The Christmas Kalends of Provence | Page 4

be good or bad; and also that there may be on the table when the Great Supper is served on Christmas Eve--that is to say, on the feast of the Winter Solstice--green growing grain in symbol or in earnest of the harvest of the new year that then begins.
[Illustration: PLANTING SAINT BARBARA'S GRAIN]
"The association of the Trinitarian Saint Barbara with this custom," the Vidame continued, "I fear is a bit of a makeshift. Were three plates of grain the rule, something of a case would be made out in her favour. But the rule, so far as one can be found, is for only two. The custom must be of Pagan origin, and therefore dates from far back of the time when Saint Barbara lived in her three-windowed tower at Heliopolis. Probably her name was tagged to it because of old these votive and prophetic grain-fields were sown on what in Christian times became her dedicated day. But whatever light-mannered goddess may have been their patroness then, she is their patroness now; and from their sowing we date the beginning of our Christmas feast."
It was obvious that this explanation of the custom went much too far for Mis�� Fougueiroun. At the mention of its foundation in Paganism she sniffed audibly, and upon the Vidame's reference to the light-mannered goddess she drew her ample skirts primly about her and left the room.
The Vidame smiled. "I have scandalized Mis��, and to-morrow I shall have to listen to a lecture," he said; and in a moment continued: "It is not easy to make our Proven?aux realize how closely we are linked to older peoples and to older times. The very name for Christmas in Proven?al, Cal��ndo, tells how this Christian festival lives on from the Roman festival of the Winter Solstice, the January Kalends; and the beliefs and customs which go with its celebration still more plainly mark its origin. Our farmers believe, for instance, that these days which now are passing--the twelve days, called coumti��, immediately preceding Christmas--are foretellers of the weather for the new twelve months to come; each in its turn, by rain or sunshine or by heat or cold, showing the character of the correspondingly numbered month of the new year. That the twelve prophetic days are those which immediately precede the solstice puts their endowment with prophetic power very far back into antiquity. Our farmers, too, have the saying, 'When Christmas falls on a Friday you may sow in ashes'--meaning that the harvest of the ensuing year surely will be so bountiful that seed sown anywhere will grow; and in this saying there is a strong trace of Venus worship, for Friday--Div��ndre in Proven?al--is the day sacred to the goddess of fertility and bears her name. That belief comes to us from the time when the statue of Aphrodite, dug up not long since at Marseille, was worshipped here. Our Pater de Cal��ndo--our curious Christmas prayer for abundance during the coming year--clearly is a Pagan supplication that in part has been diverted into Christian ways; and in like manner comes to us from Paganism the whole of our yule-log ceremonial."
The Vidame rose from the table. "Our coffee will be served in the library," he said. He spoke with a perceptible hesitation, and there was anxiety in his tone as he added: "Mis�� makes superb coffee; but sometimes, when I have offended her, it is not good at all." And he visibly fidgeted until the coffee arrived, and proved by its excellence that the housekeeper had been too noble to take revenge.
III
In the early morning a lively clatter rising from the farm-yard came through my open window, along with the sunshine and the crisp freshness of the morning air. My apartment was in the southeast angle of the Chateau, and my bedroom windows--overlooking the inner court--commanded the view along the range of the Alpilles to the Luberoun and Mont-Ventour, a pale great opal afloat in waves of clouds; while from the windows of my sitting-room I saw over Mont-Majour and Arles far across the level Camargue to the hazy horizon below which lay the Mediterr?nean.
In the court-yard there was more than the ordinary morning commotion of farm life, and the buzz of talk going on at the well and the racing and shouting of a parcel of children all had in it a touch of eagerness and expectancy. While I still was drinking my coffee--in the excellence and delicate service of which I recognized the friendly hand of Mis�� Fougueiroun--there came a knock at my door; and, upon my answer, the Vidame entered--looking so elate and wearing so blithe an air that he easily might have been mistaken for a frolicsome middle-aged sunbeam.
"Hurry! Hurry!" he cried, while still shaking both my hands. "This is a day of days--we are