Yule-Tide in Many Lands | Page 6

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 of Warwick had some thirty thousand.]
Massinger wrote:
"Men may talk of Country Christmasses, Their thirty-pound butter'd
eggs, their pies of carp's tongue, Their pheasants drench'd with
ambergris, the carcasses Of three fat wethers bruis'd for gravy, to Make
sauces for a single peacock; yet their feasts Were fasts, compared with
the City's."
In 1248 King Henry III held a feast in Westminster Hall for the poor
which lasted a week. Four years later he entertained one thousand
knights, peers, and other nobles, who came to attend the marriage of
Princess Margaret with Alexander, King of the Scots. He was
generously assisted by the Archbishop of York who gave £2700,
besides six hundred fat oxen. A truly royal Christmas present whether
extorted or given of free will!
More than a century later Richard II held Christmas at Litchfield and
two thousand oxen and two hundred tuns of wine were consumed. This
monarch was accustomed to providing for a large family, as he kept
two thousand cooks to prepare the food for the ten thousand persons
who dined every day at his expense.
Henry VIII, not to be outdone by his predecessors, kept one Yule-tide
at which the cost of the cloth of gold that was used alone amounted to
£600. Tents were erected within the spacious hall from which came the
knights to joust in tournament; beautiful artificial gardens were
arranged out of which came the fantastically dressed dancers. The

Morris (Moresque) Dance came into vogue in England during the reign
of Henry VII, and long continued to be a favorite. The dancers were
decorated from crown to toe in gay ribbon streamers, and cut all
manner of antics for the amusement of the guests. This dance held the
place at Yule that the Fool's Dance formerly held during the Roman
Saturnalia.
Henry VIII's daughter, Elizabeth, kept the season in great magnificence
at Hampton Court where plays written for the occasion were presented.
The poet Herrick favored:
"Of Christmas sports, the wassell boule, That's tost up after
Fox-i-th'-hole."
This feature of Yule observance, which is usually attributed to Rowena,
daughter of Vortigern, dates back to the grace-cup of the Greeks and
Romans which is also the supposed source of the bumper. According to
good authority the word bumper came from the grace-cup which
Roman Catholics drank to the Pope, au bon Père. The wassail bowl of
spiced ale has continued in favor ever since the Princess Rowena bade
her father's guests Wassheil.
The offering of gifts at Yule has been observed since offerings were
first made to the god Frey for a fruitful year. In olden times one of the
favorite gifts received from tenants was an orange stuck with cloves
which the master was to hang in his wine vessels to improve the flavor
of the wine and prevent its moulding.
As lords received gifts from their tenants, so it was the custom for
kings to receive gifts from their nobles. Elizabeth received a goodly
share of her wardrobe as gifts from her courtiers, and if the quality or
quantity was not satisfactory, the givers were unceremoniously
informed of the fact. In 1561 she received at Yule a present of a pair of
black silk stockings knit by one of her maids, and never after would she
wear those made of cloth. Underclothing of all kinds, sleeves richly
embroidered and bejeweled, in fact everything she needed to wear,
were given to her and she was completely fitted out at this season.

In 1846 Sir Henry Cole is said to have originated the idea of sending
Christmas cards to friends. They were the size of small visiting-cards,
often bearing a small colored design--a spray of holly, a flower, or a bit
of mistletoe--and the compliments of the day. Joseph Crandall was the
first publisher. Only about one thousand were sold the first year, but by
1862 the custom of sending one of these pretty cards in an envelope or
with