The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1934-12-28
CELEBRATING THE NEW YEAR
BY Edwin Hyde Lambert

so doing we celebrate the close of
what is perhaps the oldest pagan fes-
tival knwn to man. For New Years
day ends the Yuletide festival,
familiar to our Aryan ancestors as
Hweolor-tid, or 1.-The turning-time."
Among primitive peoples every
thing is thought to live; thus to the
animistic savage the lightning and
the falling trees are living and un-
friendly things trying to hurt him.
Naturally enough in this stage of
mans development the sun was re-
garded in the same light-as a rea-
soning being-and since the sun
furnished primitive man with his
very means of existence he came to
worship it and to watch after its
welfare.
Even today there are tribes who
during an eclipse turn out with great
clamor and shoots arrows into the
air, under the impression they are
attacking the monster who is de-
vouring the sun.
Little wonder, then, that early
man watched with growing fear the
yearly drama of winter-the death
of vegetation and the apparent
weakening of the sun. Perhaps this
time it really would die and leave
him cold-helpless!
Then when hope had almost fed
would come the great day of the
turning time, the day when the sun
turned back and became gradually
stronger that in due time green buds
mightmight spring for tn and the
song of the birds herald the coming
of another spring.
The world was saved and man re-
ioiced during that season of Hweo-
lor-tid lighting great bonfires sym
bolic of the suns warmth, and offer
ing gifts to Freya, the. Mother god
dess.
Our modern personification of the
old year is an aged man dying, and
the New Year we conceive as an in
FAINT. The rebirth idea persists.
The probable reason for the sacred
nature attributed to the mistletoe in
the Eddas and early Celtic mythol-
ogy, the important part it played in
the Druidic rites, and it's modern as
sociation with Christmas, may have
been the mysterious nature of this
plants birth, springing as it does for
no apparent reason and with no
visible roots from the body of an
oak tree.
Although New Years day is men
toned as an important festival by
Tacitus in the first century, it is not
referred to as a Christian feast day
until we'll on in the Sixth century.
1t was then that the date of January
l was universally accepted, although
even now in countries such as Rus
rather than the Julian calendar is in
use, the occasion is celebrated IL
days later than is customary with us.
In imperial Rome the day was
dedicated by Numa to the two-faced.
god Janus, in whose honor men were
won't during this festival to forget
old grudges, and to who mthey would
offer sacrifices of cakes, wine and in
cense. And as tribute to this two
faced god-this god who could look
back at what had passed and for
ward at what was to come-Julius
Caesar named the month of January.
In England it used to be the GUS
tom to save part of the Yule log to
light the New Years fire, in order
that some mysterious continuity
reminiscent of the pagan vestal fires,
should remain unbroken. Many
other strange superstitions were con-
nected with the day, among them
that of the first visitor" which still
prevails in Scotland.
According to another old legend,
the first pitcher-full of water drawn
from spring on New Years morn
ing was supposed 20 possess remark
able properties, and maidens used to
sit up all night to obtain this cream
of the year"
We still sit up to "see the New
Year in"
So, when the bells ring out at
midnight and we rush into the
street, shouting and slapping strang-
ers on the back, and performing
what we think to be very original
antics, let us remember that people
acted in precisely the same manner
and did exactly the same original"
things at the festival of the Satur-
MALTA in pagan Rome more than
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