Yule-Tide in Many Lands | Page 5

of wood or horn, were often of gold and silver, too.
In these days the family dressed more lavishly. Men wore long, flowing ringlets and forked beards. Their tunics of woolen, leather, linen, or silk, reached to the knees and were fastened at the waist by a girdle. Usually a short cloak was worn over the tunic. They bedecked themselves with all the jewelry they could wear; bracelets, chains, rings, brooches, head-bands, and other ornaments of gold and precious stones.
Women wore their best tunics made either of woolen woven in many colors or of silk embroidered in golden flowers. Their "abundant tresses," curled by means of hot irons, were confined by the richest head-rails. The more fashionable wore cuffs and bracelets, earrings and necklaces, and painted their cheeks a more than hectic flush.
In the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries the magnificence of the Yule-tide observance may be said to have reached its height. In the old baronial halls where:
"The fire, with well-dried logs supplied, Went roaring up the chimney wide,"
Christmas was kept with great jollity.
It was considered unlucky to have the holly brought into the house before Christmas Eve, so throughout the week merry parties of young people were out in the woods gathering green boughs, and on Christmas Eve, with jest and song, they came in laden with branches to decorate the hall.
"Lo, now is come our joyfull'st feast! Let every man be jolly, Eache room with yvie leaves be drest. And every post with holly."
Later on, men rolled in the huge Yule-log, emblematic of warmth and light. It was of oak if possible, the oak being sacred to Thor, and was rolled into place amidst song and merriment. In one of these songs the first stanza is:
"Welcome be thou, heavenly King, Welcome born on this morning, Welcome for whom we shall sing, Welcome Yule."
The third stanza is addressed to the crowd:
"Welcome be ye that are here, Welcome all, and make good cheer, Welcome all, another year; Welcome Yule."
Each member of the family, seated in turn upon the log, saluted it, hoping to receive good luck. It was considered unlucky to consume the entire log during Yule; if good luck was to attend that household during the coming twelve months, a piece ought to be left over with which to start the next year's fire.
[Illustration: SERENADED BY THE WAITS.]
"Part must be kept wherewith to tende The Christmas log next yeare, And where 'tis safely kept, the fiend Can do no mischiefe theere."
The boar's head held the principal place of honor at the dinner. So during September and October, when the boar's flesh was at its best, hunters with well-trained packs of boar-hounds set out to track this savage animal. They attacked the boar with spears, or surrounded him and drove him into nets. He was a ferocious antagonist to both dogs and men, and when sore pressed would wheel about, prepared to fight to the death. Before the dogs could grip him by the ear, his one weak point, and pin him down, his sharp teeth would often wound or even kill both the hunter and his dogs. The pluckier the animal the louder the praise sung in his honor when his head was brought into the hall. The great head, properly soused, was borne in on an immense salver by the "old blue-coated serving-man" on Christmas day. He was preceded by the trumpeters and followed by the mummers, and thus in state the boar's head was ushered in and assigned to its place on the table. The father of the family or head of the household laid his hand on the dish containing the "boar of atonement," as it was at one time called, swearing to be faithful to his family and to fulfil all his obligations as a man of honor. This solemn act was performed before the carving by every man present. The carver had to be a man of undaunted courage and untarnished reputation.
Next in honor at the feast was the peacock. It was sometimes served as a pie with its head protruding from one side of the crust and its wide-spread tail from the other; more often the bird was skinned, stuffed with herbs and sweet spices, roasted, and then put into its skin again, when with head erect and tail outspread it was borne into the hall by a lady--as was singularly appropriate--and given the second place on the table.
The feudal system gave scope for much magnificence at Yule-tide. At a time when several thousand retainers[4] were fed daily at a single castle or on a baron's estate, preparations for the Yule feast--the great feast of the year--were necessarily on a large scale, and the quantity of food reported to have been prepared on such occasions is perfectly appalling to Twentieth-Century feasters.
[Footnote 4: The Earl