God bless the master of this house, Likewise the mistress too, That round the table go. Good master and mistress, While you're sitting by the fire, Who are wandering in the mire." P. 483, 484. quoting Notes and Queries, 3rd ser., xi. 144. Here we come a wissailing, Among the leaves so green, Chorus. God send you happy (repeat). Pray God send you all a Happy New Year. We are not beggar's children, etc. The roads are very dirty, my shoes are very thin, Chorus as before. b. THE DAY. (December 25th.)* In Yorkshire and other northern parts they had an old custom. After sermon or service on Christmas Day, the people, even in the churches, cried Ule, Ule, as token of rejoicing; and the common sort ran about the streets, singing— "Ule, Ule, Ule, Ule, Three puddings in a pule, Crack nuts, and cry Ule."-H. 252. The learned have long been divided upon the precise day of the Nativity. See Sir Isaac Newton, Commentary on the Prophecies of Daniel, Part i. chap. ii. p. 144; Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church, lib. xx. cap. 4; Knight's English Cyclopædia, 1859, vol. ii. p. 882, etc. See also P. 453. Mr. Denham gives a Christmas rhyme, which is perhaps a mere jibe. Yule, Yule, A pack of new cards and a Christmas fule.-N. 62. The name given, says a correspondent of Book of Days, ii. 745, by the ancient Goths and Saxons to the festival of the winter solstice was Jul, or Yule, the latter term forming to the present day the designation in the Scottish dialect of Christmas, and preserved also in the phrase of the "Yule log." Perhaps the etymology of no term has excited greater discussion among antiquaries. Some maintain it to be derived from the Greek ovλos or Youλos, the name of a hymn in honour of Ceres, others say it comes from the Latin jubilum, signifying a time of rejoicing, or from its being a festival in honour of Julius Cæsar; whilst some also explain its meaning as synonymous with ol or oel, which in the ancient Gothic language denotes a feast, and also the favourite liquor used on such occasions whence our word ale. A much more probable derivation, however, of the term in question is from the Gothic giul or hiul, the origin of the modern word wheel, and bearing the same significance. According to this very probable explanation, the yule festival received its name from its being the turning-point of the year, or the period at which the fiery orb of day made a revolution in his annual circuit and entered on his northern journey. A confirmation of this view is afforded by the circumstance that, in the old clog almanacs, a wheel is the device employed for marking the season of yuletide. P. 453, 454 Brewer, Dictionary Phrase and Fable, says, the word means "the festival of the sun," kept at the winter solstice, when the new year or sun was ushered in. Odin, “the sun," was called "Julvatter," i.e. Yule-father. (Saxon, gehul, “the sun-feast;" Danish, juul, Swedish, oel, with the article "J;" [is this the same thing? should it not be jul? See preceding article for oel] Breton, heol, the sun; Welsh, häul.) SAINTS' DAYS, Etc. ST. PAUL'S EVE. (January 24th.) In Cornwall, particularly at Bodmin, boys gather sherds, and cast them into every house where the door can be opened, or has been inadvertently left open, crying— "Paul's eve, And here's a heave." CE. iii. 240. The contributor asks if the words of Paul, "Hath not the potter power over the clay," etc., Rom. ix. 21, have any bearing on the custom. Dyer, Customs, pp. 47, 48, quoting Brand, Pop. Antiqs., 1870, i. 23, mentions a custom of the tinners of Cornwall on this, Paul's Pitcher-day, of pelting a water-pitcher with stones until demolished, when they repair to an alehouse, buy a new pitcher, which is successively filled and emptied, and the evening is given up to merriment and misrule. It was found to be generally held as an ancient festival, intended to celebrate the day when tin was first turned into metal—in fact, the discovery of smelting. It is the occasion of a revel, as an old [tin] streamer observes, there is an open rebellion against the waterdrinking system, which is enforced upon them whilst at work. P. 47, 48. See also Notes and Queries, 2nd ser., viii. 312. ST. VALENTINE'S DAY. (February 14th.) This is a festival which lovers have observed and poets have honoured from time immemorial. The observance is much more than sixteen hundred years old, when the Christian Valentine was beaten by clubs and beheaded, at the time of the great heathen festival of love and purification. P. 101, quoting Notes and Queries, 4th ser., xi. 129. "Valentines" (persons *) were either of chance or choice: of the former class there were (a) the first woman seen by a man on St. Valentine's morn, or vice versâ; and (b) such as were drawn by lot. . lady Valentines were honoured, not by anonymous verses, but by substantial gifts. . . . When the Duke of York was Miss Stewart's Valentine, he gave her a jewel of about £800 in value; and in 1667, Lord Mandeville, being that lady's Valentine, presented her with a ring worth £300.... When a lady drew a valentine, a gentleman so drawn would have been deemed shabby if he did not accept the honour and responsibility. On February 14, 1667, we have the following: "This morning, called up by Mr. Hill, who my wife thought had come to be her Valentine-she, it seems, having drawn him; but it proved not. However, calling him up to our bedside, my wife challenged him." Pepys' Diary. In the reign of Edward the Fourth, a custom of choosing valentines was observed in the houses of the principal gentry of England. In the Paston Letters, Dame Elizabeth Brews, the mother of the lady whom Mr. John Paston afterwards married, writes to him, thus: "And cosyn uppon Fryday in Sent Valentynes Day, and every brydde (sic) chesyth hym a make, and yf it like yow to come on Thursday at nyght, and p'vey yowe yt ye may abyde y till Monday. I truste to God yt ye schall speke to mine husband, and I schall pray yt we shall brynge the matter to a conclusion." In 1476, the young lady herself addresses a letter, "Unto my ryght welebelovyd Voluntyn John Paston Squyre." Paston Letters, ii. 208, 210; Hampson's Mad. Evi Kalend., i. 163. P Again in 1667 "This morning came up to my wife's bedside little Will Mercer, to be her Valentine, and brought her name writ upon blue paper, done by himself very pretty, and we were both well pleased with it." Id. The drawing of names and name-inscriptions were remnants of old customs before the Christian era. Alban Butler, under the head of "St. Valentine, Priest and Martyr," says, "To abolish the heathens' lewd, superstitious custom of boys drawing the names of girls in honour of their goddess, Februata Juno, on the 15th of the month (the drawing being on the eve of the fourteenth), several zealous pastors substituted the names of saints in billets given on this day." This does not, however, seem to have taken place till the time of St. Francis de Sales, who, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, as we are told in his Life, "severely forbade the custom of valentines, or giving boys in writing the names of girls to be admired or attended on by them; and to abolish it, he changed it into giving billets with the names of certain saints for them to honour and imitate in a particular manner." To the drawing of names-those of the saints gave way to living objects of adoration-was first added in 1667, a custom out of which has sprung the modern epistolary valentine. In the February of that year Pepys writes: "I do first observe the fashion of drawing of mottoes as well as names; so that Pierce, who drew my wife's, did draw also a motto, 'most courteous and most fair;' which, as it may be used, or an anagram made upon each name, might be very pretty." P. 103, 104. One of the most usual forms for a valentine (missive) is— The rose is red, the violet's blue, The lot was cast, and then I drew, And fortune said it should be you.—AW. 150. See also for first four lines. AV. 239, Pinks for "honey." Sent by maid to maid. Many sets of verses conclude thus If you'll be mine, I'll be thine, And so good morrow, Valentine. The last three words are usually written on the wrapper also. P. ICO. Schoolboys have a very uncomplimentary way of presenting each other with these poetical memorials Peep, fool, peep, What do you think to see? And here's one for thee.-AV. 239. The valentines (persons) of chance were those who drew names [or those whose names were drawn]; the valentines by choice were made by those who could not [or would not] open their eyes on Valentine's morn till the one he or she most desired to see was near. The one by chance sometimes proved to be the one by choice also, and such were the true valentines. Notes and Queries, 4th ser., xi. 129, 130. Pepys records of his wife that until Will Bowyer came to be her valentine she had veiled her eyes with her hands so that she might not see the painters who were employed gilding the chimney-piece and pictures. The day is also given over to the collecting of small bribes in many parts of England. In the parish of Ryburgh, Norfolk, children go round for contributions, saying "God bless the baker, If you will be the giver, I will be the taker."-CH. v. 595; CJ. i. 129. In Berkshire they say— "Knock the kittle agin the pan, Gie us a penny if 'e can; Up wie the kettle, down wi' the spout, i.e. stop this singing. AD. 15. "Good morrow, Valentine, First it's yours and then it's mine, Morrow, morrow, Valentine, Good morrow, Valentine! |
