Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan Part 19

ANIMAL MASKS.

On All Souls' Day in Cheshire there began to be carried about a curious construction called "Old Hob," a horse's head enveloped in a sheet; it was taken from door to door, and accompanied by the singing of begging rhymes.{50} Old Hob, who continued to appear until Christmas, is an English parallel to the German _Schimmel_ or white horse. We have here to do with one of those strange animal forms which are apparently relics of sacrificial customs. They come on various days in the winter festival season, and also at other times, and may as well be considered at this point. In some cases they are definitely imitations of animals, and may have replaced real sacrificial beasts taken about in procession, in others they are simply men wearing the head, horn, hide, or tail of a beast, like the worshippers at many 200 a heathen sacrifice to-day.

(Of the _rationale_ of masking something has already been said in Chapter VI.)

The mingling of Roman and non-Roman customs makes it very hard to separate the different elements in the winter festivals. In regard particularly to animal masks it is difficult to p.r.o.nounce in favour of one racial origin rather than another; we may, however, infer with some probability that when a custom is attached not to Christmas or the January Kalends but to one of the November or early December feasts, it is not of Roman origin. For, as the centuries have pa.s.sed, Christmas and the Kalends--the Roman festivals ecclesiastical and secular--have increasingly tended to supplant the old northern festal times, and a transference of, for instance, a Teutonic custom from Martinmas to Christmas or January 1, is far more conceivable than the attraction of a Roman practice to one of the earlier and waning festivals.

Let us take first the horse-forms, seemingly connected with that sacrificial use of the horse among the Teutons to which Tacitus and other writers testify.{51} "Old Hob" is doubtless one form of the hobby horse, so familiar in old English festival customs. His German parallel, the _Schimmel_, is mostly formed thus in the north: a sieve with a long pole to whose end a horse's head is fastened, is tied beneath the chest of a young man, who goes on all fours, and some white cloths are thrown over the whole. In Silesia the _Schimmel_ is formed by three or four youths.

The rider is generally veiled, and often wears on his head a pot with glowing coals shining forth through openings that represent eyes and a mouth.{52} In Pomerania the thing is called simply _Schimmel_,{53} in other parts emphasis is laid upon the rider, and the name _Schimmelreiter_ is given. Some mythologists have seen in this rider on a white horse an impersonation of Woden on his great charger; but it is more likely that the practice simply originated in the taking round of a real sacrificial horse.{54} The _Schimmelreiter_ is often accompanied by a "bear," a youth dressed in straw who plays the part of a bear tied to a pole.{55} He may be connected with some such veneration of the animal as is suggested by the custom still surviving at Berne, of keeping bears at the public expense.

To return to Great Britain, here is an account of a so-called 201 "hodening" ceremony once performed at Christmas-time at Ramsgate: "A party of young people procure the head of a dead horse, which is affixed to a pole about four feet in length, a string is tied to the lower jaw, a horse-cloth is then attached to the whole, under which one of the party gets, and by frequently pulling the string keeps up a loud snapping noise and is accompanied by the rest of the party grotesquely habited and ringing hand-bells. They thus proceed from house to house, sounding their bells and singing carols and songs."{56}

Again, in Wales a creature called "the Mari Llwyd" was known at Christmas. A horse's skull is "dressed up with ribbons, and supported on a pole by a man who is concealed under a large white cloth. There is a contrivance for opening and shutting the jaws, and the figure pursues and bites everybody it can lay hold of, and does not release them except on payment of a fine."{57} The movable jaws here give the thing a likeness to certain Continental figures representing other kinds of animals and probably witnessing to their former sacrificial use. On the island of Usedom appears the _Klapperbock_, a youth who carries a pole with the hide of a buck thrown over it and a wooden head at the end. The lower jaw moves up and down and clatters, and he charges at children who do not know their prayers by heart.{58} In Upper Styria we meet the _Habergaiss_. Four men hold on to one another and are covered with white blankets. The foremost one holds up a wooden goat's head with a movable lower jaw that rattles, and he b.u.t.ts children.{59} At Ilsenburg in the Harz is found the _Habersack_, formed by a person taking a pole ending in a fork, and putting a broom between the p.r.o.ngs so that the appearance of a head with horns is obtained. The carrier is concealed by a sheet.{60}

In connection with horns we must not forget the "horn-dance" at Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire, held now in September, but formerly at Christmas. Six of the performers wear sets of horns kept from year to year in the church.{61} Plot, in his "Natural History of Staffordshire"

(1686, p. 434) calls it a "_Hobby-horse Dance_ from a person who carried the image of a horse between his legs, made of thin boards."{62}

202 In Denmark, Sweden, and Norway creatures resembling both the _Schimmelreiter_ and the _Klapperbock_ are or were to be met with at Christmas. The name _Julebuk_ (yule buck) is used for various objects: sometimes for a person dressed up in hide and horns, or with a buck's head, who "goes for" little boys and girls; sometimes for a straw puppet set up or tossed about from hand to hand; sometimes for a cake in the form of a buck. People seem to have had a bad conscience about these things, for there are stories connecting them with the Devil. A girl, for instance, who danced at midnight with a straw _Julebuk_, found that her partner was no puppet but the Evil One himself. Again, a fellow who had dressed himself in black and put horns on his head, claws on his hands, and fiery tow in his mouth, was carried off by the Prince of Darkness whose form he had mimicked.{63} The a.s.sociation of animal maskings with the infernal powers is doubtless the work of the Church. To the zealous missionary the old heathen ritual was no mere foolish superst.i.tion but a service of intensely real and awful beings, the very devils of h.e.l.l, and one may even conjecture that the traditional Christian devil-type, half animal half human, was indirectly derived from skin-clad worshippers at pagan festivals.

MARTINMAS.

Between All Souls' Day and Martinmas (November 11) there are no folk-festivals of great importance, though on St. Hubert's Day, November 3, in Flemish Belgium special little cakes are made, adorned with the horn of the saint, the patron of hunting, and are eaten not only by human beings but by dogs, cats, and other domestic animals.{64} The English Guy Fawkes Day has already been considered, while November 9, Lord Mayor's Day, the beginning of the munic.i.p.al year, may remind us of the old Teutonic New Year.

Round Martinmas popular customs cl.u.s.ter thickly, as might be expected, since it marks as nearly as possible the date of the old beginning-of-winter festival, the feast perhaps at which Germanicus surprised the Marsi in A.D. 14.{65}

The most obvious feature of Martinmas is its physical feasting. 203 Economic causes, as we saw in Chapter VI., must have made the middle of November a great killing season among the old Germans, for the snow which then began rendered it impossible longer to pasture the beasts, and there was not fodder enough to keep the whole herd through the winter. Thus it was a time of feasting on flesh, and of animal sacrifices, as is suggested by the Anglo-Saxon name given to November by Bede, _Blot-monath_, sacrifice-month.{66}

Christmas does not seem to have quickly superseded the middle of November as a popular feast in Teutonic countries; rather one finds an outcome of the conciliatory policy pursued by Gregory the Great (see Chapter VI.) in the development of Martinmas. Founded in the fifth century, it was made a great Church festival by Pope Martin I. (649-654),{67} and it may well have been intended to absorb and Christianize the New Year festivities of the Teutonic peoples. The veneration of St. Martin spread rapidly in the churches of northern Europe, and he came to be regarded as one of the very chief of the saints.{68} His day is no longer a Church feast of high rank, but its importance as a folk festival is great.

The tradition of slaughter is preserved in the British custom of killing cattle on St. Martin's Day--"Martlemas beef"{69}--and in the German eating of St. Martin's geese and swine.{70} The St. Martin's goose, indeed, is in Germany as much a feature of the festival as the English Michaelmas goose is of the September feast of the angels.

In Denmark too a goose is eaten at Martinmas, and from its breast-bone the character of the coming winter can be foreseen. The white in it is a sign of snow, the brown of very great cold. Similar ideas can be traced in Germany, though there is not always agreement as to what the white and the brown betoken.{71}

At St. Peter's, Athlone, Ireland, a very obviously sacrificial custom lasted on into the nineteenth century. Every household would kill an animal of some kind, and sprinkle the threshold with its blood. A cow or sheep, a goose or turkey, or merely a c.o.c.k or hen, was used according to the means of the family.{72} It seems that the animal was actually offered to St. Martin, apparently as 204 the successor of some G.o.d, and bad luck came if the custom were not observed. Probably these rites were transferred to Martinmas from the old Celtic festival of _Samhain_.

Again, in a strange Irish legend the saint himself is said to have been cut up and eaten in the form of an ox.{73}

In the wine-producing regions of Germany Martinmas was the day for the first drinking of the new wine, and the feasting in general on his day gave the saint the reputation of a guzzler and a glutton; it even became customary to speak of a person who had squandered his substance in riotous living as a _Martinsmann_.{74} As we have seen survivals of sacrifice in the Martinmas slaughter, so we may regard the _Martinsminne_ or toast as originating in a sacrifice of liquor.{75} In the Bohmerwald it is believed that wine taken at Martinmas brings strength and beauty, and the lads and girls gather in the inns to drink, while a common German proverb runs:--

"Heb an Martini, Trink Wein per circulum anni."[91]{76}

Here, by the way, is a faint suggestion that Martinmas is regarded as the beginning of the year; as such it certainly appears in a number of legal customs, English, French, and German, which existed in the Middle Ages and in some cases in quite recent times. It was often at Martinmas that leases ended, rents had to be paid, and farm-servants changed their places.{77}

There is a survival, perhaps, of a cereal sacrifice or sacrament in the so-called "Martin's horns," horseshoe pastries given at Martinmas in many parts of Germany.{78} Another kind of sacrifice is suggested by a Dutch custom of throwing baskets of fruit into Martinmas bonfires, and by a German custom of casting in empty fruit-baskets.{79} In Venetia the peasants keep over from the vintage a few grapes to form part of their Martinmas supper, and as far south as Sicily it is considered essential to taste the new wine at this festival.{80}

Bonfires appear at Martinmas in Germany, as at All Hallows tide in the British Isles. On St. Martin's Eve in the Rhine 205 Valley between Cologne and Coblentz, numbers of little fires burn on the heights and by the river-bank,{81} the young people leap through the flames and dance about them, and the ashes are strewn on the fields to make them fertile.{82} Survivals of fire-customs are found also in other regions.

In Belgium, Holland, and north-west Germany processions of children with paper or turnip lanterns take place on St. Martin's Eve. In the Eichsfeld district the little river Geislede glows with the light of candles placed in floating nutsh.e.l.ls. Even the practice of leaping through the fire survives in a modified form, for in northern Germany it is not uncommon for people on St. Martin's Day or Eve to jump over lighted candles set on the parlour floor.{83} In the fifteenth century the Martinmas fires were so many that the festival actually got the name of _Funkentag_ (Spark Day).{84}

On St. Martin's Eve in Germany and the Low Countries we begin to meet those winter visitors, bright saints and angels on the one hand, mock-terrible bogeys and monsters on the other, who add so much to the romance and mystery of the children's Christmas. Such visitors are to be found in many countries, but it is in the lands of German speech that they take on the most vivid and picturesque forms. St. Martin, St.

Nicholas, Christkind, Knecht Ruprecht, and the rest are very real and personal beings to the children, and are awaited with pleasant expectation or mild dread. Often they are beheld not merely with the imagination but with the bodily eye, when father or friend is wondrously transformed into a supernatural figure.

What are the origins of these holy or monstrous beings? It is hard to say with certainty, for many elements, pagan and Christian, seem here to be closely blended. It is pretty clear, however, that the grotesque half-animal shapes are direct relics of heathendom, and it is highly probable that the forms of saints or angels--even, perhaps, of the Christ Child Himself--represent attempts of the Church to transform and sanctify alien things which she could not suppress. What some of these may have been we shall tentatively guess as we go along. Though no grown-up person would take the mimic Martin or Nicholas 206 seriously nowadays, there seem to be at the root of them things once regarded as of vital moment.

Just as fairy-tales, originally serious attempts to explain natural facts, have now become reading for children, so ritual practices which our ancestors deemed of vast importance for human welfare have become mere games to amuse the young.

On St. Martin's Eve, to come back from speculation to the facts of popular custom, the saint appears in the nurseries of Antwerp and other Flemish towns. He is a man dressed up as a bishop, with a pastoral staff in his hand. His business is to ask if the children have been "good," and if the result of his inquiries is satisfactory he throws down apples, nuts, and cakes. If not, it is rods that he leaves behind. At Ypres he does not visibly appear, but children hang up stockings filled with hay, and next morning find presents in them, left by the saint in grat.i.tude for the fodder provided for his horse. He is there imagined as a rider on a white horse, and the same conception prevails in Austrian Silesia, where he brings the "Martin's horns" already mentioned.{85} In Silesia when it snows at Martinmas people say that the saint is coming on his white horse, and there, it may be noted, the _Schimmelreiter_ appears at the same season.{86} In certain respects, it has been suggested, St.

Martin may have taken the place of Woden.{87} It is perhaps not without significance that, like the G.o.d, he is a military hero, and conceived as a rider on horseback. At Dusseldorf he used to be represented in his festival procession by a man riding on another fellow's back.{88}

At Mechlin and other places children go round from house to house, singing and collecting gifts. Often four boys with paper caps on their heads, dressed as Turks, carry a sort of litter whereon St. Martin sits.

He has a long white beard of flax and a paper mitre and stole, and holds a large wooden spoon to receive apples and other eatables that are given to the children, as well as a leather purse for offerings of money.{89}

In the Ansbach region a different type of being used to appear--Pelzmarten (Skin Martin) by name; he ran about and frightened the children, before he threw them their apples and nuts. In several places in Swabia, too, Pelzmarte was known; 207 he had a black face, a cow-bell hung on his person, and he distributed blows as well as nuts and apples.{90} In him there is obviously more of the pagan mummer than the Christian bishop.

In Belgium St. Martin is chiefly known as the bringer of apples and nuts for children; in Bavaria and Austria he has a different aspect: a _gerte_ or rod, supposed to promote fruitfulness among cattle and prosperity in general, is connected with his day. The rods are taken round by the neatherds to the farmers, and one is given to each--two to rich proprietors; they are to be used, when spring comes, to drive out the cattle for the first time. In Bavaria they are formed by a birch-bough with all the leaves and twigs stripped off--except at the top, to which oak-leaves and juniper-twigs are fastened. At Etzendorf a curious old rhyme shows that the herdsman with the rod is regarded as the representative of St. Martin.{91}

Can we connect this custom with the saint who brings presents to youngsters?[92] There seems to be a point of contact when we note that at Antwerp St. Martin throws down rods for naughty children as well as nuts and apples for good ones, and that Pelzmarte in Swabia has blows to bestow as well as gifts. St. Martin's main functions--and, as we shall see, St. Nicholas has the same--are to beat the bad children and reward the good with apples, nuts, and cakes. Can it be that the ethical distinction is of comparatively recent origin, an invention perhaps for children when the customs came to be performed solely for their benefit, and that the beating and the gifts were originally shared by all alike and were of a sacramental character? We shall meet with more whipping customs later on, they are common enough in folk-ritual, and are not punishments, but kindly services; their purpose is to drive away evil influences, and to bring to the flogged one the life-giving virtues of the tree from which the twigs or boughs are taken.{92} Both the flogging and the eating of fruit may, indeed, be means of contact with the vegetation-spirit, the one in 208 an external, the other in a more internal way. Or possibly the rod and the fruit may once have been conjoined, the beating being performed with fruit-laden boughs in order to produce prosperity. It is noteworthy that at Etzendorf so many head of cattle and loads of hay are augured for the farmer as there are juniper-_berries_ and twigs on St. Martin's _gerte_.{94}

Attempts to account for the figures of SS. Martin and Nicholas in northern folk-customs have been made along various lines. Some scholars regard them as Christianizations of the pagan G.o.d Woden; but they might also be taken as akin to the "first-foots" whom we shall meet on January 1--visitors who bring good luck--or as maskers connected with animal sacrifices (Pelzmarte suggests this), or again as related to the Boy Bishop, the Lord of Misrule and the Twelfth Night King. May I suggest that some at least of their aspects could be explained on the supposition that they represent administrants of primitive vegetation sacraments, and that these administrants, once ordinary human beings, have taken on the name and attributes of the saint who under the Christian dispensation presides over the festival? In any case it is a strange irony of history that around the festival of Martin of Tours, the zealous soldier of Christ and deadly foe of heathenism, should have gathered so much that is unmistakably pagan.

209 210 211

CHAPTER VIII

ST. CLEMENT TO ST. THOMAS

St. Clement's Day Quests and Processions--St. Catherine's Day as Spinsters' Festival--St. Andrew's Eve Auguries--The _Klopfelnachte_--St. Nicholas's Day, the Saint as Gift-bringer, and his Attendants--Election of the Boy Bishop--St. Nicholas's Day at Bari--St. Lucia's Day in Sweden, Sicily, and Central Europe--St.

Thomas's Day as School Festival--Its Uncanny Eve--"Going a-Thoma.s.sin'."

ST. CLEMENT'S DAY.

The next folk-feast after Martinmas is St. Clement's Day, November 23, once reckoned the first day of winter in England.{1} It marks apparently one of the stages in the progress of the winter feast towards its present solst.i.tial date. In England some interesting popular customs existed on this day. In Staffordshire children used to go round to the village houses begging for gifts, with rhymes resembling in many ways the "souling" verses I have already quoted. Here is one of the Staffordshire "clemencing" songs:--

"Clemany! Clemany! Clemany mine!

A good red apple and a pint of wine, Some of your mutton and some of your veal, If it is good, pray give me a deal; If it is not, pray give me some salt.

Butler, butler, fill your bowl; If thou fill'st it of the best, The Lord'll send your soul to rest; If thou fill'st it of the small, Down goes butler, bowl and all. 212

Pray, good mistress, send to me One for Peter, one for Paul, One for Him who made us all; Apple, pear, plum, or cherry, Any good thing to make us merry; A bouncing buck and a velvet chair, Clement comes but once a year; Off with the pot and on with the pan, A good red apple and I'll be gone."{2}

In Worcestershire on St. Clement's Day the boys chanted similar rhymes, and at the close of their collection they would roast the apples received and throw them into ale or cider.{3} In the north of England men used to go about begging drink, and at Ripon Minster the choristers went round the church offering everyone a rosy apple with a sprig of box on it.{4} The Cambridge bakers held their annual supper on this day,{5} at Tenby the fishermen were given a supper,{6} while the blacksmiths' apprentices at Woolwich had a remarkable ceremony, akin perhaps to the Boy Bishop customs. One of their number was chosen to play the part of "Old Clem,"

was attired in a great coat, and wore a mask, a long white beard, and an oak.u.m wig. Seated in a large wooden chair, and surrounded by attendants bearing banners, torches, and weapons, he was borne about the town on the shoulders of six men, visiting numerous public-houses and the blacksmiths and officers of the dockyard. Before him he had a wooden anvil, and in his hands a pair of tongs and a wooden hammer, the insignia of the blacksmith's trade.{7}