Holly. _Ilex bacciflora._
Dedicated to _the Nativity of Jesus Christ_.
* * * * *
It ought not, however, to be forgotten, that a scene of awful grandeur,
hitherto misrepresented on the stage by the meanest of “his majesty’s
servants,” opens the tragedy of Hamlet, wherein our everlasting bard
refers to ancient and still existing tradition, that at the time of
cock-crowing, the midnight spirits forsake these lower regions, and go
to their proper places; and that the cocks crow throughout the live-long
nights of Christmas--a circumstance observable at no other time of the
year. Horatio, the friend of Hamlet, discourses at midnight with
Francisco, a sentry on the platform before the Danish palace, and
Bernardo and Marcellus, two officers of the guard, respecting the ghost
of the deceased monarch of Denmark, which had appeared to the military
on watch.
_Mar._ Horatio says, ’tis but our fantasy,
And will not let belief take hold of him,
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us;
Therefore I have entreated him, along
With us, to watch the minutes of this night;
That, if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes, and speak to it.
_Hor._ Tush! tush! ’twill not appear.
_Ber._ Sit down awhile;
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we two nights have seen.
------- Last night of all,
When yon same star, that’s westward from the pole,
Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one,-----
_Mar._ Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!
The ghost enters. Horatio is harrowed with fear and wonder. His
companions urge him to address it; and somewhat recovered from
astonishment, he urges “the majesty of bury’d Denmark” to speak. It is
offended, and stalks away.
_Mar._ Thus, twice before, and just at this dead hour,
With martial stalk he hath gone by our watch.
Horatio discourses with his companions on the disturbed state of the
kingdom, and the appearance they have just witnessed; whereof he says,
“a mote it is, to trouble the mind’s eye.” He is interrupted by its
re-entry, and invokes it, but the apparition remains speechless; the
“_cock crows_,” and the ghost is about to disappear, when Horatio says,
----Stay, and speak.--Stop it, Marcellus.
_Mar._ Shall I strike at it with my partizan?
_Hor._ Do, if it will not stand.
_Ber._ ’Tis here!
_Hor._ ’Tis here!
_Mar._ ’Tis gone! [_Exit Ghost._
We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence;
For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.
_Ber._ It was about to speak, when the _cock crew._
_Hor._ And _then_ it started, like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The _cock_, that is the trumpet of the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at _this_ warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine: and of the truth herein
This present object makes probation.
Marcellus answers, “It faded on the crowing of the cock,” and concludes
on the vigilance of this bird, previous to the solemn festival, in a
strain of superlative beauty:--
Some say, that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit stirs abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planet strikes;
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.
[422] Dugdale’s Orig. Jurid.
[423] Grose.
[424] Ibid.
[425] “A black Christmas makes a fat kirk-yard.” A windy Christmas and
a calm Candlemas are signs of a good year.
[426] The “savoury haggis” (from _hag_ to chop) is a dish commonly
made in a sheep’s maw, of its lungs, heart, and liver, mixed with
suet, onions, salt and pepper; or of oatmeal mixed with the latter,
without any animal food.
[427] Brand.
~December 26.~
_St. Stephen_, the first Martyr. _St. Dionysius_, Pope, A. D. 269.
_St. Jarlath_, 1st Bp. of Tuam, 6th Cent.
~St. Stephen.~
The church of England observes this festival, and the name of the
apostle is in the almanacs accordingly. The circumstances that led to
his death, and the particulars of it by stoning, are related in the
seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. He is deemed the first
martyr for the christian faith.
* * * * *
The notice of this festival by Naogeorgus is thus translated by Barnaby
Googe:--
Then followeth Saint Stephens day, whereon doth every man
His horses jaunt and course abrode, as swiftly as he can,
Until they doe extreemely sweate, and than they let them blood,
For this being done upon this day, they say doth do them good,
And keepes them from all maladies and sicknesse through the yeare,
As if that Steven any time took charge of horses heare.
_Horses._
Whether Stephen was the patron of horses does not appear; but our
ancestors used his festival for calling in the horse-leech. Tusser, in
his “Five Hundred Points of Husbandry,” says,
Yer Christmas be passed, _let Horsse be lett blood_,
For many a purpose it doth him much good:
The day of St. Steven, old fathers did use,
If that do mislike thee, some other day chuse.
An annotator on Tusser subjoins, “About Christmas is a very proper time
to bleed horses in, for then they are commonly at house, then spring
comes on, the sun being now coming back from the winter solstice, and
there are three or four days of rest, and if it be upon St. Stephen’s
day it is not the worse, seeing there are with it three days of rest, or
at least two.” In the “Receipts and Disbursements of the Canons of St.
Mary in Huntingdon,” is the following entry: “Item, for letting our
horses blede in Chrystmasse weke iiij_d._”[428] According to one of Mr.
Douce’s manuscript notes, he thinks the practice of bleeding horses on
this day is extremely ancient, and that it was brought into this country
by the Danes. It is noticed in “Wits Fits and Fancies,” an old and rare
book, that on “S. Stevens-day it is the custome for all horses to be let
bloud and drench’d. A gentleman being (that morning) demaunded whether
it pleased him to have his horse let bloud and drencht, according to the
fashion? He answered, no, sirra, my horse is not diseas’d of the
_fashions_.” Mr. Ellis in a note on Mr. Brand quotes, that Aubrey says,
“On St. Stephen’s-day the farrier came constantly and blouded all our
cart-horses.”[429]
The Finns upon St. Stephen’s-day, throw a piece of money, or a bit of
silver, into the trough out of which the horses drink, under the notion
that it prospers those who do it.[430]
* * * * *
_Heit! Heck! Whoohe! and Geho!_
The well-known interjection used by country people to their horses, when
yoked to a cart, &c. _Heit!_ or _Heck!_ is noticed by Mr. Brand to have
been used in the days of Chaucer:--
“They saw a cart, that charged was with hay,
The which a carter drove forth on his way:
Depe was the way, for which the carte stode;
The carter smote and cryde as he were wode,
_Heit Scot! Heit Brok!_ what spare ye for the stones?
The Fend quoth he, you fetch, body and bones.”[431]
_Brok_ is still in frequent use amongst farmer’s draught oxen.[432]
_Whoohe!_ a well-known exclamation to stop a team of horses, is derived
by a writer in the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” 1799, from the Latin. “The
exclamation used by our waggoners when they wish for any purpose to stop
their team (an exclamation which it is less difficult to speak than to
write, although neither is a task of great facility,) is probably a
legacy bequeathed us by our Roman ancestors: precisely a translation of
the ancient _Ohe!_ an interjection strictly confined to bespeaking a
pause--rendered by our lexicographers, _Enough! Oh, Enough!_
“Ohe, jam satis est--Ohe, Libelle.”
A learned friend of Mr. Brand’s says, “The exclamation ‘_Geho, Geho_,’
which carmen use to their horses is probably of great antiquity. It is
not peculiar to this country, as I have heard it used in France. In the
story of the milkmaid who kicked down her pail, and with it all her
hopes of getting rich, as related in a very ancient ‘Collection of
Apologues,’ entitled ‘Dialogus Creaturarum,’ printed at Gouda, in 1480,
is the following passage: ‘Et cum sic gloriaretur, et cogitaret cum
quanta gloria duceretur ad illum virum super equum dicendo _gio gio_,
cepit pede percutere terram quasi pungeret equum calcaribus.’”
* * * * *
It appears from a memoir on the manner in which the inhabitants of the
north riding of Yorkshire celebrate Christmas, in the “Gentleman’s
Magazine,” 1811, that “On the feast of St. Stephen large goose pies are
made, all of which they distribute among their needy neighbours, except
one which is carefully laid up, and not tasted till the purification of
the virgin, called Candlemas.”
~Boxing Day.~
On the day after Christmas, tradespeople are visited by persons in the
employment of their customers for a “_Christmas-box_,” and every man and
boy who thinks he is qualified to ask, solicits from those on whom he
calculates as likely to bestow. A writer, in 1731, describes
_Boxing-day_ at that time from his own experience. “By that time I was
up, my servants could do nothing but run to the door. Inquiring the
meaning, I was answered, the people were come for their _Christmas-box_:
this was logic to me; but I found at last, that, because I had laid out
a great deal of ready-money with my brewer, baker, and other tradesmen,
they kindly thought it my duty to present their servants with some money
for the favour of having their goods. This provoked me a little; but
being told it was ‘the custom,’ I complied. These were followed by the
watch, beadles, dustmen, and an innumerable tribe; but what vexed me the
most was the clerk, who has an extraordinary place, and makes as good an
appearance as most tradesmen in the parish; to see him come a boxing,
alias begging, I thought was intolerable: however, I found it was ‘the
custom’ too, so I gave him half-a-crown; as I was likewise obliged to do
to the bellman, for breaking my rest for many nights together.
“Having talked this matter over with a friend, he promised to carry me
where I might see the good effects of this giving _box-money_. In the
evening, away we went to a neighbouring alehouse, where abundance of
these gentry were assembled round a stately piece of roast beef, and as
large a plum-pudding. When the drink and brandy began to work, they fell
to reckoning of their several gains that day: one was called a stingy
dog for giving but sixpence; another called an extravagant fool for
giving half-a-crown, which perhaps he might want before the year was
out; so I found these good people were never to be pleased. Some of them
were got to cards by themselves, which soon produced a quarrel and
broken heads. In the interim came in some of their wives, who roundly
abused the people for having given them money; adding, that instead of
doing good, it ruined their families, and set them in a road of drinking
and gaming, which never ceased till not only their gifts, but their
wages, were gone. One good woman said, if people had a mind to give
charity, they should send it home to their families: I was very much of
her opinion; but, being tired with the noise, we left them to agree as
they could.
“My friend next carried me to the upper end of Piccadilly, where, one
pair of stairs over a stable, we found near a hundred people of both
sexes, _some masked_, others not, a great part of which were dancing to
the music of two sorry fiddles. It is impossible to describe this medley
of mortals fully; however, I will do it as well as I can. There were
footmen, servant-maids, butchers, apprentices, oyster and orange-women,
and sharpers, which appeared to be the best of the company. This horrid
place seemed to be a complete nursery for the gallows. My friend
informed me, it was called a ‘threepenny hop;’ and while we were
talking, to my great satisfaction, by order of the Westminster justices,
_to their immortal honour_, entered the constables and their assistants,
who carried off all the company that was left; and, had not my friend
been known to them, we might have paid dear for our curiosity.”[433]
* * * * *