In the Yule log glow – Part 3

I found a nice second hand book on Christmas Traditions from 1931 at the Guide Dogs for the Blind biggest book sale, and around this Christmas season, thought it might be interesting to share it with my readers. Instead of my regular blog, I'm taking time off and posting some extracts from this here.

In the Yule log glow – Part 3
By William Mauir Ald

In old England Christmas was indeed happy, hilariously merry. It was, of course, no new thing in human experience for feast and frolic to be conjoined with religious rejoicing; but seldom have they had so congenial an association as among the English in Plantagenet and Tudor times.

All through the Middle Ages the two rivers of riot and religion, from whida many, high and low, rich and poor, contrived to drink deeply at Christmas, flowed together till they were parted at the Reformation. In the Puritan Era the former ran underground. At the Restoration of Charles II it reappeared and was hailed with joy and acclamation.

Alas! it was no longer the mountain torrent of roaring cataracts and sparkling cascades, but a comparatively prosaic stream wending its sluggish way through fen country, until weired up by Dickens and made to tumble merrily once more in the sunlight of his genius.

It is curious that many of the old Christmas games which enlivened the time are now mere names. Antiquarians look with inquisitive eyes at these intriguing words—-Feed the Dove, Rowland Bo, Shoeing the Wild Mare, Steal the White Loaf, the Parson has lost his Cloak, and have not the remotest idea what they mean.

But even if they did they might not appeal, like Hot Cockles, to this age of ours, less interested in entertaining itself than in being entertained. Yet the reader can decide. Hot Cockles was not only a favorite gambol in old time Christmas, but a game of great antiquity. It was evidently popular with the ancient Egyptians, as representations on their tombs suggest; and writers have loved to depict the shepherds in Arcady delighting in this disport.

Imagine a large room and a goodly number of guests assembled. One -person, blindfolded, and in a kneeling posture, puts his head in the lap of another sitting on a stool or chair. Placing his hand on his back, palm upwards, he cries, "Hot cockles, hot!”

It was then the privilege of each player to strike the open hand; and if the kneeling one guessed right, the striker took his place, if not a forfeit might be exacted. The sentiments provoked varied a good deal according to the nature and force of the impact.

One man, seemingly much distressed by a particular slap which he received, appealed to Mr. Spectator (1711) and said: "I am a footman in a great family and am in love with the housemaid. We were all at hot-cockles last night in the hall these holidays, when I lay down and was blinded she pulled off her shoe and hit me with the heel such a rap as almost broke my head to pieces. Pray, Sir, was this love or spite?"

What comforting word reached him by way of reply is not stated. He, unfortunate man, hoped, no doubt, to be able to say like Cuddy in one of John Gay's poems, belonging to about the same year:

As at hot-cockles once I laid me down
I felt the weighty hand of many a clown.
Buxoma gave a gentle tap and 1
Quick rose and read soft mischief in bet eye.‘

During the eighteenth century, however "among persons of distinction," there would seem to have been as little enthusiasm about Christmas as about religion itself. It is not infrequently referred to as a rather dreary day, almost the acme of insipidity, a day to be thankful for—when over. A Christmas game appropriate to this mood was called "yawning for a Cheshire cheese."

Near the hour of midnight, when all were beginning to succumb to the seductions of the sandman, the languid sport commenced. Whoso yawned the widest and the longest, "and at the same time so naturally as to produce the most yawns in the spectators, was pronounced the victor and carried home the cheese as his reward!"

But the Yule Log had other meanings than those associated with the Wassail Bowl, omens of matrimony, feast and frolic. Its light was sacramental. People loved to see the firelight dance on the roof and walls and would even bring their pewter, and also silver, if they were fortunate to possess any, within the orbit of its gleaming grace.

Of what ancient pagan sacrament or belief was this the pleasant survival? For long the wood fire was the only form of illumination in the homes. The candles appeared much later and though prettier could never mean any more than the glowing flames of the immemorial block on the family hearth.

The practice of placing burning candles in the windows on Christmas Eve is a continuation of an Irish custom, bound up with the thought of the Christ Child out alone in the cold and dark and requiring to be lighted on His way. What charm this had on a desolate heath is largely lost in a great city.

This is only to say that the real romance of Christmas belonged to the countryside; and as this has slowly, but surely, changed, the other has tended to fade away. When the candles came to be used they were lit with the Yule Log and placed in any conspicuous place, on the mantelpiece, or the dais.

In Norway as the candles burned they were conceived to radiate blessing. Many things, including clothes and food, were spread out so that the beneficent rays might fall upon them. The blazing block, however, radiating warmth, and turning, as it were, night into day, was also emblematic of Christ as the light of the world.