. Nay, Ivy, nay, hyt, &c. Ther com the oule and ete hym as she goo. Holy hath byrdys, a ful fayre flok, The nyghtyngale, the poppyngy, the gayntyl lavyrok. Nay, Ivy, nay, hyt, &c. Good Ivy! what byrdys ast thou? Non but the howlet that kreye How! how!' Nay, Ivy, nay, hyt shall not, &c." From this it should seem that holly was used only to deck the inside of houses at Christmas; while ivy was used not only as a vintner's sign, but also among the evergreens at funerals. Bourne observes that this custom of adorning the windows at this season with bay and laurel is but seldom used in the north; but in the south, particularly at our universities, it is very common to deck not only the common windows of the town, but also the chapels of the colleges, with branches of laurel, which was used by the ancient Romans as the emblem of peace, joy, and victory. In the Christian sense, it may be applied to the victory gained over the Powers of Darkness by the coming of Christ. In a curious tract, entitled Round about our Coal Fire, or Christmas Entertainments, I find the following passage on this subject: "The rooms were embowered with holly, ivy, cyprus, bays, laurel, and misletoe, and a bouncing Christmas log in the chimney." In this account the "cyprus" is quite a new article. Indeed I should as soon have expected to have seen the yew as the cypress used on this joyful occasion. Coles, however, in his Introduction to the Knowledge of Plants (Art of Simpling, 1656), p. 64, tells us : "In some places setting up of holly, ivy, rosemary, bayes, yew, &c., in churches at Christmas is still in use." The use of box as well as yew, "to decke up houses in winter," is noticed in Parkinson's Garden of Flowers, 1629, p. 606. [And, according to Aubrey, "in several parts of Oxfordshire, particularly at Lanton, it is the custom for the maid servant to ask the man for ivy to dress the house, and if the man denies or neglects to fetch in ivy, the maid steals away a pair of his breeches, and nails them up to the gate in the yard or highway."] Coles, in the Introduction just quoted, p. 41, speaking of mistletoe, says: It is carryed many miles to set up in houses about Christmas time, when it is adorned with a white glistering berry." I am of opinion, although Gay mentions the mistletoe among those evergreens that were put up in churches, it never entered those sacred edifices but by mistake, or ignorance of the sextons; for it was the heathenish or profane plant, as having been of such distinction in the Pagan rites of Druidism, and it therefore had its place assigned it in kitchens, where it was hung up in great state, with its white berries; and whatever female chanced to stand under it, the young man present either had a right or claimed one of saluting her, and of plucking off a berry at each kiss. I have made many diligent inquiries after the truth of this. I learnt, at Bath, that it never came into church there. An old sexton at Teddington, in Middlesex, informed me that some mistletoe was once put up in the church there, but was by the clergyman immediately ordered to be taken away. Sir John Colbach, in his Dissertation concerning Misletoe, which he strongly recommends as a medicine very likely to subdue not only the epilepsy, but all other convulsive disorders, observes that this beautiful plant must have been designed by the Almighty "for further and more noble purposes than barely to feed thrushes, or to be hung up superstitiously in houses to drive away evil spirits,” p. 3. He tells us, p. 12, that "the high veneration in which the Druids were anciently held by the people of all ranks proceeded in a great measure from the wonderful cures they wrought by means of the misletoe of the oak: this tree being sacred to them, but none so that had not the misletoe upon them." With the Druids the mistletoe of the oak was everything; but Sir John endeavours to evince, that that of the crab, the lime, the pear, or any other tree, is of equal virtue. This sacred epidendron is beautifully described by Virgil in the 6th Æneid: "Quale solet silvis brumali frigore viscum Fronde virere nova, quod non sua seminat arbos, Et croceo fœtu teretes circumdare truncos: Mr. W. Williams, dating from Pembroke, Jan. 28th, 1791, tells us, in the Gentleman's Magazine for February that year, that "GUIDHEL, Misseltoe, a magical shrub, appeared to be the forbidden tree in the middle of the trees of Eden; for in the Edda, the misseltoe is said to be Balder's death, who yet perished through blindness and a woman." Stukeley, in his Medallic History of Carausius, ii. 163, 164, mentions the introduction of mistletoe into York Cathedral on Christmas Eve as a remain of Druidism. Speaking of the winter solstice, our Christmas, he says: "This was the most respectable festival of our Druids, called Yule-tide; when misletoe, which they called all-heal, was carried in their hands, and laid on their altars, as an emblem of the salutiferous advent of Messiah. This misletoe they cut off the trees with their upright hatchets of brass, called celts, put upon the ends of their staffs, which they carried in their hands. Innumerable are these instruments found all over the British isles. The custom is still preserved in the north, and was lately at York: on the eve of Christmas Day they carry MISLETOE to the high altar of the cathedral, and proclaim a public and universal liberty, pardon, and freedom to all sorts of inferior and even wicked people at the gates of the city, towards the four quarters of heaven." The mistletoe of the oak, which is very rare, is vulgarly said to be a cure for wind-ruptures in children: the kind which is found upon the apple is said to be good for fits. In the Statistical Account of Scotland, xiii. 520, parish of Kiltarlity, county of Inverness, it is said, "In Lovat's garden are a great number of standard trees. On two standard apple trees here misletoe grows, which is a very rare plant in this country." At Christie, in his Enquiry into the ancient Greek Game, supposed to have been invented by Palamedes, 1801, p. 129, speaks of the respect the northern nations entertained for the mistletoe, and of the Celts and Goths being distinct in the instance of their equally venerating the mistletoe about the time of the year when the sun approaches the winter solstice. p. 131 he adds, "We find by the allusion of Virgil, who compared the golden bough in infernis to the misletoe, that the use of this plant was not unknown in the religious ceremonies of the ancients, particularly the Greeks, of whose poets he was the acknowledged imitator." YULE-DOUGHS, MINCE-PIES, CHRISTMAS PIES, AND PLUM PORRIDGE. "Let Christmas boast her customary treat, A mixture strange of suet, currants, meat, Where various tastes combine, the greasy and the sweet." Oxford Sausage, p. 22. THE Yule-Dough, or Dow, was a kind of baby, or little image of paste, which our bakers used formerly to bake at this season, and present to their customers, in the same manner as the chandlers gave Christmas candles. They are called yulecakes in the county of Durham. I find in the ancient Calendar of the Romish Church, so often quoted, that at Rome, on the vigil of the Nativity, sweetmeats were presented to the Fathers in the Vatican, and that all kinds of little images (no doubt of paste) were to be found at the confectioners' shops.2 Ben Jonson, in his Masque of Christmas, 1616, has introduced "Minced-Pye" and "Babie-Cake," who act their parts in the drama. Hospinian de Origine Festorum Christianorum, fol. 32, Dough, or Dow, is vulgarly used in the North for a little cake, though it properly signifies a mass of flour tempered with water, salt, and yeast, and kneaded fit for baking. It is derived, as Junius tells us, from the Dutch Deeg, which comes from the Theotiscan thihen, to grow bigger, or rise, as the bakers term it. "JULBROD dicitur panis, qui sub hoc tempore vario aromatum genere conditur, inque varias formas animalium pisciumque fictus apponi solet. Originem hujus ritus eam esse credo, quod apud veteres usu receptum erat, ut prædiorum locatores dominis suis hoc tempore offerrent panem, ut dicebatur natalitium, qui in Gallia cuignets appellabatur, et, ut speciosior esset, in diversas ejusmodi formas pinsebatur, v. Du Fresne in v. PANIS NATALITIUS."-Glossar. Suio-Goth. auctore J. Ihre. 1769, i. 1009. Dufresne says: "PANIS NATALITIUS, cujusmodi fieri solet in die Natalis Domini, et præberi Dominis, a prædiorum conductoribus, in quibusdam provinciis, qui ex farina delicatiori, ovis et lacte confici solent: Cuignets appellant Picardi, quod in cuneorum varias species efformentur." 2" In Vaticano, dulcia Patribus exhibentur. In Cupidinariorum mensis, omnia generum imagunculæ." On Christmas Day, in this Calendar, we read: "Dulcia continuantur et Strenæ." |