Page images
PDF
EPUB

the bellman, who revives the history and poetry of his predecessors, will vociferate

'My masters all, this is St. Thomas's-day,
And Christmas now can't be far off, you'll say.
And when you to the Ward-motes do repair,
I hope such good men will be chosen there,

As constables for the ensuing year,

As will not grudge the watchmen good strong beer." "

We may observe, here, that St. Thomas's Day is commonly called the shortest of the year,—although the difference between its length and that of the twenty-second is not perceptible. The hours of the sun's rising and setting, on each of those days, are marked as the same in our calendar,-and the latter is, sometimes, spoken of as the shortest day.

As the days which intervene between this and the Eve of Christmas are distinguished by no special ceremonial of their own, and as the numerous observances attached to several of the particular days which follow, will sufficiently prolong those parts of our subject, we will take this opportunity of alluding to some of the sports and festivities not peculiar to any one day, but extending, more or less generally, over the entire season.

Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," mentions, as the winter amusements of his day," Cardes, tables and dice, shovelboard, chesse-play, the philosopher's game, small trunkes, shuttlecocke, billiards, musicke, masks, singing, dancing, ule-games, frolicks, jests, riddles, catches, purposes, questions and commands, merry tales of errant knights, queenes, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfes, theeves, cheaters, witches, fayries, goblins, friers," &c. Amongst the list of Christmas sports, we elsewhere find mention of " jugglers, and jack-puddings, scrambling for nuts and apples, dancing the hobby-horse, hunting owls and squirrels, the foolplough, hot-cockles, a stick moving on a pivot, with an apple at one end and a candle at the other, so that he who missed his bite burned his nose, blindman's buffs, forfeits, interludes and mock plays:" also of "thread my needle, Nan," "he can do little that can't do this," feed the dove, hunt the slipper, shoeing the wild mare, post and pair, snap dragon, the gathering of omens,—

and a great variety of others. In this long enumeration, our readers will recognize many which have come down to the present day,—and form, still, the amusement of their winter evenings, at the Christmas-tide, or on the merry night of Halloween. For an account of many of those which are no longer to be found in the list of holiday games, we must refer such of our readers as it may interest to Brand's “Popular Antiquities,” and Strutt's “ English Sports." A description of them would be out of place in this volume; and we have mentioned them, only as confirming a remark which we have elsewhere made; viz.—that, in addition to such recreations as arise out of the season, or belong to it in a special sense,—whatever other games or amusements have, at any time, been of popular use, have generally inserted themselves into this lengthened and joyous festival; and that all the forms in which mirth or happiness habitually sought expression, congregated, from all quarters, at the ringing of the Christmas bells.

To the Tregetours, or jugglers, who anciently made mirth at the Christmas fire-side, there are several allusions in Chaucer's tales; and Aubrey, in reference thereto, mentions some of the tricks by which they contributed to the entertainments of the season. The exhibitions of such gentry, in modern times, are generally of a more public kind,—and it is rarely that they find their way to our fire-sides. But we have, still, the galanteeshowman, wandering up and down our streets and squares-with his musical prelude and tempting announcement, sounding through the sharp evening air,—and summoned into our warm rooms, to display the shadowy marvels of his mysterious box, to the young group who gaze, in great wonder and some awe, from their inspiring places by the cheerful hearth.

Not that our fire-sides are altogether without domestic fortunetellers, or amateur practitioners in the art of sleight-of-hand. But the prophecies of the former are drawn from-and the feats of the other performed with—the cards. Indeed we must not omit to particularize cards, as furnishing, in all their uses, one of their great resources, at this season of long evenings and in-door amusements,- -as they appear, also, to have formed an express feature of the Christmas entertainments of all ranks of people, in old times. We are told that the squire, of three hundred a-year,

in Queen Anne's time "never played at cards, but at Christmas, when the family pack was produced from the mantel-piece :”and Stevenson, an old writer of Charles the Second's time, in an enumeration of the preparations making for the mirth of the season, tells us that "the country-maid leaves half her market, and must be sent again, if she forgets a pack of cards on Christmas Eve." And who of us all has not shared in the uproarious mirth which young and unclouded spirits find, amid the intrigues and speculations of a round game! To the over-scrupulous, on religious grounds, who, looking upon cards as the "devil's books"and to the moral alarmist, who, considering card-playing to be in itself gaming-would, each, object to this species of recreation for the young and innocent,—it may be interesting to know that the practice has been defended by that bishop of bishops, Jeremy Taylor, himself,—and that he insists upon no argument against the innocence of a practice being inferred from its abuse.

We have, before, alluded to the bards and harpers, who assembled, in ancient days, at this time of wassail;-making the old halls to echo to the voice of music,-and stirring the blood with the legends of chivalry, or chilling it with the wizard tale. And the tale and the song are amongst the spirits that wait on Christmas still, and charm the long winter evenings with their yet undiminished spells. Many a Christmas evening has flown over our heads on the wings of music sweeter, far sweeter, -dearer, a thousand times dearer than ever was played by wandering minstrel or uttered by stipendiary bard;-and we have formed a portion of happy groups, when some thrilling story has sent a chain of sympathetic feeling through hearts that shall beat in unison no more;—and tales of the grave and its tenants have sent a paleness into cheeks, that the grave itself hath since made paler still.

The winter hearth is the very land of gossipred. There it is that superstition loves to tell her marvels, and curiosity to gather them. The gloom and desolation without,-with the wild unearthly voice of the blast, as it sweeps over a waste of snows, and cuts sharp against the leafless branches-or the wan sepulchral light that shows the dreary earth, as it were, covered with a pall, and the trees like spectres rising from beneath it,-alike send men

huddling round the blazing fire; and awaken those impressions of the wild and shadowy and unsubstantial, to which tales of marvel, or of terror, are such welcome food. But other inspirations are born of the blaze itself; and the jest, and the laugh, and the merry narration, are of the spirits that are raised within the magic circles that surround it.

“They should have drawn thee by the high heap't hearth,
Old Winter! seated in thy great armed-chair,
Watching the children at their Christmas mirth;

Or circled by them, as thy lips declare
Some merry jest, or tale of murder dire,

Or troubled spirit that disturbs the night;
Pausing at times to move the languid fire,

Or taste the old October, brown and bright."

[ocr errors]

The song and the story, the recitation and the book read aloud, are, in town and in village, mansion and farmhouse-amongst the universal resources of the winter nights, now,-as they, or their equivalents, have, at all times, been. The narratives of "old adventures, and valiaunces of noble knights, in times past, -the stories of Sir Bevys of Southampton and Sir Guy of Warwick, of Adam Bell, Clymme of the Clough, and William of Cloudesley-with other ancient romances or historical rhymes, which formed the recreation of the common people at their Christmas dinners and bride-ales, long ago, may have made way for the wild legend of the sea, or fearful anecdote

"Of horrid apparition, tall and ghastly,

That walks at dead of night—or takes its stand

O'er some new opened grave, and, strange to tell,
Evanishes at crowing of the cock;"

and for the more touching ballads which sing of the late repentance of the cruel Barbara Allan,—

or, how the

"O mither, mither, mak my bed,

O mak it saft and narrow;
Since my love died for me to-day,
I'll die for him to-morrow ;"-

"Pretty babes, with hand in hand,

Went wandering up and down;
But never more could see the man,

Returning from the town,”—

or how "there came a ghost to Margaret's door," and chilled the life-blood in her veins, by his awful announcement,

"My bones are buried in a kirk-yard,

Afar beyond the sea;

And it is but my sprite, Marg❜ret,

That's speaking now to thee;

or may have been replaced, in high quarters, by the improved narrative literature of the present day, and the traditions or memories which haunt all homes. But the spirit of the entertainment, itself, is still the same, varied only by circumstances in its forms.

Whatever may be said for the ancient ghost stories, which are fast losing ground,-fitting it is that, amid the mirth of this pleasant time, such thoughts should be occasionally stirred, and those phantoms of the heart brought back !—not that the joy of the young and hopeful should be thereby darkened, but that they may be duly warned that "youth's a stuff will not endure," and taught, in time, the tenure upon which hope is held. That was a beautiful custom of the Jews which led them, when they built houses, to leave ever some part unfinished, as a memento of the ruin and desolation of their city. Not that they, therefore, built the less, or the less cheerfully; but that, in the very midst of their amplest accommodations, they preserved a perpetual and salutary reference to the evil of their condition-a useful check upon their worldly thoughts. And thus should mirth be welcomed, and hopes built up, wherever the materials present themselves; but a mark should, notwithstanding, be placed upon the brightest of them all—remembrancers ever let in,—which may recall to us the imperfect condition of our nature here, and speak of the certain decay which must attend all hopes erected for mere earthly dwellings.

But thou shouldst speak of this-thou for whom the following lines were written long ago, though they have not, yet, met thine

« PreviousContinue »