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|
 The
Twelve Days of Christmas
Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12
On the eleventh day of
Christmas, my true love gave to me
Eleven pipers piping, ten lords a-leaping, nine ladies dancing,
eight maids a-milking, seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings.
Four colly birds, three French hens, two turtle doves
And a partridge in a pear tree.
The Quadrantids
annual meteor shower (Jan
1 - 5)
The meteors appear to radiate from an
area inside the constellation
Boötes;
the name comes from Quadrans
Muralis, an obsolete constellation that is now part of Boötes.
The best date to view the Quadrantids is
January 3 or 4,
although they can viewed from January
1 until today.
Feast day of St Simeon
Stylites
the Elder
(Bearsfoot,
Helleborus foetidus, is
today's plant, dedicated to St Simon Stylites.)
 St Simeon
Stylites (stylos , Greek for pillar) spent 36 years atop a
20-metre pillar before his
death on Friday, September 2, 459 CE. He spent 26 Lents without eating anything at all. Before his pillar-sitting days he had chained himself to a mountain-top rock, exposing himself to the elements. Atop his pillar he wore animal skins and an iron collar
– it is not recorded whether he went out for entertainment.
Only a metre wide at the top, the pillar at least had a rail to stop this strange monk from falling off. He was known in prayer to bend his head to his feet as many as 1,240 times in a day. Simon was founder of an order of pillar saints. How he so persuaded them is not recorded.
Near this pillar lived a dragon so venomous that all around its cave was desolate. When the dragon got a stake in its eye, Simon cured it, whereupon the beast worshipped God for a full two hours.
Once a woman swallowed a tiny snake and was troubled by it for years. St Simon made a one and a half metre serpent come out of her body. When Simon died, St
Anthony smelt a precious odour exuding from his body, and birds and beasts cried. When a priest cut Simon's beard for a souvenir, his hand withered.
See also: St Simeon Stylites the Younger,
feast day May
24
Saints,
dragons and serpents in the Book of days
Handsel Monday, old Scotland
and norhern England
A note about the
dating of items in Wilson's Almanac
Handsel Monday was the first Monday
of the year, when small gifts were given (OE handselen, delivery into the
hand). Boxing
Day, however, supplanted it. 'Handsel' came to mean a Christmas
box, but more specifically a gift at the beginning of a season or
the giving of a new garment. Any gift received on this day brings
the recipient good luck in the new year.
The
19th-Century British folklorist, Robert
Chambers, tells us it was "a great holiday among
the peasantry of Scotland, and children generally, as being the day
peculiarly devoted in that country to the giving and receiving of
presents".
The young would visit their seniors for a
tip (although they did not use this American word). Postmen,
deliverers, and so on, would look for a little present.
Auld Handsel Monday (old style calendar)
Due to the change in the Gregorian calendar
in 1752, among the country folk it was the first Monday after January 12.
The farmers would treat all their servants to a roast and boiled
meat breakfast, with ale, whiskey, and cake, then they all visited
friends. It was the day that people who wanted to, left their jobs
and new servants started. Still in Chambers's time (1881) the
holiday of the year.
1738 A Handsel Monday miracle
One William Hunter, a collier, was cured in the
year 1758 of rheumatism by drinking freely of new ale, full of barm,
or yeast. The poor man had been confined to his bed for a year and a
half, having almost entirely lost the use of his limbs. On the evening
of Handsel Monday, as it is called, some of his neighbours came to
make merry with him … and in the end became much intoxicated. The
consequence was that he had the use of his limbs the next morning and
was able to walk about. He lived more than twenty years after this,
and never had the smallest return of his old complaint.
John Brand (1744 -
1806),
Observations
on the popular antiquities of Great Britain: Including the Whole of
Mr. Bourne's 'Antiquitates Vulgares'
(1777)
Scotland – curling, a game for cold weather
During dry frosts, the game of curling, which resembles
bowls, is played in Scotland. Flat stones are used to slide along
the ice. Two teams play the game, each man being provided with a
pair of handled stones and a broom. The aim is to get as many stones
as possible near a 'tee' at the end of the frozen course.
"Incessant vociferation, frequent exchanges
of fortune, the excitation of a healthy physical exercise, and the
general feeling of sociality evoked, all contribute to render
curling one of the most delightful of amusements."
Robert
Chambers,
(Ed.), The
Book of Days: A miscellany of popular antiquities in connection
with the calendar, etc,
W
& R Chambers, London, 1881 (1879
Edition is online and 1869
edition here
with CD-ROM available; See also The
English Year: A Personal Selection from Chambers' Book of
Days)
Holland
"In Holland, the peasantry, male and female, take advantage of the
state of the waters to come to market on skates, often bearing most
part of a hundredweight on their heads; yet proceeding at the rate
of ten miles an hour for two or three hours at a stretch."
Ibid
Twelfth Day Eve, or Epiphany
Eve
"Twelfth-day
Eve is a rustic festival in England. Persons engaged in rural
employments are, or have heretofore been accustomed to celebrate it;
and the purpose appears to be to secure a blessing for the fruits of
the earth.
"'In Herefordshire, at the approach of
the evening, the farmers with their friends and servants meet
together, and about six o'clock walk out to a field where wheat is
growing. In the highest part of the ground, twelve small fires, and
one large one, are lighted up. The attendants, headed by the master
of the family, pledge the company in old cider, which
circulates freely on these occasions. A circle is formed round the
large fire, when a general shout and hallooing takes place, which
you hear answered from all the adjacent villages and fields.
Sometimes fifty or sixty of these fires may be all seen at once.
This being finished, the company return home, where the good
housewife and her maids are preparing a good supper. A large cake is
always provided, with a hole in the middle. After supper, the
company all attend the bailiff (or head of the oxen) to the
wain-house, where the following particulars are observed: The
master, at the head of his friends, fills the cup (generally of
strong ale), and stands opposite the first or finest of the oxen. He
then pledges him in a curious toast: the company follow his example,
with all the other oxen, and addressing each by his name. This being
finished, the large cake is produced, and, with much ceremony, put
on the horn of the first ox, through the hole above mentioned. The
ox is then tickled, to make him toss his head: if he throw the cake
behind, then it is the mistress's perquisite; if before (in what is
termed the boosy), the bailiff himself claims the prize. The company
then return to the house, the doors of which they find locked, nor
will they be opened till some joyous songs are sung. On their
gaining admittance, a scene of mirth and jollity ensues, which lasts
the greatest part of the night.' — Gentleman's Magazine,
February, 1791. The custom is called in Herefordshire Wassailing.
The fires are designed to represent the Saviour and his apostles,
and it was customary as to one of them, held as representing Judas
Iscariot, to allow it to burn a while, and then put it out and
kick about the materials.
"At Pauntley, in Gloucestershire, the
custom has in view the prevention of the smut in wheat. 'All the
servants of every farmer assemble in one of the fields that has been
sown with wheat. At the end of twelve lands, they make twelve fires
in a row with straw; around one of which, made larger than the rest,
they drink a cheerful glass of cider to their master's health, and
success to the future harvest; then returning home, they feast on
cakes made with carraways, soaked in cider, which they claim as a
reward for their past labour in sowing the grain.'"
Robert Chambers,
(Ed.), The
Book of Days: A miscellany of popular antiquities in connection
with the calendar, etc,
W
& R Chambers, London, 1881 (1879
Edition is online and 1869
edition here
with CD-ROM available; See also The
English Year: A Personal Selection from Chambers' Book of
Days)
"This is
the eve of the Epiphany, or Twelfth-night eve, and is a night of
preparation in some parts of England for the merriments which, to
the present hour, distinguish Twelfth-day. Dr. Drake mentions that
it was a practice formerly for itinerant minstrels to bear a bowl of
spiced-wine to the houses of the gentry and others, from whom they
expected a hospitable reception, and, calling their bowl a
wassail-bowl, to drink wassail to their entertainers. These merry
sounds of mirth and music are not extinct. There are still places
wherein the wandering blower of a clarionet, and the poor scraper of
as poor a fiddle, will this evening strain their instruments, to
charm forth the rustic from his dwelling, and drink to him from a
jug of warm ale, spiced with a race of ginger, in the hope of a
pittance for their melody, and their wish of wassail. Of the
wassail-bowl, much will appear before the reader in the after pages
of this work.
"In certain parts of Devonshire, the
farmer, attended by his workmen, with a large pitcher of cider, goes
to the orchard this evening; and there, encircling one of the best
bearing trees, they drink the following toast three times:
"Here's
to thee, old apple-tree,
hence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow!
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!
Hats
full! caps full!
Bushel—bushel—sacks
full,
And my
pockets full too! Huzza!
"This done, they return to the house,
the doors of which they are sure to find bolted by the females, who,
be the weather what it may, are inexorable to all entreaties to open
them till some one has guessed at what is on the spit, which is
generally some nice little thing, difficult to be hit on, and is the
reward of him who first names it. The doors are then thrown open,
and the lucky clodpole receives the tit-bit as his recompense. Some
are so superstitious as to believe, that if they neglect this
custom, the trees will bear no apples that year. To the preceding
particulars, which are related in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1791,
may be added that Brand, on the authority of a Cornishman, relates
it as a custom with the Devonshire people to go after supper into
the orchard, with a large milk-pan full of cider, having roasted
apples pressed into it. "Out of this each person in company
takes, what is called a clayen cup, that is an earthenware cup full
of liquor, and standing under each of the more fruitful
apple-trees, passing by those that are not good bearers, he
addresses it in the following words:
Health to thee, good apple-tree,
Well to bear, pocket-fulls, hat-fulls,
Peck-fulls, bushel-bag-fulls!
"And then drinking up part of the
contents, he throws the rest, with the fragments of the roasted
apples, at the tree. At each cup the company set up a shout."
"Pennant, in his tour in Scotland,
says respecting this custom, that after they have drank a cheerful
glass to their master's health, with success to the future harvests,
and expressed their good wishes in the same way, they feast off
cakes made of caraways and other seeds soaked in cider, which they
claim as a reward for their past labours in sowing the grain.
'This,' says Pennant, 'Seems to resemble a custom of the ancient
Danes, who, in their addresses to their rural deities, emptied, on
every invocation, a cup in honour of them.'
"So also Brand [John
Brand (1744 - 1806),
Observations
on the popular antiquities of Great Britain: Including the Whole of
Mr. Bourne's 'Antiquitates Vulgares'
(1777)
– PW] tells us that, in Herefordshire, 'at the approach of
evening on the vigil of the twelfth day, the farmers, with their
friends and servants, meet together, and about six o'clock walk out
to a field where wheat is growing. In the highest part of the
ground, twelve small fires and one large one are lighted up. The
attendants, headed by the master of the family, pledge the company
in old cider, which circulates freely on these occasions. A circle
is formed round the large fire, when a general shout and hallooing
takes place, which you hear answered from all the adjacent villages
and fields. Sometimes fifty or sixty of these fires may be all seen
at once. This being finished, the company return home, where the
good housewife and her maids are preparing a good supper. A large
cake is always provided, with a hole in the middle. After supper,
the company all attend the bailiff (or head of the oxen) to the
wain-house, where the following particulars are observed. The
master, at the head of his friends, fills the cup, (generally of
strong ale,) and stands opposite the first of finest of the oxen. He
then pledges him in a curious toast: the company follow his example
with all the other oxen, addressing each by his name. This being
finished, the large cake is produced, and, with much ceremony, put
on the horn of the first ox, through the hole above-mentioned. The
ox is then tickled, to make him toss his head: if he throw the cake
behind, then it is the mistress's perquisite; if before, (in what is
termed the boosy,) the bailiff himself claims the prize. the company
then return to the house, the doors of which they find locked, nor
will they be opened till some joyous songs are sung. On their
gaining admittance, a scene of mirth and jollity ensues, and which
lasts the greatest part of the night.'
"Mr. Beckwith elates in the Gentleman's
Magazine, 1784, that 'near Leeds, in Yorkshire, when he was a
boy, it was customary for many families, on the twelfth eve of Christmas,
to invite their relations, friends, and neighbours, to their houses,
to play at cards, and to partake of a supper, of which minced pies
were an indispensable ingredient; and after supper was brought in,
the wassail cup or wassail bowl, of which every one partook, by
taking with a spoon, out of the ale, a roasted apple, and eating it,
and then drinking the healths of the company out of the bowl,
wishing them a merry Christmas and a happy new
year. (The festival of Christmas used in this part of the
country to hold for twenty days, and some persons extended it to Candlemas.)
The ingredients put into the bowl, viz. ale, sugar, nutmeg, and
roasted apples, were usually called lambs'-wool, and the night on
which it is used to be drunk (generally on twelfth eve) was commonly
called Wassil
eve.' The glossary to the Exmore dialect has 'Watsail—a drinking
song on twelfth-day eve, throwing toast to the apple-trees, in order
to have a fruitful year, which seems to be a relic of the heathen
sacrifice to Pomona.'
"Brand
found it observed in the ancient calendar of the Romish church, that
on the fifth day of January, the eve or vigil of the Epiphany, there
were 'kings created or elected by beans;' that the sixth of the
month is called 'The Festival of Kings;' and 'that this ceremony of
electing kings was continued with feasting for many days.'
"Twelfth-night eve or the vigil of the
Epiphany
is no way observed in London. There Twelfth-day itself comes with
little of the pleasure that it offered to our forefathers. Such
observances have rapidly disappeared, and the few that remain are
still more rapidly declining. To those who are unacquainted with
their origin they afford no associations to connect the present with
former ages; and without such feelings, the few occasions which
enable us to show a hospitable disposition, or from whence we can
obtain unconstrained cheerfulness, will pass away, and be remembered
only as having been."
William
Hone, The
Every-Day Book, or a Guide to the Year, William Tegg and
Co., London, 1878; 1825-26
edition online
When
is Twelfth Night,
January 5, or 6?
Many reputable folkloric sources say that January 5, the Eve of
Epiphany (which is Twelfth Day), is the night called Twelfth Night
on which great revels used to take place all over Europe. For
example:
"The day before
Epiphany is the twelfth day of Christmas, and is sometimes called
Twelfth Night, an occasion for feasting in some cultures. In some
cultures, the baking of a special King's Cake is part of the
festivities of Epiphany (a King's Cake is part of the observance
of Mardi Gras
in French Catholic culture of the Southern USA)." Source
No less an
authority than Encyclopedia.com's
article
on the subject also claims the evening of January 5 as Twelfth
Night. Here is
another that calls today "Twelfth Night".
However, according to the authoritative Sir James Frazer's
The Golden
Bough:
The last of
the mystic twelve days is Epiphany or Twelfth Night, and it has
been selected as a proper season for the expulsion of the powers
of evil in various parts of Europe.
Sir James George Frazer (1854
- 1941), The
Golden Bough, 1922 (available
free online)
Source
So, to no less an
authority than Frazer,
Epiphany (January
6) is Twelfth Night. Moreover, in many places Twelfth Night is
still celebrated on
January 6.
The two other
prominent 19th-Century British folklorists I will quote are Robert
Chambers who clearly places Twelfth-Night Eve on January 5 and
Twelfth Night celebrations on January 6 (source),
and William
Hone who does the same (source).
Until I'm shown an authority greater than
Frazer, Chambers and Hone, I will stick to January 6, Epiphany, as being Twelfth Day and
thus its night being Twelfth Night, with January 5 being the Eve of Twelfth
Day.
Frazer, Chambers and Hone, all prominent British folklorists working a century or
more ago when Twelfth Night was still a commonly celebrated
occasion, are not unquestionable authorities on British folklore, but they are still
universally considered to be of quite high rank, particularly in their coverage
of British customs extant in their time.
Celebrations were
held on both Twelfth-Night Eve (January 5) and Twelfth Night
(January 6), but the latter were the main ones. Hone says the
Twelfth Night celebrations were on the night of January 6, while the
lesser ones on January 5 were called Twelfth-Night Eve. Chambers
also asserts that although there were some apparently minor "rustic"
festivals in England on January 5 (Twelfth-Night Eve), the main
Twelfth Night festivities were on the next night, ie, the night of
Twelfth Day (January 6). Taken with the ancient Pembrokeshire 'wren
boys' song,
Now Christmas is past,
Twelvetide is at last,
And we bid you adieu;
Great joy to the new.
(Rest of song),
I think the case
is persuasive for my conclusion.
The solution to the problem actually rests
in the answer to the question, "On which day is the
commencement of Twelvetide (the Twelve Days of Christmas); is it
Christmas Day (December 25),
or Boxing Day (December 26)?"
The answer is the latter date. It is also logical that such a period
of Christian commemoration would end on such an important day as
Epiphany, and not its eve.
One verse of an ancient Pembrokeshire,
England 'wren boys' carol traditionally sung on St Stephen's Day is
one of many items of evidence that help us date Twelvetide – the
Twelve Days of Christmas – as traditionally beginning on December
26 rather than Christmas Day
itself, and thus, counting 12 days, the dating of Twelfth Day and
Twelfth Night on January 6:
Now Christmas is past,
Twelvetide is at last,
And we bid you adieu;
Great joy to the new. (Rest of song)
A reputable
contemporary source, Waverly Fitzgerald from School of the Seasons,
has a very good article on the celebration and it appears that
she also opts for January 6.
Discussed also at December
26 (First Day of Christmas) in the Book of Days, and
here
Befana Fair, Italy
In many Italian communities, children are greeted today by a little old lady with a broom and a basket of gifts. Befana was the person who would not accompany the
Three Wise
Men, or Magi, on their trip to Bethlehem to visit Joseph,
Mary
and the baby Jesus |
reetings from Australia.
How it works
Eve of the Epiphanios of the goddess Kore (Persephone/Proserpina)
