The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1877-12-25
Paganism in the Holidays.

Ihe customs we observe during the Christ
mas holidays are, many of them, of immemo-
rial antiquity. Even the great truth of reve-
lation which Christmas especially commem-
crates was dimly shadowed forth In the
worldwide myth of a miraculous birth and a
saviour god who should rescue men from the
evils which beset them. The most marked
feature of the time, the giving Of gifts to chill
dren, which we do in memory OF the offerings
brought to the Babe of Bethlehem by the
wise men from the East, is characteristic Of
the feast-days of all peoples, in all ages, the
Roman Saturnalian feast being perhaps the
most conspicuous example. 1t has ever been
held fitting that the mourners for the depart
ing should bring gifts to the prophets of the
coming year, that the old should render this
sign of tribute to the new.
In our observance of the birthday of the
Christian religion we still cling to many of the
superstitions of the old paganism. A thou
sand years of Christianity have not been able
to drive from the affection aud remembrance
of the Northern nations of whose blood we
are and whose laws and customs we inherit.
the rites of the mighty Odin and the gods OF
the Asa faith whom our forefathers wor-
SHIPPED with fear and trembling in the forests
of Germany or by the ice-bound fiords Of
Scandinavia. Christmas itself is the great
Yule festival of the pagan Saxons, the time
OF the winter solstice, when the gods were be-
lieved to draw nearer to man. The twelve
holy days of the Christian calendar are the
twelve days in which, according to ancient
belief, the sun stood still. Christianity found
itself unable to uproot the old festival which
men had kept for ages, and so transformed it
into feast of the new faith. The pagan OBJ
servances were retained with changed names
or degraded into mummeries. The gods were
metamorphosed into saints or stigmatized as
devils as their qualities warranted or as fancy
dictated. To this change st. Martin and st.
Nicholas owe their canonization, and Knecht
Rupert and the Wild Huntsman their evil
name. The early missionaries found it easy
to identify the beautiful and gentle Balder,
the White God, with Christ himself, and Sif
and Freya were insensibly merged in the
maid-mother of the ancient Church. Odin
was too much feared for canonization, and as
the belief in his reality could not be killed
they made of him and his throng Of heroes
going to Valhalla the Wild Huntsman and
his spectral following. To this day in parts
of Germany colossal rider on a white
horse rushes with mighty noise over the
land on Christmas eve. In Suabia "Wuo-
tins army is heard by all who listen for it
in the holidays. In Westphalia they recog-
nize him as "Broad-Brim," a name CORE
spending to the Sidholte of the Eddas, the
broad gray hat which he wears symbolizing
in the Morse mythology the clouds about his
head. Under one of his appellations, the
splendor of fame, he has become Knecht
Rupert, the bugbear OF children. As the
Wish-Giver he has been degraded into the
Evil One himself who appears in answer to
human summons and grants wild and wicked
requests. Thuringan maidens listen at the
door of the stable even now for the neigh
that is to bring them suitor by midsummer.
1t is the neigh of Sleipner, the swift-footed
horse of, Odin the Wish-Giver. The Christ
mas holidays are full of these superstitions OF
German paganism. In Holland Frey and
his gold-bristled boar, personifying the field
with its ripened spikes of barley, appear as
swine that at ghost-hour on Christmas eve
steals from out the grain-house and mys-
teriousy vanishes. Hlodyn, the Mother
Earth, has become Frau Holle, the kindly
spirit that quickens the seed. In Suabia
each member of the village parish carries a
vessel'of wine to church, where it is blessed
by the priest and then drunk-as at the Yule
feast vessels of wine were solemnly emptied
in honor of the gods of Valhalla. The boar's
head OF the English Christmas dinner is the
boar Snhrimner, on whose flesh the gods
and heroes forever feasted; the fires built
upon the hill-tops are the old Yule fires; and
in the oak and the mistletoe We find the
memories of an older paganism still, the
sacred wood and vine of the Druids.
One would like to know how many Of these
old rites are observed here, how many of the
ancient superstitions are entertained by our
people to-day. In Germany they have sur
vived thousand years. Carried by the Sax
ons to Britain they are practised there now.
Brought to these shores, as they doubtless
were, by our fathers, they in all probability
survive among us. Where the myth of an
alien faith still commands belief and we hear
the warning of Cerberus in the howl of the
dog under the windows of the dying, there
certainly must be found some traces OF the
Asa-doctrine. Among old people in quiet
villages diligent search may yet bring to light
proof of the belief of our forefathers in the