The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1894-12-29

villages or North Germany, the presents
are all sent to some one person, who,
in high buskins, white robe, an enor-
nous wig and mask, appears as Knecht
Rupert, and going from house to house
is received with great pomp and rever-
ence.
There is an old Swedish tradition,
preserved in the history of CLANS. arch
bishop of Upsal, that at the festival of
Christmas the men living in the cold
northern countries are suddenly and
strangely changed into wolves, and that
huge multitude meet together at an
appointed place during the night, and
rage so fiercely against mankind that
the inhabitants of that country suffer
more from their attacks than they ever
do from all their other enemies.
IN MERRY ENGLAND.
Christmas has always been at once
religious, domestic and merrymaking
festival in England, equally for every
rank and age. The revels used to begin
on Christmas eve, and continue until
Candlemas February p, every day be-
ing holiday until twelfth night (Janu-
airy g.. In the house of the mobiles the
larder was filled with capons, hens,
turkeys, geese, ducks, beef, mutton,
pork, pies, buildings, nuts, plums, sugar
and honey. The tenants were enter
tanned at the hall, and the lord and lady
of the manor encouraged every art con
ducive to mirth. A glowing fire, made
of great logs, the principal of which was
termed the yule log, which might be
kept burning till Candlemas eve, Jade
defiance to the severity of the wealth
er; and the abundance was shared
amid music, jokes, games and dances.
EVERGREEN EMBLEMs.
The common custom of decking the
houses and churches at Christmas with
evergreens is derived from ancient dru-
id practices. 1t was an old belief that
sylvan spirits might flock to the ever
greens and remain unnipped by the
frost until a milder season. In old
church calendars Christmas eve is
marked, Templa eXornator (the temples
are adorned). Holly and ivy still re-
main in England the most esteemed
Christmas evergreens, though at Ok
ford and Cambridge the windows of the
college chapels are decked with laurel.
OLD SUPERsTITIoNS.
1t was an old English superstition
that on Christmas eve the oxen were
always found on their knees, as in an
attitude of devotion, and that on the
change from the old day of observance
to the fixed one, they continued to 40
this only on the eve of Christmas day.
This was derived from a prevalent
medieval notion that an OK and an
ass which were present at the nativity
fell upon their knees in a suppliant
posture, as appears from numerous ear
~ prints, and from the Latin poem of
Sannazaro in the sixteenth century.
II was an ancient tradition, alluded
to by Shakespeare, that midnight spir-
it's forsake the earth and go to their
own confines at the Growing of the
cock.
TIME WORKS CHANGES.
The Christmas celebrations in Eng
land have lost their primitive boisterous
character. the gambols and carols are
mostly all gone by, and family reunions
and evergreen trimmings are nearly all
that remains of the various rough ner-
riments which used to mark the fes-
tival.
AMERICAN DISCREPANCIES.
In the United States, since the Puri-
tans were at first stern opponents Of
Christmas pastimes, the day was for
long time less generally celebrated i'm
New England than in the middle and
southern states. In the good old days
"befo' the wah, sah," Christmas below
Masons and Dixon's line was a season
of general festivity. The darl<ies were
treated by the wealthy planters much
the same as were the tenants on the
baronial estates in the early days Of
Merrie England The old custom of
granting the slaves a holiday as long as
the yule log would burn, brought out
all the cunning of the blacks to prolong
their term of idleness. 1t is a we'll re-
membered fact that the rascals would
cut huge gum log during the summer,
roll it down into the creek and let it
soak until Christmas, when it would
be hauled out and piled in the big open
fire place, where it would shoulder
for many days.
Christmas is now generally consid
cred a legal holiday in nearly all the
states, and is observed by religious
services, home gatherings, the giving Of
presents, and by initiating the German
custom of the Christmas Tree. Santa
Claus was originally introduced by the
Dutch settlers of New York, and is the
American representative Of the German
Knecht Rupert.
CHRISTMAS IN HISTORY.