The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1898-12-21

from the Breton, COrrOl1, to dance; and
Richardson from the French carrolle,
a particular kind of dance. From its
similarity of structure and meaning in
many tongues, we may be sure that it
meant dancing accompanied with music
and song, like that around the affairs
of the Sun God, Bel, or that practiced
by the Bacchantes of the Sun God,
Bacchus, or by the Corybantes, the
Cali of Cybele or Bella, the Lunar
deity and Consort of the Solar.
Warton says of the Christmas Carols
printed in 1923, by Wynkyn de Worde,
that ''these were festal chansons for en-
livening the merriment of the Christ
mas celebritv." Indeed there is scarce
1y custom of any importance relating
to Christmas which was not an ancient
one when Christ was born. The ever
greens, mist1etoe, illuminations, cakes,
carols, feasting, dancing, and diver
sion of various sorts, point to the same
Pagan sources, as do so many other of
our social and religious customs.
Even the Bishops Crosier is the old
Litnus or chief ensign of the Roman
Augurs. Mosheim informs us that
Gregory Thaumaturgus "allowed the
Christians to dance, sport, and feast at
the tombs of the martyrs upon their
respective festivals, and to do every
thing that the Pagans were accustom-
ed to do in their temples during the
feastS."
1t was not until the fourth century
that Christ's Mass was instituted, and
the Eastern Christians celebrated it,
then as now, on the sixth of January,
and called it the Epiphany, while the
Western Christians decided upon the
25th of December.
We hope some day to give an ac-
count of the carols, for these form in
teresting pictures of the habits and
thoughts of our ancestors. There was
that strange one sung by the sewer
while bearing the boar's head, as he
was followed by the stately procession
of mobiles, knights, and ladies, into the
banqueting hall in the good old days
when open house was kept for all
comers by the great for weeks together.
1t begins:
"Caput apri defero,
Reddens laudes Domino.
The boar's head in hand bring l,
With garlands gay and rosemary;
l pray you all sing merrilv,
Qui estis in convivio"
Then there is that beginning:
God rest you, merry gentlemen.
Let nothing you dismay,
For Jesus Christ saviour,
Was born upon this day.
To save us all from Satans power.
When gone astray.'
An old one, chanted by ballad singers
commences:
81 saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas day, on Christmas day"
1t appears, "Our Saviour Christ and
His Lady" were aboard, and in viola
lation of the possibilities of modern
geography:
~ lneN SalleQ INTO
On Christmas as-dav, on Christmas day
But among them all-and many of
them are very quaint -excel1s for
beauty that which Bishop Taylor
called ''the earliest Christmas Carol":
GLORIA in Excelsis." :"
A sixteenth century one quoting
thus:
"When Christ was born of Mary free
In Bethlehem, that fair cite,
Angels sang there with mirth and glee,
In Excelsis Gloria
Herdsmen behind these angels bright
To them appearing with great light
Who said Gods Son is born this night,
In Excelsis Gloria!
Formerly the festivities partook too
much of the nature of the classic Sat-
urnalia. 1t was a period of license
and debauch. Old Father Christ
mas had to vindicate his charac-
ter, which was done by deputy in
a tract of 1851, called" Twelve |
Years Observations on the Times" "
Half a century afterwards, another,
tract, named BAIT upon Bait" con-
fesses:
"Our Bait dance, play at high jerks with
Dice,
AT any primitive orthodoxal vice,
Shoeing the wild mare, tumbling the young
Wenches
Drinking all night, and sleeping on the
benches.'
The merry-making that continued
from our Christmas day to Twelfth