Part 31 (1/2)

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Something of the terrible, as well as the beneficent, belongs to the ”Befana,” the Epiphany visitor who to Italian children is the great gift-bringer of the year, the Santa Klaus of the South. ”Delightful,” say Countess Martinengo, ”as are the treasures she puts in their shoes when satisfied with their behaviour, she is credited with an unpleasantly sharp eye for youthful transgressions.”{23} Mothers will sometimes warn their children that if they are naughty the Befana will fetch and eat them. To Italian youngsters she is a very real being, and her coming on Epiphany Eve is looked forward to with the greatest anxiety. Though she puts playthings and sweets in the stockings of good children, she has nothing but a birch and coal for those who misbehave themselves.{24}

Formerly at Florence images of the Befana were put up in the windows of houses, and there were processions through the streets, guys being borne about, with a great blowing of trumpets.{25} Toy trumpets are still the delight of little boys at the Epiphany in Italy.

The Befana's name is obviously derived from _Epiphania_. In Naples the little old woman who fills children's stockings is called ”Pasqua Epiphania,”[117] the northern contraction not having been acclimatized there.{26}

In Spain as well as Italy the Epiphany is a.s.sociated with presents for children, but the gift-bringers for little Spaniards are the Three Holy Kings themselves. There is an old Spanish tradition that the Magi go every year to Bethlehem to adore the infant Jesus, and on their way visit children, leaving sweets and toys for them if they have behaved well. On Epiphany Eve the youngsters go early to bed, put out their shoes on the window-sill or balcony to be filled with presents by the Wise Men, and provide a little straw for their horses.{27}

It is, or was, a custom in Madrid to look out for the Kings on Epiphany Eve. Companies of men go out with bells and pots and pans, and make a great noise. There is loud shouting, and torches cast a fantastic light upon the scene. One of the men carries a large ladder, and mounts it to see if the Kings are

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coming. Here, perhaps, some devil-scaring rite, resembling those described above, has been half-Christianized.{28}

In Provence, too, there was a custom of going to meet the Magi. In a charming chapter of his Memoirs Mistral tells us how on Epiphany Eve all the children of his countryside used to go out to meet the Kings, bearing cakes for the Magi, dried figs for their pages, and handfuls of hay for their horses. In the glory and colour of the sunset young Mistral thought he saw the splendid train; but soon the gorgeous vision died away, and the children stood gaping alone on the darkening highway--the Kings had pa.s.sed behind the mountain. After supper the little ones hurried to church, and there in the Chapel of the Nativity beheld the Kings in adoration before the Crib.{29}

At Trest not only did the young people carry baskets or dried fruit, but there were three men dressed as Magi to receive the offerings and accept compliments addressed to them by an orator. In return they presented him with a purse full of counters, upon which he rushed off with the treasure and was pursued by the others in a sort of dance.{30} Here again the Magi are evidently mixed up with something that has no relation to Christianity.

We noted in Chapter IV. the elaborate ceremonies connected in Greece with the Blessing of the Waters at the Epiphany, and the custom of diving for a cross. It would seem, as was pointed out, that the latter is an ecclesiastically sanctioned form of a folk-ceremony. This is found in a purer state in Macedonia, where, after Matins on the Epiphany, it is the custom to thrust some one into water, be it sea or river, pond or well.

On emerging he has to sprinkle the bystanders.{31} The rite may be compared with the drenchings of human beings in order to produce rain described by Dr. Frazer in ”The Magic Art.”{32}

Another Greek custom combines the purifying powers of Epiphany water with the fertilizing influences of the Christmas log--round Mount Olympos ashes are taken from the hearth where a cedar log has been burning since Christmas, and are baptized in the blessed water of the river. They are then borne

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to the vineyards, and thrown at their four corners, and also at the foot of apple- and fig-trees.{33}

This may remind us that in England fruit-trees used to come in for special treatment on the Vigil of the Epiphany. In Devons.h.i.+re the farmer and his men would go to the orchard with a large jug of cider, and drink the following toast at the foot of one of the best-bearing apple-trees, firing guns in conclusion:--

”Here's to thee, old apple-tree, Whence thou may'st bud, and whence thou may'st blow!

And whence thou may'st bear apples enow!

Hats full! caps full!

Bushel!--bushel--sacks full, And my pockets full too! Huzza!”{34}

In seventeenth-century Somersets.h.i.+re, according to Aubrey, a piece of toast was put upon the roots.{35} According to another account each person in the company used to take a cupful of cider, with roasted apples pressed into it, drink part of the contents, and throw the rest at the tree.{36} The custom is described by Herrick as a Christmas Eve ceremony:--

”Wa.s.sail the trees, that they may bear You many a plum and many a pear; For more or less fruits they will bring, As you do give them wa.s.sailing.”{37}

In Suss.e.x the wa.s.sailing (or ”worsling”) of fruit-trees took place on Christmas Eve, and was accompanied by a trumpeter blowing on a cow's horn.{38}

The wa.s.sailing of the trees may be regarded as either originally an offering to their spirits or--and this seems more probable--as a sacramental act intended to bring fertilizing influences to bear upon them. Customs of a similar character are found in Continental countries during the Christmas season. In Tyrol, for instance, when the Christmas pies are a-making on St. Thomas's Eve, the maids are told to go out-of-doors and put their arms, sticky with paste, round the fruit-trees, in order that they

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may bear well next year.{39} The uses of the ashes of the Christmas log have already been noticed.

Sometimes, as in the Thurgau, Mecklenburg, Oldenburg, and Tyrol, the trees are beaten to make them bear. On New Year's Eve at Hildesheim people dance and sing around them,{40} while the Tyrolese peasant on Christmas Eve will go out to his trees, and, knocking with bent fingers upon them, will bid them wake up and bear.{41} There is a Slavonic custom, on the same night, of threatening apple-trees with a hatchet if they do not produce fruit during the year.{42}

Another remarkable agricultural rite was practised on Epiphany Eve in Herefords.h.i.+re and Gloucesters.h.i.+re. The farmer and his servants would meet in a field sown with wheat, and there light thirteen fires, with one larger than the rest. Round this a circle was formed by the company, and all would drink a gla.s.s of cider to the success of the harvest.[118] This done, they returned to the farm, to feast--in Gloucesters.h.i.+re--on cakes made with caraways, and soaked in cider. The Herefords.h.i.+re accounts give particulars of a further ceremony. A large cake was provided, with a hole in the middle, and after supper everyone went to the wain-house. The master filled a cup with strong ale, and standing opposite the finest ox, pledged him in a curious toast; the company followed his example with the other oxen, addressing each by name. Afterwards the large cake was put on the horn of the first ox.{43}

It is extremely remarkable, and can scarcely be a mere coincidence, that far away among the southern Slavs, as we saw in Chapter XII., a Christmas cake with a hole in its centre is likewise put upon the horn of the chief ox. The wa.s.sailing of the animals is found there also. On Christmas Day, Sir Arthur

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Evans relates, the house-mother ”entered the stall set apart for the goats, and having first sprinkled them with corn, took the wine-cup in her hand and said, 'Good morning, little mother! The Peace of G.o.d be on thee! Christ is born; of a truth He is born. May'st thou be healthy. I drink to thee in wine; I give thee a pomegranate; may'st thou meet with all good luck!' She then lifted the cup to her lips, took a sup, tossed the pomegranate among the herd, and throwing her arms round the she-goat, whose health she had already drunk, gave it the 'Peace of G.o.d'--kissed it, that is, over and over again.” The same ceremony was then performed for the benefit of the sheep and cows, and all the animals were beaten with a leafy olive-branch.{44}

As for the fires, an Irish custom to some extent supplies a parallel. On Epiphany Eve a sieve of oats was set up, ”and in it a dozen of candles set round, and in the centre one larger, all lighted.” This was said to be in memory of the Saviour and His apostles, lights of the world.{45} Here is an account of a similar custom practised in Co. Leitrim:--

”A piece of board is covered with cow-dung, and twelve rushlights are stuck therein. These are sprinkled with ash at the top, to make them light easily, and then set alight, each being named by some one present, and as each dies so will the life of its owner. A ball is then made of the dung, and it is placed over the door of the cowhouse for an increase of cattle. Sometimes mud is used, and the ball placed over the door of the dwelling-house.”{46}

There remains to be considered under Epiphany usages an ancient and very remarkable game played annually on January 6 at Haxey in Lincolns.h.i.+re. It is known traditionally as ”Haxey Hood,” and its centre is a struggle between the men of two villages for the possession of a roll of sacking or leather called the ”hood.” Over it preside the ”boggans” or ”bullocks”