generally been the holly, the ivy, the laurel, the rosemary, and the
mistletoe; although the decorations were by no means limited to these
materials. Brand expresses some surprise at finding cypress included in
the list, as mentioned in the tract called "Round about our Coal-Fire,"
and observes that he "should as soon have expected to have seen the
_yew_ as the cypress used on this joyful occasion." The fact, however,
is that yew _is_ frequently mentioned amongst the Christmas decorations,
as well as box, pine, fir, and indeed the larger part of the Christmas
plants which we have enumerated in a former chapter. The greater number
of these appear to have been so used, not on account of any mystic
meanings supposed to reside therein, but simply for the sake of their
greenery or of their rich berries. Stow speaks of the houses being
decked with "whatsoever the year afforded to be green;" and Sandys
observes that "at present great variety is observed in decorating our
houses and buildings, and many flowers are introduced that were unknown
to our ancestors, but whose varied colors add to the cheerful effect; as
the chrysanthemum, satin-flower, etc., mingling with the red berry of
the holly and the mystic mistletoe. In the West of England," he adds,
"the myrtle and laurustinum form a pleasing addition." There is a very
beautiful custom which we find mentioned in connection with the subject
of evergreens as existing at this season of the year in some parts of
Germany and Sicily. A large bough is set up in the principal room, the
smaller branches of which are hung with little presents suitable to the
different members of the household. "A good deal of innocent mirth and
spirit of courtesy," it is observed, "is produced by this custom."
Herrick, however (a poet amid whose absurd conceits and intolerable
affectation there are samples of the sweetest versification and touches
of the deepest pathos, and who amongst a great deal that is liable to
heavier objections still, has preserved many curious particulars of old
ceremonies and obsolete superstitions), carries this custom of adorning
our houses with evergreens over the entire year, and assigns to each
plant its peculiar and appropriate season. To Christmas he appoints
those which we have stated to be most commonly used on that occasion,
but insists upon a change of decoration on the eve of Candlemas Day:--
"Down with the rosemary, and so
Down with the baies and misletoe;
Down with the holly, ivie, all
Wherewith you drest the Christmas hall;
That so the superstitious find
Not one least branch there left behind;"
and he urges the maids to the careful performance of this charge by the
following threat:--
"For look! how many leaves there be
Neglected there, maids, trust to me,
So many goblins you shall see."
The plant by which he orders these to be replaced for Candlemas Day is
box, whose turn is to continue--
"Until the dancing Easter Day
Or Easter's Eve appeare."
Then the box is to make way for "the crisped yew;" which is to be
succeeded at Whitsuntide by birch and the flowers of the season; and
these again are to yield to the--
"Green rushes, then, and sweetest bents,
With cooler oken boughs;"
whose reign continues till the period again comes round of preparation
for Christmas. We believe that it is still usual in many parts of
England to suffer the Christmas greens to remain in the windows of our
churches, and sometimes of our houses, until Candlemas Eve.
Of those plants, then, which are considered as containing meanings that
make them appropriate decorations for the Christmas-tide, or which have
for any reason been peculiarly devoted to that season, the laurel, or
bay, may be dismissed in a few words. Since the days of the ancient
Romans this tree has been at all times dedicated to all purposes of
joyous commemoration, and its branches have been used as the emblems of
peace and victory and joy. Of course its application is obvious to a
festival which includes them all, which celebrates "peace on earth,"
"glad tidings of great joy," and a triumph achieved over the powers of
evil and the original curse by the coming of the Saviour.
We may add that, besides forming a portion of the household decorations,
it is usual in some places to fling branches and sprigs of laurel on the
Christmas fire, and seek for omens amid the curling and crackling of its
leaves:--
"When laurell spirts i' th' fire, and when the hearth
Smiles to itselfe and guilds the roofe with mirth;
When up the Thyrse is rais'd, and when the sound
Of sacred orgies flyes around, around,"
says Herrick. At the two English universities the windows of the college
chapels are still carefully decked with laurel at the season of
Christmas.
The holly is a plant of peculiar veneration at this period of the
year,--so much so as to have acquired to itself by a popular metonymy
the name of the season itself, being vulgarly called "Christmas." It is
no doubt recommended to the general estimation in which it is held by
the picturesque forms of its dark, glossy leaves and the brilliant
clusters of its rich red berries. There is in the Harleian Manuscripts a
very striking carol of so remote a date as the reign of Henry VI., which
is quoted by most of the writers on this subject, and gives a very
poetical statement of the respective claims of this plant and of the ivy
to popular regard. The inference from the second and fourth verses
(taken in connection with the authorities which place it amongst the
plants used for the Christmas ornaments) would seem to be, that while
the former was employed in the decorations within doors, the latter was
confined to the exteriors of buildings. Mr. Brand, however, considers
those passages to allude to its being used as a vintner's sign and
infers from others of the verses that it was also amongst the evergreens
employed at funerals. It runs thus:--
"Nay, Ivy! nay, it shall not be, I wys;
Let Holy hafe the maystry, as the manner ys.
"Holy stond in the halle, fayre to behold;
Ivy stond without the dore: she ys ful sore a cold.
Nay, Ivy! etc.
"Holy and hys mery men they dawnsyn and they syng.
Ivy and hur maydenys they wepyn and they wryng.
Nay, Ivy! etc.
"Ivy hath a lyve; she laghtyt with the cold:
So mot they all hafe that wyth Ivy hold.
Nay, Ivy! etc.
"Holy hat berys as rede as any rose,
The foster the hunters kepe hem from the doos.
Nay, Ivy! etc.
"Ivy hath berys as blake as any slo;
Ther com the oule and ete hym as she goo.
Nay, Ivy! etc.
"Holy hath byrdys a ful fayre flok,
The Nyghtyngale, the Poppingy, the gayntyl Lavyrok.
Nay, Ivy! etc.
"Good Ivy, what byrdys ast thou?
Non but the howlet that kreye 'How, how!'
Nay, Ivy! nay, hyt shal not, etc."
We had some thoughts of modernizing the orthography, and very slightly
the diction, of this curious old ballad; but it reads best in its own
quaint garb, and even those of our friends who are not in the habit of
perusing ancient writings will find scarcely any difficulty in making it
out.
The rosemary, besides its rich fragrance, and probably _because_
thereof, was supposed to possess many occult virtues, and was used for
the sake of one or other of them on occasions both of rejoicing and of
mourning. It was believed to clear the head, to strengthen the memory,
and to make touching appeals to the heart. For these reasons it was
borne both at weddings and at funerals. Herrick says:--
"Grow for two ends, it matters not at all,
Be 't for my bridal or my burial."
"There's rosemary," says Ophelia; "that's for remembrance: pray you,
love, remember;" and the custom of decking the corpse with this flower,
as well as that of flinging its sprigs into the grave, would naturally
spring out of this touching superstition. Its presence at bridals would
seem to suggest that it was dedicated to hope as well as to memory. We
have in Shakspeare's play of "Romeo and Juliet" allusions to the use of
this herb on both of these important but very different occasions, which
allusions are affecting from the application of both to the same young
girl. The first, which refers to the joyous celebration, occurs in an
interview between Romeo and the Nurse of Juliet, in which arrangements
are making for the secret marriage, where the garrulous old woman
observes, as hinting at Juliet's willingness, "She hath the prettiest
sententious of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good to
hear it." The second is in that scene in which Juliet is supposed to be
dead:
"_Friar._ Come, is the bride ready to go to church?
_Capulet._ Ready to go, but never to return!"
And is inserted amongst the holy father's exhortations to resignation:--
"Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse; and, as the custom is,
In all her best array bear her to church."
Independently of the beautiful suggestion to remembrance which is made
by its enduring perfume, that precious perfume itself would recommend
this herb, for reasons less fine, as "strewings fitt'st for graves." The
fact of its being in bloom at this season would naturally introduce the
rosemary, with all its fine morals, into the Christmas celebrations;
and such customs as that which prescribed that the wassail-bowl should
be stirred with a sprig of this plant before it went round amongst
friends, seem to have a very elegant reference to its secret virtues
("that's for remembrance," perhaps), and suggest that the revellings of
the season in those old times were mingled with the best and most
refined feelings of our nature.
But the mistletoe, the mystic mistletoe, where is the man whose
school-boy days are gone by, in whom that word conjures up no merry
memories?
"Oh, the mistletoe-bough!" who hath not, at the name, thronging visions
of sweet faces that looked sweetest in those moments of their startled
beauty beneath the pendent bough! If the old spells with which
superstition has invested the mistletoe have lost some of their power
over me, it hath now another, which in earlier days I knew not of,--the
power to restore the distant and to raise the dead. I am to laugh no
more as I have laughed of old beneath the influence of that mystic
cognizance of the gay Christmas-tide; but even now as I write thereof,
look in upon my heart bright portraits, traced with a skill which no
mortal pencil shall achieve,--faces on which the earth hath long lain,
and others from whom the wide spaces of the world have separated me for
many a weary year; and, heavier far, some to whom _unkindness_ hath made
me too long a stranger! There they rise and stand, one by one, beneath
the merry snare, each with the heightened beauty on her cheek, which is
the transient gift of the sacred bough!
O M----! how very fair is thine image in the eye of memory, and how has
thy going away changed all things for me! The bright and the beautiful
lie still about,--still bright and beautiful even to me,--but in another
manner than when thou wert here. All things are tinged with thy loss.
All fair things have a look, and all sweet sounds a tone, of mourning
since thou leftest me. How long it seems, as if ages, instead of years,
of the grave had grown between us, as if, indeed, I had known thee in
some former and far-removed state of being! I do not love to think of
thee as dead, I strive to think of thee rather as of one whom I have
left behind in the quiet valley of our youth and our love,--from whom I
have wandered forth and lost my way amid the mazes of the world. But
where is the clew that should lead me back to thee? There may have been
fairer (sweeter never) things than thou in this fair world, but my heart
could never be made to believe or understand it. Had I known thee only
in that world, I might not so have marked thy beauty; but thou wert with
me when the world left me. In the flood of the sunshine, when a thousand
birds are about us, we go upon our way with a sense that there is melody
around, but singling perhaps no one note to take home to the heart and
make a worship of. But the one bird that sings to us in the dim and
silent night--oh! none but they on whom the night has fallen can know
how dear its song becomes, filling with its music all the deserted
mansions of the lonely soul. But the bird is dead, the song is hushed,
and the houses of my spirit are empty and silent and desolate!
And thou whom the grave hath not hidden, nor far distance removed, from
whom I parted as if it were but yesterday, and yet of whom I have
already learned to think as of one separated from me by long years of
absence and death, as if it were very long since I had beheld thee,--as
if I gazed upon thee from a far distance across the lengthened and
dreary alleys of the valley of the dead! Physically speaking, thou art
still within my reach; and yet art thou to me as if the tomb or the
cloister had received thee, and made of thee (what the world or the
grave makes of all things we have loved) a dream of the night, a phantom
of the imagination, an angel of the memory, a creation of the hour of
shadows! Whatever may be thy future fortunes, however thy name may
hereafter be borne to my mortal ear, my heart will ever refuse to
picture _thee_ but as one who died in her youth!
And _thou_!--thou too art there, with thy long fair hair and that harp
of thine which was so long an ark of harmony for me. "Alas! we had been
friends in youth." But _all_ things bring _thee_ back, and I am haunted
yet, and shall be through the world, by the airs which thou wert wont to
sing me long ago. I remember that even in those days, at times, in the
silent night, when broken snatches of melodies imperfectly remembered
stole through the chambers of my heart,--ever in the sweet tones in
which it had learned to love them,--I have asked myself if the ties that
bound us might ever be like those passing and half-forgotten melodies;
if the time could ever come when they should be like an old song learned
in life's happier day, and whose memory has been treasured, to make us
weep in the years when the heart has need to be soothed by weeping; if
there would ever be a day when thy name might be sounded in mine ear as
the name of a stranger! And that day has long since come,--
"For whispering tongues will poison truth."
How truly may we be said to live but in the past and in the future,--to
have our hearts made up of memory and of hope, for which the present
becomes, hour after hour, more and more of a void! And alas! is it not
true, as a consequence, that the more they are occupied with memory, the
less room have they for hope? And thus the one is ever gaining upon the
other, and the dark waters of memory are hourly spreading upon that
shore where hope had room to build her edifices and to play about them,
till at length they cover all, and hope, having "no rest for the sole of
her foot," flies forward to a higher and a better shore!
And such are my visions of the mistletoe; these are amongst the spirits
that rise up to wait upon my memory,--"they and the other spirits" of
the mystic bough! But brighter fancies has that charmed branch for many
of our readers, and merrier spirits hide amid its leaves. Many a
pleasant tale could we tell of the mistletoe-bough which might amuse our
readers more than the descriptions to which we are confined, if the
limits of our volume would permit. But already our space is scarcely
sufficient for our purpose. We think we can promise our readers in
another volume a series of tales connected with the traditions and
superstitions which are detailed in the present, and which may serve as
illustrations of the customs of the Christmas-tide.
Some of the names by which this remarkable plant were formerly called
are, "misselden," "misseldine," and, more commonly, "missel." Old Tusser
tells us that,--
"If snow do continue, sheep hardly that fare,
Crave mistle and ivy;"
and Archdeacon Nares says "the missel-thrush" is so designated "from
feeding on its berries." From the generality of the examples in which
this plant is mentioned by the name of "missel," it is suggested to us,
by Mr. Crofton Croker that the additional syllable given to the name
now in common use is a corruption of the old _tod_, and that mistletoe,
or mistletod, implies a _bush_, or bunch, of missel, such as is commonly
hung up at Christmas. He quotes in support of this suggestion the
corresponding phrase of "ivy-tod," which occurs frequently in the
writings of the Elizabethan age. If this be so, the expression "the
mistletoe-bough" includes a tautology; but as it is popularly used, we
retain it for the instruction of such antiquarians of remote future
times as may consult our pages for some account of the good old customs
which are disappearing so fast, and may fail to reach their day.
That this plant was held in veneration by the pagans, has been inferred
from a passage in Virgil's description of the descent into the infernal
regions. That passage is considered to have an allegorical reference to
some of the religious ceremonies practised amongst the Greeks and
Romans, and a comparison is therein drawn between the golden bough of
the infernal regions, and what is obviously the misletoe:--
"Quale solet silvis brumali frigore _viscum_
Fronde virere nova, quod non sua seminat arbos,
Et croceo fetu teretis circumdare truncos," etc.
The reference is given by Mr. Christie in his "Enquiry into the Ancient
Greek Game" of Palamedes; and he mentions likewise the respect in which
this plant was held by the Gothic as well as the Celtic nations. Sandys
furnishes a legend from the Edda in proof of the extraordinary qualities
ascribed to it by the former. Amongst the Celtic nations it is well
known to have been an object of great veneration, and the ceremony of
collecting it by the Druids against the festival of the winter solstice
was one of high solemnity. It was cut by the prince of the Druids
himself, and with a golden sickle. It was said that those only of the
oaks were sacred to the Druids which had the mistletoe upon them, and
that the reverence of the people towards the priests, as well as their
estimation of the mistletoe, proceeded in a great measure from the cures
which the former effected by means of that plant. Medicinal properties,
we believe, are still ascribed to it, and it was not very long ago
deemed efficacious in the subduing of convulsive disorders. Sir John
Colbatch, in his dissertation concerning it, 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
surreptitiously in houses to drive away evil spirits." Against the
latter it appears to have been used as a charm up to the last century.
Its introduction into the Christian festival might therefore be
considered appropriate as emblematic of the conquest obtained over the
spirits of darkness by the event of the Nativity; and perhaps its
supposed healing properties might be deemed to recommend it further, as
a symbol of the moral health to which man was restored from the original
corruption of his nature, and a fitting demonstration of the joy which
hailed the "Sun of Righteousness" that had arisen, "with _healing_ in
his wings."
Notwithstanding all this, however, Brand is of opinion that its heathen
origin should exclude it at all events from the decorations of our
churches, and quotes a story told him by an old sexton at Teddington, in
Middlesex, of the clergyman of that place having observed this profane
plant intermingled with the holly and ivy which adorned the church, and
ordered its immediate removal. Washington Irving, who has studied old
English customs and manners with sincere regard, introduces a similar
rebuke from the learned parson to his unlearned clerk, in his account of
the Christmas spent by him at Bracebridge Hall.
[Illustration: THE MISTLETOE BOUGH.--_Page 191._]
The reverence of the mistletoe among the Ancient Britons appears,
however, to have been limited to that which grew upon the oak; whereas
the _Viscum album_, or common mistletoe,--the sight of whose pearly
berries brings the flush into the cheek of the maiden of modern
days,--may be gathered besides from the old apple-tree, the hawthorn,
the lime-tree, and the Scotch or the silver fir. Whether there remain
any traces of the old superstitions which elevated it into a moral or a
medical amulet,--beyond that which is connected with the custom
alluded to in the opening of our remarks upon this plant, and
represented, by our artist here,--we know not. We should, however, be
very sorry to see any light let in amongst us which should fairly rout a
belief connected with so agreeable a privilege as this. That privilege,
as all our readers know, consists in the right to kiss any female who
may be caught under the mistletoe-bough,--and, we may hope, will
continue, for its own pleasantness, even if the superstition from which
it springs should be finally lost. This superstition arose, clearly
enough, out of the old mystic character of the plant in question, and
erects it into a charm, the neglect of which exposes to the imminent
danger of all the evils of old-maidenism. For, according to Archdeacon
Nares, the tradition is, "that the maid who was not kissed under it, at
Christmas, would not be married in that year,"--by which, we presume,
the Archdeacon means in the following year. Accordingly, a branch of
this parasitical plant was hung (formerly with great state, but now it
is generally suspended with much secrecy) either from the centre of the
roof, or over the door,--and we recommend this latter situation to our
readers, both as less exposed to untimely observation, and because every
maiden who joins the party must of necessity do so by passing under it.
We learn from Brand that the ceremony was not duly performed unless a
berry was plucked off with each kiss. This berry, it is stated by other
authorities, was to be presented for good luck to the maiden kissed;
and Washington Irving adds that "when the berries are all plucked, the
privilege ceases." If this be so, it behooves the maidens of a household
to take good care that the branch provided for the occasion shall be as
well furnished with these pearly tokens as the feast is likely to be
with candidates for the holy state of matrimony. The practice is still
of very common observance in kitchens and servants' halls, particularly
in the country. But, as we have hinted, we have met with it (and so, we
dare say, have most of our readers) in higher scenes; and many a merry
laugh have we heard ring from beneath the mistletoe-bough. There are
lips in the world that we would gladly meet there in this coming season.
Another of the symptoms of the approaching season which has, at least to
us, a very pleasing effect, consists in the bursts of solemn minstrelsy
by which we are aroused from our slumbers in the still hour of the
winter nights, or which, failing to break our sleep, mingle with our
dreams, leading us into scenes of enchantment, and filling them with
unearthly music. This midnight minstrelsy, whether it comes in the shape
of human voices, hallowing the night by the chanting of the Christmas
carol, or breaks upon the silence of the mid-watches from the mingling
instruments of those wandering spirits of harmony, the waits, has in
each case its origin in the _Gloria in Excelsis_,--the song with which
the angels hailed the birth of the Redeemer in the fields near
Bethlehem. "As soon," says Jeremy Taylor, "as these blessed choristers
had sung their Christmas carol, and taught the Church a hymn to put into
her offices forever on the anniversary of this festivity, the angels
returned into heaven." Accordingly, these nocturnal hymns, although they
spread over the entire period of Advent, grow more and more fervent and
frequent as the season approaches, and the night which ushers in the
great day itself is filled throughout all its watches with the continued
sounds of sacred harmony. How beautiful is the effect given to this
music by this consideration of its meaning and its cause! Many and many
a time have we been awakened by the melody of the waits when
"The floor of heaven
_Was_ thick inlaid with patines of bright gold,"--
and have lain and listened to their wild minstrelsy, its solemn swells
and "dying falls" kept musical by the distance and made holy by the
time, till we have felt amid all those influences as if it were
"No mortal business, nor no sound
That the earth owes,"
and could have fancied that the "morning stars" were again singing, as
of old they "sang together for joy," and that the sounds of their far
anthem came floating to the earth. This sort of fancy has occurred over
and over again to him who has looked out from his bed upon a sky full of
stars, and listened at the same time to invisible and distant music,
under the holy impressions of the season. Shakspeare has helped us to
this feeling, perhaps, as we can trace his influence upon _all_ our
feelings, and upon none more than the most sacred or the most solemn:--
"There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims;
Such harmony is in immortal souls."
To the rudest carol that ever flung its notes upon the still air of
these solemn hours we have hearkened with a hush of pleasure which
recognized how well--
"Soft stillness, and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony!"