Christmas: Its Origin and Associations Part 48

[Ill.u.s.tration: Luis de Vargas 1502-1568 Seville Cathedral]

CHRISTMAS IN SPAIN.

Spain in winter must be divided into Spain the frigid and Spain the semi-tropic; for while snow lies a foot deep at Christmas in the north, in the south the sun is shining brightly, and flowers of spring are peeping out, and a nosegay of heliotrope and open-air geraniums is the Christmas-holly and mistletoe of Andalusia. There is no chill in the air, there is no frost on the window-pane.

When Christmas Eve comes the two days' holiday commences. At twelve the labourers leave their work, repair home, and dress in their best.

Then the shops are all ablaze with lights, ribbons and streamers, with tempting fare of sweets and sausages, with red and yellow serge to make warm petticoats; with cymbals, drums, and _zambombas_. The chief sweetmeats, peculiar to Christmas, and bought alike by rich and poor, are the various kinds of preserved fruits, incrusted with sugar, and the famous _turrni_. This last, which is of four kinds, and may be called in English phraseology, "almond rock," is brought to your door, and buy it you must. A coa.r.s.e kind is sold to the poor at a cheap rate. Other comestibles, peculiar to Christmas, are almond soup, truffled turkey, roasted chestnuts, and nuts of every sort.

Before the _Noche-buena_, or Christmas Eve, however, one or two good deeds have been done by the civil and military authorities. On the twenty-third or twenty-fourth the custom is for the military governor to visit all the soldier prisoners, in company with their respective defensores, or advocates; and, _de officio_, there and then, he liberates all who are in gaol for light offences. This plan is also pursued in the civil prisons; and thus a beautiful custom is kept up in cla.s.sic, romantic, Old-world Spain, and a ray of hope enters into and illuminates even the bitter darkness of a Spanish prisoners' den.

It is Christmas Eve. The poor man has his relations round him, over his humble _puchero_ (stew): the rich man likewise. _Friends_ have not come, "for it is not the custom." In Spain only blood relations eat and drink in the house as invited guests. Families meet as in England.

Two per cent. of the soldiers get a fortnight's leave of absence and a free pa.s.s; and there is joy in peasant homes over peasant charcoal pans. The dusky shades of evening are stealing over olive grove and withering vineyard, and every house lights up its tiny oil lamp, and every image of the Virgin is illuminated with a taper. In Eija, near Cordova, an image or portrait of the Virgin and the Babe new-born, hangs in well-nigh every room in every house. And why? Because the beautiful belief is rooted in those simple minds, that, on Christmas Eve, ere the clock strikes twelve, the Virgin, bringing blessings in her train, visits every house where she can find an image or portrait of _her Son_. And many a girl kneels down in robes of white before her humble portrait of the Babe and prays; and hears a rustle in the room, and thinks, "the Virgin comes: she brings me my Christmas Eve blessing;" and turns, and lo! it is _her mother_, and the Virgin's blessing is the mother's kiss!

In Northern Andalusia you have the _zambomba_, a flower-pot perforated by a hollow reed, which, wetted and rubbed with the finger, gives out a hollow, sc.r.a.ping, monotonous sound. In Southern Andalusia the _panderita_, or tambourine, is the chief instrument. It is wreathed with gaudy ribbons, and decked with bells, and beaten, shaken, and tossed in the air with graceful abandon to the strains of the Christmas hymn:

"This night is the good night, And therefore is no night of rest!"

Or, perhaps, the Church chant is sung, called "The child of G.o.d was born."

Then also men click the castanet in wine-shop and cottage; and in such old-world towns as Eija, where no railway has penetrated, a breast-plate of eccentrically strung bones--slung round the neck and played with sticks--is still seen and heard.

The turkeys have been slaughtered and are smoking on the fire. The night is drawing on and now the meal is over. Twelve o'clock strikes, and in one moment every bell from every belfrey clangs out its summons. Poltroon were he who had gone to bed before twelve on _Noche-buena_. From every house the inmates hurry to the gaily-lit church and throng its aisles, a dark-robed crowd of worshippers. The organ peals out, the priests and choir chant at this midnight hour the Christmas hymn, and at last (in some out-of-the-way towns) the priests, in gaudiest robes, bring out from under the altar and expose aloft to the crowds, in swaddling-clothes of gold and white, the Babe new-born, and all fall down and cross themselves in mute adoration.

This service is universal, and is called the "Misa del Gallo," or c.o.c.k-crow Ma.s.s, and even in Madrid it is customary to attend it. There are three ma.s.ses also on Christmas Day, and the Church rule, strictly observed, is that if a man fail to attend this Midnight Ma.s.s he must, to save his religious character, attend all three on Christmas Day. In antique towns, like Eija, there are two days' early ma.s.s (called "Misa di Luz") anterior to the "Misa del Gallo," at 4 a.m., and in the raw morning the churches are thronged with rich and poor. In that strange, old-world town, also, the chief dame goes to the Midnight Ma.s.s, all her men-servants in procession before her, each playing a different instrument.

Christmas Eve is over. It is 1.30 a.m. on Christmas morning, and the crowds, orderly, devout, cheerful, are wending their way home. Then all is hushed; all have sought repose; there are no drunken riots; the dark streets are lit by the tiny oil lamps; the watchman's monotonous cry alone is heard, "Ave Maria purissima; las dos; y sereno."

The three ma.s.ses at the churches on Christmas Day are all chanted to joyous music. Then the poor come in to pay their rent of turkeys, pigs, olives, or what not, to their landlord, and he gives them a Christmas-box: such as a piece of salt fish, or money, or what may be.

Then, when you enter your house, you will find on your table, with the heading, "A Happy Christmas," a book of little leaflets, printed with verses. These are the pet.i.tions of the postman, scavenger, telegraph man, newsboy, &c., asking you for a Christmas-box. Poor fellows! they get little enough, and a couple of francs is well bestowed on them once a year. After mid-day breakfast or luncheon is over, rich and poor walk out and take the air, and a gaudy, pompous crowd they form as a rule. As regards presents at Christmas, the rule is, in primitive Spain, to send a present to the _Cura_ (parish priest) and the doctor.

Many Spaniards pay a fixed annual sum to their medical man, and he attends all the family, including servants. His salary is sent to him at Christmas, with the addition of a turkey, or a cake, or some fine sweetmeats.

On Christmas Eve the provincial hospitals present one of their most striking aspects to the visitor. It is a feast-day, and instead of the usual stew, the soup called _caldo_--and very weak stuff it is--or the stir-about and fried bread, the sick have their good sound meats, cooked in savoury and most approved fashion, their tumbler of wine, their extra cigar. Visitors, kindly Spanish ladies, come in, their hands laden with sweets and tobacco, &c., and the sight of the black silk dresses trailing over the lowly hospital couches is most human and pathetic. At last _night_--the veritable Christmas Eve comes. The chapels in these hospitals are generally on the ground floor, and frequently sunk some feet below it, but open to the hospital; so that the poor inmates who can leave their beds can hobble to the railing and look down into the chapel--one ma.s.s of dazzling lights, glitter, colour, and music: and thus, without the fatigue of descending the stairs, can join in the service. At half-past eleven at night the chapel is gaily lit up; carriage after carriage, mule-cart after mule-cart rattles up to the hospital door, discharging crowds of ladies and gentlemen in evening dress; thus the common people, chiefly the young, with their tambourines and zambombas, pour into the chapel from _Campo_, and alley, and street, and soon the chapel is filled; while above, sitting, hobbling, lying all round the rails, and gazing down upon the motley and noisy throng below, are the inmates of the hospital. The priest begins the Midnight Ma.s.s, and the organs take up the service, the whole of which, for one hour, is chanted. Meanwhile, the tambourines and other musical instruments are busy, and join in the strains of the organ; and the din, glitter, and excitement are most exhilarating. And thus the occupants of the Spanish provincial hospitals join in the festivities of Christmastide, as seen by one who has dwelt "_Among the Spanish People_."

CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS IN NORWAY.

A writer who knows the manners and habits of the people of Norway, and their customs at Christmastide, says:--

"At Christiania, and other Norwegian towns, there is, or used to be, a delicate Christmas custom of offering to a lady a brooch or a pair of earings in a truss of hay. The house-door of the person to be complimented is pushed open, and there is thrown into the house a truss of hay or straw, a sheaf of corn, or a bag of chaff. In some part of this "bottle of hay" envelope, there is a "needle" as a present to be hunted for. A friend of mine once received from her betrothed, according to the Christmas custom, an exceedingly large brown paper parcel, which, on being opened, revealed a second parcel with a loving motto on the cover. And so on, parcel within parcel, motto within motto, till the kernel of this paper husk--which was at length discovered to be a delicate piece of minute jewellery--was arrived at."

One of the prettiest of Christmas customs is the Norwegian practice of giving, on Christmas Day, a dinner to the birds. On Christmas morning every gable, gateway, or barn-door, is decorated with a sheaf of corn fixed on the top of a tall pole, wherefrom it is intended that the birds should make their Christmas dinner. Even the peasants contrive to have a handful set by for this purpose, and what the birds do not eat on Christmas Day, remains for them to finish at their leisure during the winter.

On New Year's Day in Norway, friends and acquaintances exchange calls and good wishes. In the corner of each reception-room is placed a little table, furnished all through the day with wine and cakes for the refreshment of the visitors; who talk, and compliment, and flirt, and sip wine, and nibble cake from house to house, with great perseverance.

Between Christmas and Twelfth Day mummers are in season. They are called "Julebukker," or Christmas goblins. They invariably appear after dark, and in masks and fancy dresses. A host may therefore have to entertain in the course of the season, a Punch, Mephistopheles, Charlemagne, Number, Nip, Gustavus, Oberon, and whole companies of other fanciful and historic characters; but, as their antics are performed in silence, they are not particularly cheerful company.

CHRISTMAS IN RUSSIA.

With Christmas Eve begins the festive season known in Russia as _Svyatki_ or _Svyatuie Vechera_ (Holy Evenings), which lasts till the Epiphany. The numerous sportive ceremonies which are a.s.sociated with it resemble, in many respects, those with which we are familiar, but they are rendered specially interesting and valuable by the relics of the past which they have been the means of preserving--the fragments of ritual song which refer to the ancient paganism of the land, the time-honoured customs which originally belonged to the feasts with which the heathen Slavs greeted each year the return of the sun. On Christmas Eve commences the singing of the songs called _Kolyadki_, a word, generally supposed to be akin to _Kalendae_, though reference is made in some of them to a mysterious being, apparently a solar G.o.ddess, named Kolyada. "Kolyada, Kolyada! Kolyada has come. We wandered about, we sought holy Kolyada in all the courtyards,"

commences one of these old songs, for many a year, no doubt, solemnly sung by the young people who used in olden times to escort from homestead to homestead a sledge in which sat a girl dressed in white, who represented the benignant G.o.ddess. Nowadays these songs have in many places fallen into disuse, or are kept up only by the children who go from house to house, to congratulate the inhabitants on the arrival of Christmas, and to wish them a prosperous New Year. In every home, says one of these archaic poems, are three inner chambers. In one is the bright moon, in another the red sun, in a third many stars.

The bright moon--that is the master of the house; the red sun--that is the housewife; the many stars--they are the little children.

The Russian Church sternly sets its face against the old customs with which the Christmas season was a.s.sociated, denouncing the "fiendish songs," and "devilish games," the "graceless talk," the "nocturnal gambols," and the various kinds of divination in which the faithful persisted in indulging. But, although repressed, they were not to be destroyed, and at various seasons of the year, but especially those of the summer and winter solstice, the "orthodox," in spite of their pastors, made merry with old heathenish sports, and, after listening to Christian psalms in church, went home and sang songs framed by their ancestors in honour of heathen divinities. Thus century after century went by, and the fortunes of Russia underwent great changes.

But still in the villages were the old customs kept up, and when Christmas Day came round it was greeted by survivals of the ceremonies with which the ancient Slavs hailed the returning sun G.o.d, who caused the days to lengthen, and filled the minds of men with hopes of a new year rich in fruits and grain. One of the customs to which the Church most strongly objected was that of mumming. As in other lands, so in Russia it was customary for mummers to go about at Christmastide, visiting various homes in which the festivities of the season were being kept up, and there dancing, and performing all kinds of antics.

Prominent parts were always played by human representatives of a goat and a bear. Some of the party would be disguised as "Lazaruses," that is, as the blind beggars who bear that name, and whose plaintive strains have resounded all over Russia from the earliest times to the present day. The rest disguised themselves as they best could, a certain number of them being generally supposed to play the part of thieves desirous to break in and steal. When, after a time, they were admitted into the room where the Christmas guests were a.s.sembled, the goat and the bear would dance a merry round together, the Lazaruses would sing their "dumps so dull and heavy," and the rest of the performers would exert themselves to produce exhilaration. Even among the upper cla.s.ses it was long the custom at this time of year for the young people to dress up and visit their neighbours in disguise. Thus in Count Tolstoy's "Peace and War," a novel which aims at giving a true account of the Russia of the early part of the present century, there is a charming description of a visit of this kind paid by the younger members of one family to another. On a bright frosty night the sledges are suddenly ordered, and the young people dress up, and away they drive across the crackling snow to a country house six miles off, all the actors creating a great sensation, but especially the fair maiden Sonya, who proves irresistible when clad in her cousin's hussar uniform and adorned with an elegant moustache. Such mummers as these would lay aside their disguises with a light conscience, but the peasant was apt to feel a depressing qualm when the sports were over; and it is said that, even at the present day, there are rustics who do not venture to go to church, after having taken part in a mumming, until they have washed off their guilt by immersing themselves in the benumbing waters of an ice-hole.

Next to the mumming, what the Church most objected to was the divination always practised at Christmas festivals. With one of its forms a number of songs have been a.s.sociated, termed _podblyudnuiya_, as connected with a _blyudo_, a dish or bowl. Into some vessel of this kind the young people drop tokens. A cloth is then thrown over it, and the various objects are drawn out, one after another, to the sound of songs, from the tenor of which the owners deduce omens relative to their future happiness. As bread and salt are also thrown into the bowl, the ceremony may be supposed to have originally partaken of the nature of a sacrifice. After these songs are over ought to come the game known as the "burial of the gold." The last ring remaining in the prophetic bowl is taken out by one of the girls, who keeps it concealed in her hand. The others sit in a circle, resting their hands on their knees. She walks slowly round, while the first four lines are sung in chorus of the song beginning, "See here, gold I bury, I bury."

Then she slips the ring into one of their hands, from which it is rapidly pa.s.sed on to another, the song being continued the while. When it comes to an end the "gold burier" must try to guess in whose hand the ring is concealed. This game is a poetical form of our "hunt the slipper." Like many other Slavonic customs it is by some archaeologists traced home to Greece. By certain mythologists the "gold" is supposed to be an emblem of the sun, long hidden by envious wintry clouds, but at this time of year beginning to prolong the hours of daylight. To the sun really refer, in all probability, the bonfires with which Christmastide, as well as the New Year and Midsummer is greeted in Russia. In the Ukraine the sweepings from a cottage are carefully preserved from Christmas Day to New Year's Day, and are then burnt in a garden at sunrise. Among some of the Slavs, such as the Servians, Croatians, and Dalmatians, a _badnyak_, or piece of wood answering to the northern Yule-log, is solemnly burnt on Christmas Eve. But the significance originally attached to these practices has long been forgotten. Thus the grave attempts of olden times to search the secrets of futurity have degenerated into the sportive guesses of young people, who half believe that they may learn from omens at Christmas time what manner of marriages are in store for them.

Divinings of this kind are known to all lands, and bear a strong family likeness; but it is, of course, only in a cold country that a spinster can find an opportunity of sitting beside a hole cut in the surface of a frozen river, listening to prophetic sounds proceeding from beneath the ice, and possibly seeing the image of the husband who she is to marry within the year trembling in the freezing water.

Throughout the whole period of the _Svyatki_, the idea of marriage probably keeps possession of the minds of many Russian maidens, and on the eve of the Epiphany, the feast with which those Christmas holidays come to an end, it is still said to be the custom for the village girls to go out into the open air and to beseech the "stars, stars, dear little stars," to be so benignant as to

"Send forth through the christened world Arrangers of weddings."

W. R. S. Ralston, in _Notes and Queries_, Dec. 21, 1878.

CHRISTMAS-KEEPING IN AFRICA.

"A certain young man about town" (says _Chambers's Journal_, December 25, 1869), "once forsook the sweet shady side of Pall Mall for the sake of smoking his cigar in savage Africa; but when Christmas came, he was seized with a desire to spend it in Christian company, and this is how he did spend it: 'We English once possessed the Senegal; and there, every Christmas Eve, the Feast of Lanterns used to be held. The native women picked up the words and airs of the carols; the custom had descended to the Gambia, and even to the Casemanche, where it is still preserved. A few minutes after I had ridden up, sounds of music were heard, and a crowd of blacks came to the door, carrying the model of a ship made of paper, and illuminated within; and hollowed pumpkins also lighted up for the occasion. Then they sang some of our dear old Christmas carols, and among others, one which I had heard years ago on Christmas Eve at Oxford:

Nowel, Nowel, the angels did say, To certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay-- In fields as they lay keeping their sheep, One cold winter's night, which was so deep.

Nowel, Nowel, Nowel, Nowel, Born is the King of Israel.

You can imagine with what feelings I listened to those simple words, sung by negresses who knew not a phrase of English besides. You can imagine what recollections they called up, as I sat under an African sky, the palm-trees rustling above my head, and the crocodiles moaning in the river beyond. I thought of the snow lying thick upon the ground; of the keen, clear, frosty air. I thought of the ruddy fire which would be blazing in a room I knew; and of those young faces which would be beaming still more brightly by its side; I thought of--oh, of a hundred things, which I can laugh at now, because I am in England, but which, in Africa, made me more wretched than I can well express.'

"Next day, sadness and sentiment gave way, for a while at least, to more prosaical feelings. When Mr. Reade sat down to his Christmas dinner, he must have wished, with Macbeth, 'May good digestion wait on appet.i.te,' as he contemplated the fare awaiting discussion, and to which a boar's head grinned a welcome. Snails from France, oysters torn from trees, gazelle cutlets, stewed iguana, smoked elephant, fried locusts, manati-b.r.e.a.s.t.s, hippopotamus steaks, boiled alligator, roasted crocodile eggs, monkeys on toast, land crabs and Africa soles, carp, and mullet--detestable in themselves, but triumphant proof of the skill of the cook--furnished forth the festival-table, in company with potatoes, plantains, pine-apples, oranges, papaws, bananas, and various fruits rejoicing in extraordinary shapes, long native names, and very nasty flavours; and last, but not least, palm-cabbage stewed in white sauce, 'the ambrosia of the G.o.ds,' and a bottle of good Bordeaux at every's man's elbow. When evening came, Mr. Reade and a special friend sought the river: 'The rosy wine had rouged our yellow cheeks, and we lay back on the cushions, and watched the setting sun with languid, half-closed eyes. Four men, who might have served as models to Appelles, bent slowly to their stroke, and murmured forth a sweet and plaintive song. Their oars, obedient to their voice, rippled the still water, and dropped from their blades pearls, which the sun made rubies with its rays. Two beautiful girls, who sat before us in the bow, raised their rounded arms and tinkled their bracelets in the air. Then, gliding into the water, they brought us flowers from beneath the dark bushes, and kissed the hands which took them, with wet and laughing lips. Like a dark curtain, the warm night fell upon us; strange cries roused from the forest; beasts of the waters plunged around us, and my honest friend's hand pressed mine. And Christmas Day was over. We might seek long for a stranger contrast to an Englishman's Christmas at home, although--to adapt some seasonable lines--

Where'er An English heart exists to do and dare, Where, amid Afric's sands, the lion roars, Where endless winter chains the silent sh.o.r.es, Where smiles the sea round coral islets bright, Where Brahma's temple's sleep in glowing light-- In every spot where England's sons may roam, Dear Christmas-tide still speaks to them of Home!"

[93] The discovery of the North-West Pa.s.sage for navigation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, by the northern coasts of the American continent; first successfully traversed by Sir R. McClure in 1850-1.

[94] _Chambers's Journal_, December 25, 1869.

[95] Fosbroke's "British Monachism."

[96] "Reminiscences of the Siege and Commune of Paris," by Ex-Minister E. B. Washburne.

[97] "Year Book."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIMEON RECEIVED THE CHILD JESUS INTO HIS ARMS, AND BLESSED G.o.d

_Luke_ 11 25-32]