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Title: The story of Santa Klaus
       Told for children of all ages from six to sixty

Author: William S. Walsh

Illustrator: Thomas Nast

Release Date: February 26, 2023 [eBook #70142]

Language: English

Produced by: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed
             Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
             produced from images generously made available by The
             Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF SANTA
KLAUS ***





THE STORY OF SANTA KLAUS




[Illustration: Merry Christmas to all!

From Thomas Nast’s “Christmas Drawings for the Human Race.”

Copyright 1889 by Harper and Brothers.]




  THE STORY OF SANTA KLAUS

  TOLD FOR CHILDREN OF ALL
  AGES FROM SIX TO SIXTY

  BY
  WILLIAM S. WALSH

  AND ILLUSTRATED BY ARTISTS OF ALL AGES
  FROM FRA ANGELICO TO HENRY HUTT

  [Illustration]

  NEW YORK
  MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
  1909




  Copyright, 1909, by
  WILLIAM S. WALSH
  NEW YORK

  Published October, 1909




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                              PAGE

     I. WHO IS SANTA KLAUS                               13

    II. STRANGE ADVENTURES OF THE SAINT’S BODY           39

   III. CHRIST-KINKLE AND CHRIST-KINDLEIN                50

    IV. THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTMAS                       58

     V. SILENUS, SATURN, THOR                            69

    VI. A TERRIBLE CHRISTMAS IN OLD FRANCE               80

   VII. THE CHRISTMAS TREE IN LEGEND                     90

  VIII. THE CHRISTMAS TREE IN HISTORY                    99

    IX. THE CHRISTMAS TREE IN EUROPE                    109

     X. THE CHRISTMAS TREE IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA       118

    XI. THE STORY OF THE THREE KINGS                    124

   XII. SOME TWELFTH NIGHT CUSTOMS                      151

  XIII. ST. NICHOLAS IN ENGLAND                         158

   XIV. FATHER CHRISTMAS AND HIS FAMILY                 165

    XV. PANTOMIME IN THE PAST AND PRESENT               185

   XVI. SAINT NICHOLAS IN EUROPE                        194

  XVII. SAINT NICHOLAS IN AMERICA                       214




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                       PAGE

  Merry Christmas to all!                    _Frontispiece_

  St. Nicholas as the patron saint of children           15

  The Consecration of St. Nicholas                       19

  St. Nicholas and the three maidens                     23

  St. Nicholas resuscitating the schoolboys              27

  Bishop Nicholas                                        31

  St. Nicholas of Bari                                   35

  Heads of the Christ-child                              41

  The Christ-child surrounded by angels                  47

  “Suffer little children to come unto me”               51

  Christ the giver                                       55

  Christmas presents                                     59

  Saturn, the God of Time                                63

  Silenus and Fauns                                      71

  Santa Claus and his young friends                      73

  Carrying home the Christmas dinner                     77

  The Feast of the Passover                              81

  The Adoration of the Lamb                              87

  Luther and the Christmas tree                         101

  Christmas tree of the English royal family            111

  On the way to Bethlehem                               125

  The Three Kings visit Herod                           129

  The Journey of the Three Kings                        133

  The Arrival of the Three Kings                        137

  The Adoration of the Magi (1)                         141

  The Adoration of the Magi (2)                         145

  The Adoration of the Three Kings                      149

  The Child’s Twelfth Night Dream                       153

  Father Christmas                                      167

  Father Christmas (another conception)                 171

  The Old and the New Christmas                         175

  Bringing in Old Christmas                             179

  The Christmas Waits                                   183

  Jongleurs announcing the birth of our Lord            187

  Going to the Pantomime                                191

  Mute admiration                                       195

  Santa Klaus comes to grief on an automobile           199

  “No, I don’t believe in you any more”                 203

  Santa Klaus                                           207

  Santa Klaus up in a balloon                           211

  New Year’s gifts in a French workingman’s family      215

  French children gazing up the chimney for gifts       219

  Silenus and Bacchus                                   223

  The bambino                                           225

  Santa Klaus on New Year’s eve                         227

  The investigating committee                           229

  St. Nicholas unveils                                  231




THE STORY OF SANTA KLAUS




CHAPTER I

WHO IS SANTA KLAUS?


If you go to England you will find many people there who have never
heard of Santa Klaus. Only the other day a leading London paper
confessed that it could not understand why a magazine for children
should be called St. Nicholas.

Now if you were asked the question which heads this chapter do you
think you could answer it so as to make an Englishman understand who
Santa Klaus is? Could you also explain what connection Saint Nicholas
has with children?

Of course you might glibly reply:

“Santa Klaus is the Dutch diminutive (or pet name) for Saint Nicholas,
and Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of boys and girls.”

But the Englishman might want to know more than this. Perhaps you
yourself would be glad to know more. It is for the purpose of supplying
you with information that I have prepared this little book.

Let us begin with the legends which concern this holy man and see what
help they will give us. I say let us begin with the legends, because
history itself tells us little or nothing about the saint beyond the
fact that he was Bishop of a town called Myra in Asia Minor and that
he died about the year 342. Legend fills out these meagre details with
many a pretty story which throws a kindly light upon the character of
good Saint Nicholas.

You know what a legend is? It means a story which was not put into
writing by historians at the time when the thing is said to have
happened, but which has been handed down from father to son for
hundreds and sometimes for thousands of years. It may or may not have
had some basis of truth at the beginning. But after passing from mouth
to mouth in this fashion it is very likely to lose what truth it once
possessed. Still, even if the facts are not given in just the manner in
which they happened there is nearly always some useful moral wrapped
up in the fiction that has grown around the facts. That is why wise
and learned men are glad to collect these legends from the lips of the
peasants and other simple minded folk who have learned them at their
mothers’ knee, and who believe that they are all true. These legends
are called by the general name of folk-lore.

[Illustration: St. Nicholas as the patron of children.

Italian print.]

Two brothers of the name of Grimm once collected into a book the
folk-lore of their native country, Germany. This book is known to you
as Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Hans Christian Andersen also found among the
legends of Denmark some of the prettiest and most fanciful of his tales.

Now stories concerning Saint Nicholas abound in almost every country
of Europe, for almost every country except Great Britain is interested
in his name and fame. He may, indeed, be called the busiest of all
the saints. In the first place legend makes him the patron saint of
children all over the world, no matter of what sex or color or station
in life. Ever childlike and humble, so we are told by a quaint old
author, “he keepeth the name of a child, for he chose to keep the
virtues of meekness and simpleness. Thus he lived all his life in
virtues with this child’s name, and therefore children do him worship
before all other saints.”

One might think that to be a patron of the world’s children would keep
one saint pretty busy, even if it did not exhaust his energies. Not so
with Saint Nicholas. He occupies his spare moments as the protector
of the weak against the strong, of the poor against the rich, of the
servant and the slave against the master. Because he once calmed a
storm he is the patron of travellers and sailors and of many seaport
towns. Because he once converted a gang of robbers and made them
restore their booty to the men they had robbed he is still thought to
retain a kindly interest in thieves.

Moreover he is the patron of the largest of all European countries, the
empire of Russia.

Now we will make our promised examination of the legends which have
gathered around this saint and given him a fame so widespread.

Saint Nicholas is said to have been born in a town called Potara in
Asia Minor. To the great wonder of his nurses he stood up in a tub
on the day of his birth with his hands clasped together and his eyes
raised to heaven and gave thanks to God for having brought him into the
world. It is added that on Wednesday and Fridays, (both fast days in
the early Church) he would refuse to take milk until the going down of
the sun.

His parents died when he was very young. As they were wealthy they left
him well provided with the world’s goods. But he would not accept them
for himself. Instead he used them for the good of the poor and of the
Church.

When he was old enough he studied for the priesthood in the town of
Myra and was ordained as soon as he had reached man’s estate. He at
once set sail on a voyage to the Holy Land to visit the tomb of Jesus
Christ in Jerusalem. On the way a dreadful storm arose. The winds
howled and whistled, the great waves shook the vessel from stem to
stern.

[Illustration: The consecration of St. Nicholas.

Old print.]

The captain and the sailors who had been used to bad weather pretty
much all their lives declared that this was the worst storm they had
ever known. Indeed they had given up all hope when the young Nicholas
bade them be of good cheer.

His prayers soon calmed the wind and the waves, so that the ship
reached Alexandria safe and sound. There the saint landed and made the
greater part of the journey from Alexandria to Jerusalem on foot.

Returning by sea, he wished to go straight back to Myra. The captain,
however, would not obey his orders and tried to make the port of
Alexandria. Then Saint Nicholas prayed again and another great storm
arose. And the captain was so frightened by this evidence of the
saint’s powers that he gladly listened to his request and headed the
ship towards Myra.

In the year 325 Nicholas, then still a young man, was elected Bishop
of Myra. On the day of his consecration to that office a woman brought
into the church a child which had fallen into the fire and been
badly burned. Nicholas made the sign of the cross over the child and
straightway restored it to health. That is the first of his miracles
which showed the interest that he took in children.

Two other miracles which are still more famous are thought to
foreshadow the fame he has won since his death as the patron of
children and the bearer of gifts to them at the holy Christmas season.

Among the members of his flock (so runs the first story) there was a
certain nobleman who had three young daughters. From being rich he
became poor,--so poor that he could not afford to support his daughters
nor supply the dowry which would enable him to marry them off. For in
those days, as even now in many countries in Europe, young men expected
that a bride should bring with her a sum of money from her parents with
which the young couple could start housekeeping. This is called the
dowry.

Over and over the thought came into the nobleman’s mind to tell his
daughters that they must go away from home and seek their own living as
servants or in even meaner ways. Shame and sorrow alone held him dumb.
Meanwhile the maidens wept continually, not knowing what to do, and
having no bread to eat. So their father grew more and more desperate.

At last the matter came to the ears of Saint Nicholas. That kindly
soul thought it a shame that such things should happen in a Christian
country. So one night when the maidens were asleep and their father sat
alone, watching and weeping, Saint Nicholas took a handful of gold and
tying it up in a handkerchief, or as some say placing it in a purse,
set out for the nobleman’s house.

[Illustration: St. Nicholas and the three maidens.

Fifteenth century painting.]

He considered how he might best bestow the money without making himself
known. While he stood hesitating the moon came up from behind a
cloud, and showed him an open window. He threw the purse containing the
gold in through the window and it fell at the feet of the father.

Greatly rejoiced was the old gentleman when the money plumped down
beside him. Picking up the purse he gave thanks to God and presented it
to his eldest daughter as her dowry. Thus she was enabled to marry the
young man whom she loved.

Not long afterwards Saint Nicholas collected together another purse
of money and threw it into the nobleman’s house just as he had done
before. Thus a dowry was provided for the second daughter.

And now the curiosity of the nobleman was excited. He greatly desired
to know who it was that had come so generously to his aid. So he
determined to watch. When the good saint came for a third time and made
ready to throw in the third purse, he was discovered, for the nobleman
seized him by the skirt of his robe and flung himself at his feet,
crying:

“Oh, Nicholas, servant of God, why seek to hide thyself?”

And he kissed the holy man’s feet and hands. But Saint Nicholas made
him promise that he would tell no one what had occurred.

The second legend is much more wonderful. It tells how Saint Nicholas
was once travelling through his diocese at a time when the people had
been driven to the verge of starvation. One night he put up at an
inn kept by a very cruel and very wicked man, though nobody in the
neighborhood yet suspected his guilt.

This monster, finding that the famine had made beef and mutton
extremely scarce and greatly raised their price, had conceived the
idea of filling his pantry with the fat juicy corpses of children whom
he kidnapped, killed and served up to his guests in all varieties of
nicely cooked dishes and under all sorts of fancy names.

Nobody could guess how he alone of all the innkeepers in that
neighborhood could maintain a table so well supplied with meats, boiled
and roasted, and stews and hashes and nice tasty soups.

But no sooner had a dish of this human flesh been served up to the
saint than he discovered the horrible truth.

Leaping to his feet he poured out his anger in bitter but righteous
words. Vainly the landlord fawned and cringed and protested that he was
innocent. Saint Nicholas simply walked over to the tub where the bodies
of the children had been salted down. All he had to do was to make the
sign of the cross over the tub, and lo! three little boys, who had been
missing for days, arose alive and well, and, coming out of the tub,
knelt at the feet of the saint.

[Illustration: St. Nicholas resuscitating the schoolboys.

Old Neapolitan print.]

All the other guests of the inn were struck dumb at the miracle. The
children were restored to their mother, who was a widow. As to the
landlord, he was taken out and stoned to death, as he richly deserved
to be.

Another of St. Nicholas’ miracles shows that he had a kind heart for
grown-ups as well as for the young folk. A revolt having broken out in
Phrygia, Emperor Constantine sent a number of his tribunes to quell it.
When they had reached Myra, the bishop invited them to his table so
that they would not quarter themselves on poorer citizens, who might be
ill able to afford their keep.

A grand banquet was served up to them. As host and guests were
preparing to sit down, news was brought into the hall that the prefect
of the city had condemned three men to death, on a false accusation
that they were rebels. They had just been led to execution and the
whole city was in a ferment of excitement over this terrible act of
injustice.

Nicholas rose at once from the table. Followed by his guests he ran to
the place of execution. There he found the three men kneeling on the
ground, their eyes bound with bandages, and the executioner standing
over them waving his bared sword in the air. Nicholas snatched the
sword out of his hand. Then he ordered the men to be unbound. No one
dared to disobey him. Even the prefect fell upon his knees and humbly
craved forgiveness, which was granted with some reluctance.

Meanwhile the tribunes, looking on at the scene, were filled with
wonder and admiration. They, too, cast themselves at the feet of the
holy man and besought his blessing. Then, having feasted their fill on
the banquet that had been provided for them, the tribunes continued
their journey to Phrygia.

They, too, it was decreed were to fall under the ban of a false
accusation. During their absence from Constantinople, Constantine’s
mind had been poisoned against them by their enemies. Immediately on
their return he cast them into prison. They were tried and condemned to
death as traitors. From the dungeon into which they had been cast to
await the carrying out of this sentence they sent out a piteous prayer
to St. Nicholas for assistance. Though he was hundreds of miles away,
he heard them.

And that same night he appeared to Constantine in a dream, commanding
him to release these men and to declare them innocent,--threatening
him at the same time with the wrath of God if he refused. Constantine
did not refuse. He took the saint’s word for their innocence, pardoned
them, and set them free. Next morning he despatched them to Myra to
thank Saint Nicholas in person for their happy deliverance. As a thank
offering they bore him a copy of the gospels, written in letters of
gold, and bound in a cover embossed with pearls and precious stones.

[Illustration: Bishop Nicholas.

From old Italian print.]

Nor did the saint’s miracles end with his life. Even after death he
listened from his high place in heaven to the prayers of the humblest
and gladly hastened to their assistance when they asked for help in the
right spirit and at the right time.

Here are three legends which have been especially popular in literature
and art.

A Jew of Calabria, hearing of the wonderful miracles which had been
performed by Saint Nicholas, stole his image out of the parish church
and bore it away to his home. There he placed it in his parlor.
And when, next day, he had made ready to go out for the morning he
commended all his treasures to the care of the saint, impudently
threatening that his image would be soundly thrashed if he failed in
his trust. No sooner was the Jew’s back turned, however, than robbers
broke into the house and carried off all its treasures. Great was the
Jew’s wrath when he returned. Bitter were the reproaches he hurled at
the saint. Many and fierce were the whacks he bestowed upon the image.

That very night Saint Nicholas, all bruised and bleeding, appeared to
the robbers, and commanded them immediately to restore what they had
taken. Terrified at the vision they leaped to their feet, collected
the plunder, and brought it back to the Jew’s house. The Jew was so
astonished at the miracle that he was easily converted to Christianity
and baptized.

There was a wealthy man who, though married, had no son to inherit his
estate. This man vowed that if Saint Nicholas would provide him with
an heir he would present a cup of gold to the saint’s altar at Myra.
Saint Nicholas heard the prayer and, through his intercession, God sent
the childless man a son. At once the father ordered the cup of gold to
be prepared. When it was finished, however, it seemed so beautiful in
his eyes that he decided to keep it for himself and offer the saint a
meaner one made of silver. When this, too, was finished, the merchant
with his son set out to make the presentation. On the journey he
stopped by a river to quench his thirst. Taking out the golden cup he
bade the son fetch him some water. In obeying the child fell into the
river and was drowned.

Weeping bitter tears of repentance the merchant appeared in the church
of Saint Nicholas and there made his offering of the silver cup. But
the cup would not stay where it was put. Once, twice, thrice, it fell
off the altar.

While all the people stared with astonishment, behold the drowned
boy appeared before them,--standing on the steps of the altar with
the golden cup in his hand. Full of joy and gratitude, the father
offered both the cups to the saint and bore his son home with
thanksgivings to God and to His saint.

[Illustration: St. Nicholas of Bari.

Old Italian print.]

A certain rich merchant, himself a Christian, dwelt on the borders of
a heathen country. He cultivated a special devotion to Saint Nicholas.
One day his only son was taken captive by some of the wicked neighbors
across the boundary line and sold into slavery. The lad finally became
the property of the pagan king, and served him as his cup-bearer.

One day, while filling the royal cup at dinner he suddenly remembered
that it was December 6, and the feast of Saint Nicholas. He burst into
tears at the thought that his family were even then gathered around the
dinner table in honor of their patron.

“Why weepest thou?” testily asked the king. “Seest thou not that thy
tears fall into my cup and spoil my wine?”

And the boy answered through his sobs:

“This is the day when my parents and my kindred are met together in
great joy to honor our good Saint Nicholas; and I, alas! am far away
from them.”

Then the pagan blasphemer swore a good round oath and said:

“Great as is thy Saint Nicholas, he cannot save thee from my hand!”

Hardly were the words out of his mouth when a whirlwind shook the
palace. A flash of lightning was followed by a loud peal of thunder
and lo! Saint Nicholas himself stood in the midst of the affrighted
feasters. He caught the youth up by the hair of his head so suddenly
that he had no time to drop the royal cup, and whirled him through the
air at a prodigious speed until, a few moments later, he landed him
in his home. The family were gathered in the dining room when saint
and boy made their appearance,--the father being even then engaged in
distributing the banquet to the poor, beseeching in return that they
would offer up their prayers in behalf of his captive son.




CHAPTER II

STRANGE ADVENTURES OF THE SAINT’S BODY


St. Nicholas, as I have said, died in the year 342 and was buried with
great honor in the cathedral at Myra.

Being the patron saint of such roving folk as sailors, merchants and
travellers it was only natural that his body should have lain in
perpetual peril from thievish hands. The relics of saints were highly
prized because it was held that they performed miracles on behalf of
the townsfolk and of the strangers who visited their shrines. Of course
the relics of so great and popular a saint as Nicholas were especially
coveted, and most so by the classes of whom he was the patron.

In those rude days it was believed that no saint was greatly troubled
by the manner in which his body was procured. Even if it were stolen
and reburied elsewhere by the robbers themselves the body worked
miracles in its new abode as cheerfully as it had done in the old one.
Moreover it drew trade and custom to any city in which it was enshrined
and so brought wealth to the people of the entire neighborhood.

In fact pilgrims from various parts of the world came in crowds to the
shrine at Myra. As the fame of Saint Nicholas increased so did the
value of his relics. At various times during the first six centuries
after his burial attempts were made to carry off his body by force or
by fraud.

None of these attempts was successful until, in the year 1084, certain
merchants from the city of Bari, in southeastern Italy, landed at Myra
to find that the entire countryside had been laid waste by an invasion
of the Turks. All the men who could bear arms had gathered together and
were now gone in pursuit of the invaders. Three monks only had been
left behind to stand guard over the shrine of Saint Nicholas.

It was an easy task for the merchants of Bari to overpower these monks,
break open the coffin which contained the body and bear it away with
them to their own city.

Here it was received with great joy. A fine new church was built on
the site of an old one which had been dedicated to Saint Stephen and
which was now torn down to make room for its successor. This was to
serve as a shrine for the stolen body. The new church is still standing
and though it is now old it is still magnificent. In a crypt or vault
under its high altar lies all that was mortal of the one-time Bishop
of Myra. On the very day of the re-burial, so it is said, no less than
thirty people who attended the ceremony were cured of their various
ailments.

[Illustration: Heads of the Christ-child.

Selected from Raphael’s pictures.]

Such is the story that is generally accepted. But another story was and
is told by the people of Venice. They, too, claim that they possess
the body of Saint Nicholas, and insist that it was taken from Myra by
Venetian merchants in the year 1100, and reburied in Venice by the
citizens.

They do not accept the story told by the Bari merchants, but declare
that the latter carried off from another spot the body of another
saint, possibly of the same name, which they palmed off upon their
fellow citizens as the body of the former Bishop of Myra.

The true body, they claim, is that which lies to-day, as it has lain
for centuries, in the church of St. Nicholas on the Lido. The Lido is a
bank of sand which projects, promontory fashion, out of the Grand Canal
in Venice into the Adriatic Sea.

The fame of a holy man so closely connected with two great trading
ports of the Middle Ages was sure to spread wider and wider among
the nations of Europe. And, indeed, we find that everywhere sailors
acknowledged him as their special guide and protector and sang his
praises wherever they landed.

Both at Bari and at Venice the churches dedicated in his honor stand
close to the mouth of the harbor. Venetian crews on their way out to
sea would land at the Lido and proceed to the church of St. Nicholas,
there to ask for a blessing on their voyage. There also they would stop
on their home-coming to give thanks for a safe return. Sailors of Bari
would in the same way honor the shrine in which lay what they claimed
was the true body of Saint Nicholas.

Many tales of miraculous escapes from shipwreck, due to the
intercession of their patron, were related by seamen and travellers,
not only at home, but at the various ports where they stopped, so that
the name and fame of the good Saint Nicholas grew more resplendent
every year. Churches erected in his honor abound in the fishing
villages and harbors of Europe.

In England alone, before the Reformation, there were 376 churches which
bore his name. The largest parish church in the entire land is that of
St. Nicholas at Yarmouth, which was built in the twelfth century and
retains that name to the present day. Some of the other churches were
rebaptized by the Protestants.

The churches dedicated to Saint Nicholas in Catholic countries are
especially dear to people who make their living out of the sea. Sailors
and fishermen when ashore frequent them, and if they have just escaped
from any of the perils of the deep they show gratitude to their patron
by hanging up on the church walls what are known as votive pictures.
These are either prints of the saint or sketches, rudely drawn by local
artists, which represent the danger that the sailors had run and the
manner in which they had escaped. Often a figure of Saint Nicholas
appears in the darkened heavens to calm the fears of the imperilled
mariners.

It is fishermen and sailors also who take the chief part in the great
festival in honor of Saint Nicholas that is celebrated at Bari on the
fifth and sixth of December in every year.

Bari, it may be well to explain, is a very old and still a very
important seaport on the eastern coast of southern Italy. It is
situated on a small peninsula projecting into the Adriatic. From very
early days the city has been the official seat of an archbishop and
hence possesses a grand old cathedral.

Grand, however, as is this cathedral, it is eclipsed both in beauty and
in popular regard by the church of Saint Nicholas which I have already
mentioned as containing the bones of the saint. These repose in a
sepulchre, or huge tomb, that stands in a magnificent crypt some twenty
feet beneath the high altar. Water trickles out through the native
rock which forms the tomb. It is collected by the priests on a sponge
attached to a reed, is squeezed into bottles, and sold or given away
under the name of “Manna of Saint Nicholas” as a cure for many ailments.

On the eve of Saint Nicholas’ Day, that is on the day before it
(December 5th) the city of Bari is overrun by hosts of pilgrims from
the neighboring cities, as well as others from the furthest corners
of Italy and even from Mediterranean France and Spain and Adriatic
Austria. All Catholic mariners whose ships happen to be lying in port
at the time are sure to join the throng.

The pilgrims carry staffs decorated with olive, palm or pine branches.
From each staff depends a water bottle, which is to be filled with
the manna of Saint Nicholas. Most of the pilgrims are barefoot. All
are clad in the picturesque costumes in use in their native places on
holiday occasions.

On entering the church the pilgrims may, if they choose, make a
complete circuit of it, moving around on their knees with their
foreheads pressed every now and then against the marble pavement. Often
a little child leads them by means of a string or handkerchief, one end
being held in the mouth of the pilgrim.

Next day, December 6th,--the actual feast of Saint Nicholas,--is
celebrated by a procession of the seafaring men of Bari. Rising at
daybreak they enter the church early in the morning. The priests, who
have assembled to greet them, take down from the altar a wooden image
of Saint Nicholas, clad in the robes of a bishop. This is handed over
to the care of the paraders for the rest of the day. The priests may
accompany the image only as far as the outer gate of the church. The
procession, with the image in the hands of its leaders, files out into
the street and, followed by the populace, visits the cathedral and
other sacred or public places. Then the leaders take Saint Nicholas
out to sea in a boat. Hundreds of other boats accommodate their fellow
paraders, as also such of the citizens as can afford the luxury, and
follow Saint Nicholas over the waves.

[Illustration: The Christ-child surrounded by angels.

Painting by Rubens.]

The shore meanwhile is lined with the bulk of the populace of Bari
and the pilgrim visitors who eagerly await the return of the image at
night-fall. Bonfires are then burned, rockets are shot off, everybody
who possesses a candle or torch lights it and the people fall in line
with the paraders to restore the sacred image to its guardians at the
church.




CHAPTER III

CHRIST-KINKLE AND CHRIST-KINDLEIN


I have now told you all that is known of the story of Saint Nicholas
during his lifetime and even after his death. I think you will agree
that we have not yet gone very far in identifying Santa Klaus, the
modern Saint Nicholas, with the historic saint who was once Bishop of
Myra.

It is true that some learned men have thought to find in the legend of
the three maidens an answer to a couple of problems that bother the
inquiring mind.

First they explain that the three purses of gold, which, in pictures
by the old Italian masters, figure as three golden balls, and which
were looked upon as the special symbol or sign of the charitable Saint
Nicholas, are the origin of those three gilt balls which swing over a
pawnbroker’s shop in token of that well-spring of human kindness which
has earned for him the affectionate title of “uncle.”

[Illustration: “Suffer little children to come unto me.”

Painting by B. Plockhorst.]

If you have a fine sense of humor you will see that the last sentence
is sarcasm. And if you have small love for clever explanations that
don’t explain, you will reject this theory of the origin of the
pawnbroker’s sign and prefer to believe that it sprang from the gilt
pills which adorned the shield of the great Medici family of Italy.
Medici means doctors. Both the name and the shield were reminders that
the family earned their first fame as physicians many years before they
became the greatest princes and money changers of Europe.

But the other theory, what of that? The other theory is more to the
point. It assumes that the Saint Nicholas who was Bishop of Myra is the
Santa Klaus of modern Christmas, whom he pre-figured in the fact that
he appeared in the night-time and secretly made valuable presents to
the children of a certain household.

Here is some appearance of truth. In the first place there can be no
doubt that Santa Klaus and Saint Nicholas are the same name. Indeed to
this day our Christmas saint is known either as Santa Klaus or Saint
Nicholas, Klaus in Dutch being “short and sweet” for Nicholaus, and, as
such, the same as our Nick for Nicholas.

But, after all, there seems to be little likeness in other respects
between the saint of the legend and the modern patron of the Christmas
season. What connection is there between a single case of charity,
performed at no particular time, with the splendid and widespread
generosity of Santa Klaus, who every Christmas eve loads himself
down with presents for the little ones he loves, and finds means to
distribute them all over the land in a single night?

As the answer is not apparent on the surface, let us turn to the other
legend. We shall have to confess however that the story of the three
schoolboys miraculously restored to life after they had been cut up
and salted down, helps us even less than does the story of the three
purses. It is simply one of a whole group of stories wherein Saint
Nicholas appears as the friend and benefactor of children. In this
respect only does he resemble our Santa Klaus.

In all the characteristics which modern painters and story tellers, in
America, in Holland and in Germany, have bestowed upon the jolly saint
of the Christmas season he differs entirely from the slender and even
emaciated Nicholas, clad in the robes of a bishop, with a mitre on his
head and a crozier in his hand, whom the early painters were fond of
depicting.

So the legends of Saint Nicholas afford but a slight clew to the origin
of Santa Klaus,--alike, indeed, in name but so unlike in all other
respects.

Let us turn elsewhere. In Germany and to a certain extent in America
the name Christ-Kinkle or Kriss-Kingle is looked upon as another name
for Santa Klaus. But in fact history teaches us that is a far different
Being, though the two have been welded into one in the popular
imagination.

[Illustration: Christ the giver.

Painting by Murillo.]

A very small knowledge of German reveals the fact that Christ-Kinkle
is simply a “corruption” or mistaken pronunciation of the German word
Christ-Kindlein which in English means Christ-child. Now the connection
of the Christ-child with the gift-giving season is obvious enough. In
the first place He is the hero of Christmas day itself. Born a human
child He ever preserved a great love for young people.

“Suffer little children to come unto me,” He said, “for of such is the
kingdom of Heaven.”

The old masters were fond of painting Him as a child among children. In
nearly all the famous pictures which Raphael, the greatest of Italian
artists, painted of the Holy Family or of the Madonna and Child, the
infant Jesus is accompanied by the infant Saint John as friend and
playmate.




CHAPTER IV

THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTMAS


Now I must own that at first sight it is difficult to explain how
the Christ-child of the past--the Holy One whose birth is remembered
and honored in that feast which we call Christmas, should gradually
have been changed into the white-haired, white-bearded, merry-hearted
and kindly old pagan whom we sometimes call Christ-Kinkle but more
frequently Santa Klaus.

Yet at the very moment when we come face to face with this difficult
problem we have reached the explanation which seemed impossible when we
strove to understand the much less startling transformation of Saint
Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, into Santa Klaus, patron of the Christmas
season.

We remember that the Christmas festival of to-day is a gradual
evolution from times that long antedated the Christian period. We
remember that though it celebrates the mightiest event in the history
of Christendom, it was overlaid upon heathen festivals, and many of its
observances are only adaptations of pagan to Christian ceremonial.

[Illustration: Christmas presents.

Painting by F. Defregger.]

This was no mere accident. It was a necessary measure at a time when
the new religion was forcing itself upon a deeply superstitious people.
In order to reconcile fresh converts to the new faith, and to make the
breaking of old ties as painless as possible, these relics of paganism
were retained under modified forms, in the same way that antique
columns, transferred from pagan temples, became parts of the new
churches built by Christians in honor of their God and his saints.

Thus we find that when Pope Gregory sent Saint Augustine as a
missionary to convert Anglo-Saxon England he directed that so far as
possible the saint should accommodate the new and strange Christian
rites to the heathen ones with which the natives had been familiar
from their birth. For example, he advised Saint Augustine to allow his
converts on certain festivals to eat and kill a great number of oxen to
the glory of God the Father, as formerly they had done this in honor of
the devil. All pagan gods, it should be explained, were looked upon as
devils by the early Christians.

On the very Christmas after his arrival in England Saint Augustine
baptized many thousands of converts and permitted their usual December
celebration under the new name and with the new meaning. He forbade
only the mingling together of Christians and pagans in the dances.

From these early pagan-Christian ceremonies are derived many of the
English holiday customs that have survived to our day.

Now get clearly into your head one very important fact. Although at
the time when Augustine visited England the date of Christmas had been
fixed upon as December 25 there is no biblical reason why this should
be so. The gospels say nothing about the season of the year when Christ
was born. On the other hand they do tell us that shepherds were then
guarding their flocks in the open air. Hence many of the early fathers
of the Church considered it most likely that the Nativity took place
either in the late summer or the early fall. The point was of no great
moment to them, as the early Church made more fuss over the death day
of a great or holy person than over his birthday. The birthday is only
the day when man is born into mortality, the death day chronicles his
birth into immortality.

The important fact then which I have asked you to get clearly into your
head is that the fixing of the date as December 25th was a compromise
with paganism.

For countless centuries before the Christian era pagan Europe, through
all its various tribes and peoples, had been accustomed to celebrate
its chief festival at the time of the winter solstice, the turning
point when winter, having reached its apogee, has also reached the
point when it must begin to decline again towards spring.

[Illustration: Saturn, the God of Time.

Painting by Raphael.]

The last sentence requires further explanation. I shall try to put it
into words as simple as possible.

You must be aware of the fact that the shortest day in the year is
December 21st. Therefore that is the day when winter reaches its height.

It was on or about December 21st that the ancient Greeks celebrated
what are known to us as the Bacchanalia or festivities in honor of
Bacchus,[1] the god of wine. In these festivities the people gave
themselves up to songs, dances and other revels which frequently passed
the limits of decency and order.

In ancient Rome the Saturnalia, or festivals in honor of Saturn, the
god of time, began on December 17th and continued for seven days. These
also often ended in riot and disorder. Hence the words Bacchanalia and
Saturnalia acquired an evil reputation in later times.

We are most interested in the festivals of the ancient Teutonic (or
German) tribes because they are most closely linked with Christmas as
we ourselves celebrate it.

The pagan feast of the Twelve Nights was religiously kept by them from
December 25th to January 6th, the latter day being known, as it is
still known to their descendants, as Twelfth Night. The Teutonic mind
personified the active forces of nature,--that is to say it pictured
them as living beings.

The conflicts between these forces were represented as battles between
gods and giants.

Winter, for example, was the Ice-giant,--cruel, boisterous, unruly,
the destroyer of life, the enemy alike of gods and men. Riding on his
steed, the all-stiffening North Wind, he built up for himself great
castles of ice. Darkness and death followed in his wake.

But the Sun-god and the South Wind, symbols of light and life, gave
battle to the Ice-giant. At last Thor, the god of the Thunderstorm,
riding on the wings of the air, hurled his thunderbolt at the winter
castle, and demolished it. Then Freija, the goddess of fruits and
flowers, resumed her former sway. All of which is only a poetical way
of saying that after the Ice-giant had conquered in winter he was in
his turn overthrown by the Sun-god in spring.

Now the twenty-first day of December, the depth of winter, marked the
period when the Ice-giant was in the full flush of his triumph and also
marked the beginning of his overthrow. It was the turning point in the
conflict of natural forces. The Sun-god having reached the goal of the
winter solstice, now wheeled around his fiery steeds and became the
sure herald of the coming victory of light and life over darkness and
death of spring over winter.

A thousand indications point to the fact that Christmas has
incorporated into itself all these festivals, Greek, Roman and German,
and given them a new meaning. The wild revels of the Bacchanalia,
the Saturnalia and the Twelve Nights survive in a milder form in the
merriment and jollity which mark the season of Christmas to-day.

Christmas gifts themselves remind us of the presents that were
exchanged in Rome during the Saturnalia. In Rome, it might be added,
the presents usually took the form of wax tapers and dolls,--the latter
being in their turn a survival of the human sacrifices once offered to
Saturn.

It is a queer thought that in our Christmas presents we are preserving
under another form one of the most savage customs of our barbarian
ancestors!

The shouts of “Bona Saturnalia!” which the Roman people exchanged among
themselves are the precursors of our “Merry Christmas!” The decorations
and illuminations of our Christian churches recall the temples of
Saturn, radiant with burning tapers and resplendent with garlands. The
masks and mummeries which still survive here and there, even in the
America of to-day, and which were especially prominent in the Middle
Ages, were prominent also in the Saturnalian revels.

And a large number of the legends, superstitions and ceremonials which
have crystallized around the Christian festival in Europe and America
are more or less distorted reminiscences of the legends, superstitions
and ceremonials of the Twelve Nights of ancient Germany.




CHAPTER V

SILENUS, SATURN, THOR


And now you may be tempted to ask, “What bearing has all this stuff
about the pagan festivals upon the question of the identity of our old
friend Santa Klaus?”

I am coming to that. In every one of these festivals the leading figure
was an old man, with a lot of white beard and white hair rimming his
face.

In the Bacchanalia the representative god was not the young Bacchus,
but the aged, cheery and decidedly disreputable Silenus, the chief of
the Satyrs and the god of drunkards.

In the Saturnalia it was Saturn, a dignified and venerable old
gentleman--the god of Time.

In the Germanic feasts it was Thor, a person of patriarchal aspect, and
a warrior to boot.

Now, although the central figure of the Christian festival was the
child-god--the Christ-Kindlein--none the less the influence of long
pagan antecedents was too strong within the breast of the newly
Christianized world to be readily dismissed. The tradition of hoary age
as the true representative of the holiday period, a tradition, it will
be seen, in which all pagan nations agreed, still remained smouldering
under the ashes of the past. It burst into flame again when the past
was too far back to be looked upon with dislike or disquietude by the
Church. No longer did there seem to be any danger of a relapse into the
religious errors of that past.

At first the more dignified representative was chosen as more in
keeping with a solemn season. Saturn was preferred to Silenus, and was
almost unconsciously rebaptized as Saint Nicholas, the latter being the
greatest saint whose festival was celebrated in December and the one
who in other respects was most nearly in accord with the dim traditions
of Saturn as the hero of the Saturnalia.

If you look at the pictures printed in this book you will see that in
face and figure the Saint Nicholas of the early painters was not unlike
the ancient idea of Saturn.

And it was many, many years before Saint Nicholas had ousted the
Christ-child from the first place in the Christmas festivities. Indeed,
as we shall see, he often accompanied his Master on His Christmas
rounds. It may be added that he still does so in certain country places
in Europe where the modern spirit has been least felt.

[Illustration: Silenus and Fauns.

Painting by Annibale Caracci.]

In course of time, as the idea of worldly merriment at the Christmas
season prevailed over that of prayer and thanksgiving, the name
Saint Nicholas gradually merged into the affectionate diminutive of
Santa Klaus. Under the new name the old saint lost all his austerity.
He became ruddier, jollier, more rubicund in aspect, while the
Christ-Kindlein faded more and more into the background, until at last
the very name of the latter, under the slightly different form of
Kris-Kinkle, was transferred to his successor.

And now compare the pictures of Santa Klaus which are scattered through
this book with that of Silenus. Is it not evident that the one is a
revival of the other, changed, indeed, in certain traits of character,
sobered up, washed and purified, clad in warm garments that are more
suited to the wintry season which he has made his own, but still the
god of good fellows,--the representative of good health, good humor and
good cheer?

Extremes meet once more. The most modern hero of the season of
merriment is a return to the most ancient. The Santa Klaus of to-day is
the Silenus of an unknown antiquity.

Let us learn a little more about Silenus. He was the tutor of Bacchus
and seems to have had so much respect for his pupil that his life
after the invention of wine was one long spree. It was a merry
and good-natured spree, however. Silenus never became maudlin or
quarrelsome in his cups. He was the most jovial of tipplers. His
outlook upon life was as rosy as his nose. A cheery laugh beamed over
his large fat face, the light of humor twinkled in his beady eyes, his
rotund stomach spoke of good cheer, his smile beamed assurance of an
unruffled disposition.

Among all the brute creation he chose an ass, that caricature of the
horse, as his favorite charger. He always appeared with a troupe of
laughing fauns and satyrs around him, and his advent was everywhere the
signal for quips and cranks and wreathèd smiles.

Now Saint Nicholas, also, in former times used to ride abroad on an
ass, and still continues to do so in certain portions of Europe. In
fact, as already noted, all the genial traits of Silenus, save only
that of drunkenness, are reproduced in Santa Klaus,--the jolly pagan
who is to-day the personification of Christmas.

But though a modernized pagan god holds this important position in our
festival, everything that could be offensive in the old pagan way of
celebrating it has been abolished.

[Illustration: Santa Claus and his young friends.

From Thomas Nast’s “Christmas Drawings for the Human Race.”

Copyright 1899 by Harper and Brothers.]

It was not always so. The Church which so wisely sought to retain the
old heathen forms, found it often very hard, and sometimes impossible,
to subdue the heathen spirit. In spite of the protests of priests and
the anathemas of popes, in spite of the condemnation of all wise and
good men, Christians in the early days frequently reproduced all the
worst follies and vices of the Bacchanalia and the Saturnalia.
Even the clergy were for a period whirled into the vortex. A special
celebration, called the Feast of Fools, was instituted in their behalf
with a view, said the doctors of the Church, that “the folly which
is natural to and born with us might exhale at least once a year.”
The intention was excellent. But in practice the liberty so accorded
speedily degenerated into license.

Early in the history of the Church excesses were so great that a
council of bishops held at Auxerre was moved to inquire into the
matter. Gerson, the most noted theologian of the day, made an immense
sensation by declaring that “if all the devils in hell had put their
heads together to devise a feast that should utterly scandalize
Christianity, they could not have improved upon this one.”

If even among the clergy heathen traditions survived so strenuously,
what wonder that they survived among the laity? The wild revels,
indeed, of the Christmas period in olden times almost stagger belief.
No amount of drunkenness, no blasphemy, no obscenity was frowned upon.
License was carried to the utmost limits of licentiousness. Even in
the seventeenth century, when the revels had been slightly toned down,
Master William Prynne discovered in them those vestiges of paganism
which are apparent enough to the historian of to-day.

“If we compare,” he says in his _Histrio-Mastix_, “our Bacchanalian
Christmas and New Year’s tides with these Saturnalia and feasts of
Janus, we shall find such near affinity between them, both in regard
of time,--they being both in the end of December and the first of
January--and in their manner of solemnizing--both being spent in
revelling, epicurism, wantonness, idleness, dancing, drinking,
stage-plays, masques and carnal pomp and jollity--that we must conclude
the one to be but the ape, or issue, of the other.”

The very excesses of the Christmas period proved their own eventual
cure. In England the Puritans revolted so bitterly that they for a
period put an end to Christmas altogether. In Europe the revolution
was more gradual. But everywhere a change of manners and of morals has
purified the festival over which Santa Klaus presides, and Santa Klaus
himself, even if we look upon him as a revival of the pagan Silenus, is
a Silenus freed from all the offensive features of paganism, a Silenus
who with his new baptismal name has taken on a new character.

[Illustration: Carrying home the Christmas dinner.

Drawing by John Leech.]

It must be remembered, however, that Santa Klaus does not rule all
over the Christian world. There is even a wide difference between our
Santa Klaus and the Saint Nicholas of Southern France and Germany. The
latter, grave, sedate, severe, preserves more of the Saturn than the
Silenus type. He is Saturn christianized and dignified with episcopal
robes. He distributes gifts like our Santa Klaus, but in addition
to gifts for good little boys and girls, he carries a birch-rod for
bad ones. In the more primitive sections, such as certain parts of
Lorraine, the Tyrol, Bohemia and so on, he is attended by an evil
spirit called Ruprecht who looks after bad boys and girls.

It is also frequently the custom on Christmas Day for a couple or more
of maskers to dress themselves up as Saint Nicholas and Ruprecht,
and other attendants, such as the Christ-child or St. Peter or who
not,--these additional characters varying with the locality. They go
from house to house rewarding the good children and punishing the bad.

More of this, however, in a future chapter.




CHAPTER VI

A TERRIBLE CHRISTMAS IN OLD FRANCE


Forever memorable as an illustration of the manners of the French court
in the fourteenth century stands a terrible accident that happened
in Paris on the Christmas eve of 1393. All through the Christmas
ceremonies of the preceding week riot had run unchecked. The wildest
spirits of the French court had been given a free rein. One mad prank
had followed another, until it might seem that imagination had been
exhausted in the effort at inventing new follies.

But this would have been reckoning without Sir Hugonin de Guisay.
Sir Hugonin was known as the maddest of the mad. The reckless and
the ungodly loved and admired him as much as the sober and the godly
hated and despised him. From his height as a nobleman of the French
court he looked down with contempt on “the common people,”--tradesmen,
mechanics, laborers and servants. He found a cruel pleasure in
accosting harmless folk of this sort in the public streets, pricking
them with his spurs, lashing them with his whip, and ordering them
to creep on their hands and feet in the gutters.

[Illustration: The Feast of the Passover.

Painting by Diedrich Bouts.]

“Bark, dog, bark!” he would cry as he cracked his whip in the air.

To please him the victims had to bow-wow and growl like curs ere this
polite and pleasant gentleman would allow them to rise from their
degraded position.

On this particular Christmas Eve Sir Hugonin had a proposal to make. He
suggested that, in order to continue the festivities, a mock marriage
should be celebrated between a gentleman and a lady of the court. The
proposal was accepted with shouts of joy. A young couple were chosen to
stand up before a pretended priest, and to go through the form of the
wedding service.

Just as the ceremony was nearing its end Sir Hugonin asked the king and
four of his courtiers,--madcaps all of them and all of them members of
the proudest families in France,--to withdraw with him for a moment.
He had a fresh proposal to make. It happened that at this time all
Paris had gone wild over the dancing bears brought into the capital by
strolling performers. Hugonin’s plan was that he and the king, and the
four courtiers, should disguise themselves as dancing bears. A pot of
tar and a quantity of tow were ready at hand to transform them into
fair imitations of the bears in the players’ booths. Then the five
courtiers were to be bound together with a silk rope. The king himself
would lead them into the hall.

“Excellent!” cried the king and all the courtiers, save only Sir Evan
de Foix.

Sir Evan seems to have been the one man of the party who had preserved
a glimmer of common sense. He pointed out that they were about to rush
into a room full of lights. Being all bound together, no one could say
what disaster might not befall.

“Sire,” he pleaded, “it is certain that if one of us catches fire,
the whole number, including your Majesty, will be as so many roast
chestnuts.”

Then up spoke the reckless Sir Hugonin. “Who is to set us on fire?” he
asked. “Where is there the traitor that would not be careful when the
safety of the king is at stake?”

Sir Evan’s fears could not be set at rest. But when he found that the
counsels of Sir Hugonin were bound to prevail he suggested that at
least all due precautions should be taken.

“Let His Majesty be prevailed upon at least to give orders that nobody
bearing a torch shall approach us.”

“That shall be done at once,” said Charles. Instantly sending for the
chief officer in charge of the hall he gave instructions that all the
torchbearers should be collected together on one side of the room, and
that under no pretence should any of them approach a party of savage
men who were about to enter and perform a dance. These orders having
been given the dancers entered.

They were greeted with a roar of laughter and cheers. The mimic bears
followed their leader around the hall saluting the ladies as they
passed them, and leaping and dancing for the amusement of the crowd.

“Who are they?” cried the spectators, eager to penetrate the disguise.

Now just at this moment it unfortunately happened that the Duke of
Orleans made his appearance at the doors of the hall. He knew nothing
of what had been going on behind the scenes. He was attended by six
torchbearers, who in obedience to orders, should not have been admitted
into the dance-hall. But the Duke of Orleans was the king’s brother. It
was hard to dictate to the first prince of the blood. He could scarcely
be included in any general order. So he was allowed to pass in with his
companions.

“Who are they?” he exclaimed, taking up the cry that was ringing around
the hall. “Well, we shall soon find out.”

Snatching a brand from one of his torchbearers he peered into the faces
of the dancers, seeking to identify them. Coming at last to Sir Evan
de Foix, he shouted out his name, and caught him by the arm. Sir Evan
tried to shake himself free. But the Duke would not loosen his hold.
Just then some one jostled his elbows and the torch he held in his
hand was brought into sudden contact with the tarry tow that did duty
as a bearskin. In one moment Sir Evan was blazing from head to foot. In
another moment the whole group of knights were aflame. Their frantic
struggles served only to draw them more closely together within the
silken rope that bound them.

Luckily for the king he had detached himself from the group, having
stopped on his rounds to talk to the Duchess de Berri. When first the
alarm was given he would have rushed to help his companions, but the
duchess, guessing it was the king under this disguise, threw her arms
around him and forcibly detained him.

“Sire,” she said, “do you not see that your companions are burning to
death, and that nothing could save you if you went near them in that
dress?”

Meanwhile, one of the maskers had wrenched himself free from his
companions. This was the young Lord of Nantouillet, famous for
strength, agility and presence of mind, possessed, moreover, of a
powerful jaw and a splendid set of teeth. He bit through the silken
rope that enmeshed him, wrenched it off, and then rushed through the
hall and flung himself, like a blazing comet, through a window that
opened into the yard below. Luckily he had remembered that underneath
the window stood a cistern full of water. Plunging headlong into this
impromptu bathtub he emerged, black, burnt and sizzling, but saved.

[Illustration: The Adoration of the Lamb.

Painting by Hubert and Jan Van Eyck.]

As for his companions, they were now whirling hither and thither
through a horrified mob of spectators, who trampled over each other in
their eagerness to escape contact with the blaze. Shrieking, praying,
cursing, the doomed four fought with the flames and with one another.
Women fainted; men who had never faltered in the fiercest battle
sickened at the frightful spectacle. Eager as they would have been to
assist their friends, the men knew only too well that no human arm
could offer assistance.

All Paris had been aroused by the tumult and now crowded around the
palace gates. At last the flames burned out. The four maskers lay, a
charred and writhing heap, upon the floor of the dance-hall. One was
a mere cinder. Another survived until daybreak. Still another died at
noon the next day. The fourth lived on through three days of agony.
This was Sir Hugonin himself.

Small pity did he get from the mechanics and tradesmen of Paris!

“Bark, dog, bark!” was the cry with which they greeted the charred
and mangled corpse when it was borne through the streets to its final
resting place in the cemetery.




CHAPTER VII

THE CHRISTMAS TREE IN LEGEND


We have seen that most of the ceremonies that have attended or still
attend the season of Christmas may be traced back to a period long
before the birth of Christ.

The Christmas tree is no exception to this rule. It is pagan, not
Christian in its origin, though it has been adapted to Christian uses.
It came down to us from the pagan Teutons and Scandinavians, and on the
way it was Christianized in Germany and Holland, in Sweden, Norway and
Denmark, long before it had been made holy in the same manner among the
English-speaking peoples.

Myth and history have both busied themselves with guesses at its
origin. Let us begin with myth.

A very old legend makes Saint Winfred the inventor of the Christmas
tree. Winfred (please note that this is the masculine form of which
Winifred is the feminine) was one of the early missionaries to Norway
who helped to wean the ancient Scandinavians from their pagan beliefs
and practices.

He found that their priests, the Druids, had taught them to worship
trees as if they were living gods. So he set himself the task of
showing to his Christian converts that the objects of their former
worship were not gods but trees,--trees and nothing more. On Christmas
eve, therefore, he hewed down a mighty oak in presence of a great crowd
of men, women and children.

A miracle indeed followed. But it was a Christian miracle, and as such
was all the more convincing to these simple people that their old-time
faiths had been misplaced.

This is how the miracle is described by an ancient historian:

“As the bright blade circled around Winfred’s head, and the flakes of
wood flew from the deepening gash in the body of the tree, a whirling
wind passed over the forest. It gripped the oak from its foundations.
Backward it fell like a tower, groaning as it split asunder in four
pieces. But just behind it and unharmed by the ruin, stood a young fir
tree pointing a green spire towards the stars.

“Winfred let the axe drop and turned to speak to the people.

“‘This little tree, a young child of the forest, shall be your holy
tree to-night. It is the wood of peace, for your houses are built of
the fir. It is a sign of endless life, for its leaves are ever green.
See how it points upward to heaven. Let this be called the tree of the
Christ-child; gather about it, not in the wildwood, but in your own
homes; there it will shelter no deeds of blood, but loving gifts and
rites of kindness.’”

There is another old legend that is told by the people around
Strassburg, a famous old city on the Rhine. Half way between this city
and the neighboring town of Drusenheim there are still to be seen the
ruins of an old castle. It probably dates back to the seventh century.
Its chief feature is a massive gate. Deep sunk in the stone arch above
this gate, and as clearly and sharply defined as if it had been carved
only yesterday, is the impress of a small and delicate hand. And this
is the story that is told to account for the presence of the hand.

One of the early lords of the castle was Count Otto von Gorgas, a
handsome and dashing youth, whose great delight was hunting big game.
So devoted, indeed, was he to the shooting of deer and the spearing of
wild boars that love could find no entrance into his heart. In vain
did the fairest maidens in the land sigh for a soft speech or a tender
glance from this wild huntsman. Mothers on both banks of the river
Rhine had abandoned in despair all hope of securing him as a match for
their daughters, while the daughters themselves had spitefully given
him the name of Stony-heart, by which he had become generally known
throughout the country side.

But Count Otto only laughed at the anger of the ladies, and continued
to kill with his own hand such large quantities of game that new
servants would not come into his employ, unless he had first agreed to
give them venison or wild boar steaks not oftener than four days in the
week.

One Christmas Eve Count Otto ordered that a battue or monster hunt
should take place in the forest surrounding his castle. So exciting
was the sport that he was led deep into the thickets and at night-fall
found himself separated from all his friends and followers. He reined
up beside a far-away spring, clear and deep, known to the country
people as the Fairy’s Well. His hands being stained with the blood of
the wild animals he had slain, he dismounted from his horse to wash
them in the spring.

Though the weather was cold and a white frost covered the dead leaves,
Count Otto found to his surprise that the water of the well was warm
and pleasant. A delightful feeling ran through his veins. Plunging
his arms deeper into the well, he fancied that he felt his right hand
grasped by another hand softer and smaller than his own, which gently
drew from his finger a gold ring that he was accustomed to wear.

Sure enough, when he pulled his hand out of the water the ring was gone!

Though annoyed by his loss, the count decided that the ring had
accidentally slipped from his finger. There was no opportunity for any
further search that day, for the well was very deep and the sun had
already set.

So Otto remounted his horse and rode back to the castle, resolving
that in the morning he would have the Fairy’s Well emptied out by his
servants. Little doubt had he but that the ring would easily be found
at the bottom.

As a rule Count Otto was a good sleeper. That night, however, he
tried in vain to close his eyes. Lying restlessly awake he listened
feverishly to the hoarse baying of the watch-dog in the court-yard
until near midnight. Suddenly he raised himself on his elbows. What was
that unusual noise he heard outside?

He strained his ears. Distinctly he again heard the creaking of the
drawbridge as it was being lowered. A few minutes later there followed
sounds as of the pattering of many feet up the stone stairs and into
the chamber next to his own. Then a wild strain of music came floating
on the air, shooting a sweet mysterious thrill even into his “stony”
heart.

Rising softly from his bed, Otto hastily dressed himself. A little bell
sounded. His chamber door was suddenly flung open. He accepted what
seemed like a wordless invitation. Crossing the threshold into the
next room, he found himself in the midst of an assemblage of rather
small but very lovely looking strangers of both sexes, who laughed,
chatted, danced and sang without seeming in the least to notice him.

In the middle of the room stood a splendid Christmas tree from which a
great number of many-colored lamps shed a flood of light throughout the
apartment.

Now this was the first Christmas tree that had ever been seen in those
parts, or indeed by any mortal folk in any portion of the world. And it
was a Christmas tree of a sort that never again has been seen by any
mortal folk in any portion of the world.

For surely never again has a Christmas tree borne such fruits. Instead
of toys and candies the branches were hung with diamond stars and
crosses, pearl necklaces, aigrettes of rubies and sapphires, baldricks
embroidered with Oriental pearls, and daggers mounted in gold and
studded with the rarest gems.

Lost in wonder at a scene he could not understand, the count gazed
without the power of uttering a single word. There was a sudden
movement at the end of the hall. The company stopped dancing and
fell back to make way for a newcomer. Then in the bright rays of the
Christmas lights, a dazzling vision stood in front of Count Otto.

It was a princess of astonishing beauty. Though only a girl in size,
she was a woman in age. Though small, her body was exquisitely formed.
There she stood, magnificently dressed as for a ball. A diadem sparkled
amid her raven black locks, rich point lace only half veiled her snowy
bosom, and her dress of rose-colored silk sat close to her slender
figure, falling in folds just so low as to reveal the neatest feet and
ankles in the world, while her sleeves were short enough to display
beautiful arms of dazzling whiteness.

The charming stranger showed no awkward timidity. On the contrary,
after a short pause she walked straight up to the count, caught him by
both hands, and said, in the sweetest of voices:

“Dear Otto, I am come to return your call.”

At the same time she raised her right hand to his lips. Forgetting all
his old coldness towards the female sex he gallantly kissed it without
making any other reply. Indeed, he felt fascinated, spellbound. He
gladly let the beautiful stranger draw him to a couch where she sat
herself down besides him. Her lips met his and before he could think
about kissing them, he had done so.

“My dear friend,” whispered the lady into his ear, “I am the fairy
Ernestine. I have brought you a Christmas present. That which you lost
and hardly hoped to find again, see! I fetch it back to you.”

And, drawing from her bosom a little casket set with diamonds, she
placed it in the hands of the count. He eagerly opened it. Not entirely
unexpectedly (for had not her words forewarned him?) he found within it
the ring that he had lost in the forest well.

Carried away by a feeling as strange as it was irresistible, Count Otto
pressed the casket and then the lovely Ernestine to his breast.

“Delightful,” murmured the maiden, who as you may see, was not so coy
as are many maidens of the everyday world.

In brief the two had fallen in love with each other at first sight.
Before they parted for the night, Otto had won the fairy’s consent to
become his wife.

One thing only she demanded of him. He must never make use of the word
“death” in her presence. Fairies are immortal; she did not wish to be
reminded that she was bound to a mortal husband.

It was easy enough for him to make this promise, and no doubt he
thought it would be easy to keep it. Next day Count Otto von Gorgas and
Ernestine, the Queen of the Fairies, were married with great pomp and
ceremony. They lived happily together for some years in the grand old
castle.

One day it chanced that the young couple were to assist at a great
tourney in the neighborhood. The Lady Ernestine’s horse stood in
waiting for her at the castle gate. Being greatly occupied in adjusting
a new headdress which her milliner had just brought home, she kept her
husband waiting until his patience was worn out.

“Fair dame,” he pettishly exclaimed when she at last appeared in the
great hall where for half an hour he had been striding up and down in
his uncomfortable armor, “you are so long making ready, you would be a
good messenger to send for Death.”

Scarcely had he uttered the fatal word than with a wild scream the lady
disappeared. She left no trace behind her, except the print of her
little hand above the castle gate. Every Christmas eve, however, she
returns and flits about the ruins with loud lamentations, crying at
intervals:

“Death! Death! Death!”

As to Count Otto he went the way of all flesh and was gathered to his
fathers not long after he had lost his spouse. But every Christmas
Eve, while his life lasted, he would set up a lighted tree in the
hall where he had first met the lady Ernestine,--in the vain hope of
wooing her back to his arms. And this, it is said in Strasburg and its
neighborhood, was the origin of the Christmas tree.[2]




CHAPTER VIII

THE CHRISTMAS TREE IN HISTORY


The stories I have just told you are pretty enough and may amuse an
idle half hour. But we must now pass from the region of myth into that
of history and science.

My sexagenarian readers will not need to be introduced to the science
called comparative mythology. But for the sake of the six year olds
it may be well to explain, as simply as I can in a few words, that
comparative mythology is a branch of human knowledge which compares the
myths and legends of one age and one people with the myths and legends
of another age and another people, the object being to show how the
later myths descend from the earlier ones, or how all the myths go back
to some parent germ in the far-away past.

By the aid, then, of the science of comparative mythology let us
seek to study the historical growth of the idea that is now embodied
in the Christmas tree. Here, indeed, we are in a whirl of problems.
Comparative mythology is one of the most interesting and also one of
the most difficult of sciences. In the present case it must take
account of the fact that we English-speaking peoples of the present
day, and especially we Americans, are a hodge-podge mixture of many
races and many religions. Somewhere in our brains we preserve dim
memories of a thousand conflicting myths of the past which without
knowing it we have inherited from our ancestors. In other parts of our
brain we retain the facts and fictions which have been told to us by
our elders, or which we have learned from books.

Now in all times and in all countries we find records of the worship,
at some former period, of a tree as a divinity,--in other words as a
god.

Greatest and most famous of all these sacred trees was a quite
imaginary one which the Scandinavians called the ash-tree Yggdrasil.
Nobody had ever seen it, but everybody among these imaginative people
believed in its existence.

It was supposed to be a tree so big that you could not possibly picture
it to your fancy, which encompassed the entire universe of sun and moon
and stars and earth. And it had three roots, one in heaven, one in hell
and one on earth.

The serpent who gnaws the roots of Yggdrasil was of course a heathen
idea. Yet you cannot help seeing in him some likeness to the serpent
of Genesis who is held to be a symbol of Satan, or the devil. Like
Satan he seeks the destruction of the universe. When the roots of
Yggdrasil are eaten through the tree will fall over and the end of all
things will have arrived.

[Illustration: Luther and the Christmas tree.]

Now among the Anglo-Saxons or early inhabitants of England, who were in
part descended from the Scandinavians, Yggdrasil survived in the Yule
log, which they used to burn on Christmas Eve, as it is still burned in
many an English home to-day.

And this is how the pagan tree was transformed into the Christian Yule
log:--

The missionaries to the Anglo-Saxons denounced the Yggdrasil
superstition. They made their converts hack to pieces all carved
figures representing the idolatrous symbol, and then cast the pieces
into the flames as a token that the Christ-child had destroyed
heathenism.

Among the Germans and the Norsemen, however, the sanctity of the
Yggdrasil myth could not be destroyed. It had to be transformed, and
transferred to Christian uses by identifying it with some Christian or
Jewish symbol like the tree of life in Genesis or the cross of Christ
in the New Testament.

Compare the great tree Yggdrasil and its three roots with the
description which a certain writer of the early middle ages, called
Alcima, gives of the Tree of Life.

“It’s position,” says Alcima, “is such that the upper portion touches
the earth, the root reaches to hell, and the branches extend to all
parts of the earth.”

Evidently Alcima had been influenced by Scandinavian legend as well as
by biblical lore. Of course you will understand that he was speaking
not of the actual cross, but of the cross as a symbol of Christianity.

Let us extend our researches a little further into the region of
comparative mythology.

You will find Adam and Eve commemorated in old calendars under date of
December 24th. This is the eve of Christmas. The symbol of our first
parents is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Christmas itself
is the day of Christ, whose symbol is the tree of life or the cross. It
is easy to see that when the minds of men were escaping from paganism
into Christianity the tree of the old mythology grew to be associated
with the birthday of Christ and thus with the cross. So the lights of
the Chanuckah Festival of the Hebrews were borrowed to adorn the sacred
tree, and the seven-branched candlestick, as a figure of that tree, was
even introduced into the churches.

The representation--so common among the early painters and especially
the painters of Italy--of the serpent squatting at the foot of the
cross had of course its Christian meaning, but its adoption into
Christian art was in great degree influenced by the fact that the
cross had become popularly identified with the serpent tree of the old
pagan myth.

Scandinavia was not the only place that had its sacred tree. Egypt, for
instance, had one in the palm, which puts forth a shoot every month. A
spray of this tree with twelve shoots on it was used in ancient Egypt
at the time of the winter solstice as a symbol of the twelvemonth or
completed year.

From Egypt the custom reached Rome, where it was added to the other
ceremonies of the Saturnalia. But as palm trees do not grow in Italy
other trees were used in its stead. A small fir tree, or the crest of a
large one was found to be the most suitable, because it is shaped like
a cone or a pyramid. This was decorated with twelve burning tapers lit
in honor of the god of Time. At the very tip of the pyramid blazed the
representation of a radiant sun placed there in honor of Apollo, the
sun-god, to whom the three last days of December were dedicated. These
days were called the sigillaria, or seal-days, because presents were
then made of impressions stamped on wax.

In further honor of Apollo, who was a shepherd in his youth, images of
sheep were shown pasturing under the tree. Apollo himself sometimes
took charge of the herd, or taught the shepherds the use of the musical
pipe. All these customs were skilfully adapted by the priests of the
early Church to Christian uses. Shepherd and sheep were retained as
symbols of Christ and his flock. As you know, our Lord is frequently
alluded to as the good shepherd and is so represented in religious
paintings. The sigillaria of the old Romans were also turned to a new
use, the wax being now stamped with figures of saints and other holy
persons.

A few pages back you were told that the day before Christmas is the
day which our pious forefathers dedicated to Adam and Eve. Hence, you
will remember, figures of our first parents appeared at the foot of the
tree, while a serpent entwined itself around the roots or the trunk.
This was the serpent of the Old Testament, but I have already explained
how it was also a Christian adaptation of the serpent of the great
ash-tree Yggdrasil.

I may add, right here, that the serpent still makes its appearance at
the base of a Christmas tree in many parts of rural Germany where old
customs still survived in their original purity.

And now by grouping all these facts together we find that long before
the coming of Christ there was scattered all over the world an idea
that an illuminated tree was a symbol of holiness. Therefore it was
only natural that it came at last to be associated with the birthday of
Christ and with the period of the winter solstice which the followers
of Christ had rescued from pagan practices and pagan superstitions and
adapted to the religion which He had founded.

This association was made all the more natural because the candles
that twinkle on the Christmas tree were anticipated in the candles
lit by the Jews on their Chanuckah or Feast of Lights. Chanuckah is
still celebrated among them with all the old forms. It falls on the
twenty-fifth day of Kislev, or ninth month of the Jewish calendar,
which roughly corresponds with our December or twelfth month.

On that day, in the year 165 before Christ, the temple in Jerusalem,
which had been desecrated by a Roman army under Antiochus, had been
purified and rededicated by Judas Maccabeus. Antiochus had put out the
lights of the seven-branched candelabra that had been kept burning ever
since the temple had been finished. A jar of sacred oil, sealed with
the ring of the High Priest, was discovered untouched. There seemed
to be only enough for one day but when it was poured into the lamp it
lasted for a full week. This miracle happened just in the nick of time,
for it would have taken seven days to obtain a fresh supply of oil. It
was then decreed that the week beginning with the twenty-fifth day of
Kislev should be celebrated as a festival forever.

Accordingly on that day in every year the Jews light a candle in every
home, on the next day, two, and so on, until the seventh and last day
of the feast when seven candles twinkle in every home.

Now if Christ was born on the twenty-fifth day of December he probably
came into the world at a time when every house in Bethlehem and
Jerusalem was ablaze with lights.

In this connection it may be added that one of the German names for
Christmas is Weihnacht or Night of Dedication, as though it were
somehow associated in the popular mind with the Jewish Chanuckah.
Another curious fact which bears out the same theory is that the
Catholics of the Greek Church call Christmas the Feast of Lights.

With another Jewish festival Christmas has a verbal link. This is the
feast of the Passover when a lamb is killed and eaten. Christ is often
symbolized as a lamb. Saint John the Baptist, you remember, greeted him
as “the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world.”




CHAPTER IX

THE CHRISTMAS TREE IN EUROPE


We have now considered the far-off origins of the Christmas tree. We
have decided that it is an adaptation of the Yggdrasil and other sacred
trees of the pagan past to Christian and modern uses. Not yet, however,
have we bridged the chasm that divides the history of the old tree from
that of the new one.

How, where and by whom was the Christmas tree, as we now know it,
brought into the Christmas festivities and associated with the
Christ-child and Saint Nicholas? I am sorry to say that it is
impossible to give positive answers to any of these questions.

There is, indeed, a very popular German tradition which makes Martin
Luther the inventor of the modern Christmas tree. One bright Christmas
eve, it is said, as Luther was journeying home through a snow-covered
country, he was more than ever struck by the wondrous spectacle of the
star-lit sky above him.

It is a very common saying, one which dates back to an old Greek
philosopher but which has been repeated by many other wise men of
modern times, that if a grown person who had all his life gone to
bed with the setting sun and got up with the rising one, and who,
therefore, had never seen the moon or the stars, were suddenly to be
awakened at midnight, he would be overwhelmed by the glorious mystery
of the spectacle overhead. We who are accustomed to the sight from our
cradles can hardly realize the shock of such a surprise. Because we
have seen the moon and stars ever since we could remember we forget how
wonderful they are, and how beautiful is the scene they present. We
take them as a matter of course.

Now Martin Luther was a poet as well as a preacher. One great
difference between a poet and an ordinary person of slower imagination
is that he adds to the wisdom of manhood the freshness and simplicity
of childhood. He retains the young heart with the mature brain. As
Carlyle, a great modern writer, has said, he sees the world “rimmed
around with wonder.” Carlyle being, like Martin Luther, a poet, even
though he rarely put his thoughts into verse and rhyme, never lost
the sense of wonder and awe towards the manifestations of God in the
universe.

God is everywhere, though we poor, purblind folk only now and then
catch glimpses of Him. If we could clear away the mists that have
gathered round our eyes during our progress through the world we
would know that He is everywhere. It is the poet who keeps his eyes
clearest for the Blessed Vision.

[Illustration: Christmas tree of the English royal family.

From the “Illustrated London News,” December, 1842.]

Luther arrived at home, so the story continues, with brain and heart
full of the feelings and the thoughts that had been inspired in him
by the firmament of shining stars. He tried to explain to his wife
and children just what those thoughts and feelings were. Suddenly an
idea struck him. Going into the garden he cut off a little fir tree,
dragged it into the nursery, put some candles into its branches and
lighted them. Ever after that, we are told, Luther fixed up a Christmas
tree in his home for the instruction and entertainment of his wife and
children. The custom was imitated by his neighbors and finally spread
all over Germany.

This is a very pretty legend, but it is legend and not history. It
deserves no more credit than the story of St. Winfred which I have
quoted from German folk-lore, or the fairy tale which, as I have said,
still lingers among the people in and around Strasburgh.

All that we know from real history is that a tree with lighted candles
was now and then used in the middle ages, and later, in connection with
the Christmas rejoicings.

Such a tree is known to have played its part in a Christmas pageant
given at the court of Henry VIII. in England. The tree is described at
some length in the chronicles of the time, but it is evident from these
descriptions that it lacked the chief feature of the modern one. It was
not a bearer of presents.

So far as it is possible to gather from history, the Christmas tree,
as we know it to-day, made its first appearance in Strassburgh. This
is interesting in view of the fact that one of the earliest legends in
explanation of the custom finds its home in that city. More authentic
witness is afforded by an old manuscript still preserved in a library
at Friedburg, Germany, which was written by a citizen of Strassburgh in
the year 1608. This manuscript speaks of a tree all alight with candles
and bedecked with presents as being a regular feature of the Christmas
festivities of that time. Therefore we are sure that the Christmas
tree had come into common use in this region by the beginning of the
seventeenth century. Further than that there is no certainty.

The custom appears to have spread from Strassburgh to the neighboring
cities along the Rhine and to have flourished in that limited district
for fully two hundred years.

Suddenly, about the beginning of the nineteenth century, it made its
appearance outside of the Rhenish towns in other nearby localities,
until finally it had invaded the whole of Germany. Fifty years later it
had conquered nearly all Christendom.

In the year 1825 the English poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, visited
Germany to spend the winter months in that country. One of his letters
written in the following January speaks of the Christmas tree as
something entirely unknown to his fellow countrymen.

“There is a Christmas custom here,” he says, “which pleased and
interested me. The children make little presents to their parents and
to each other and the parents to their children. For three or four
months before Christmas the girls are all busy and the boys save up
their pocket money to buy these presents. What the present is to be is
cautiously kept secret; and the girls have a world of contrivances to
conceal it--such as working when they are out on visits, and the others
are not with them; getting up in the morning before daylight and so
forth. Then, on the evening before Christmas day, one of the parlors is
lighted up by the children, into which the parents must not go; a great
yew-bough is fastened on the table at a little distance from the wall,
a multitude of little tapers are fixed in the bough, but not so as to
burn it till they are nearly consumed, and colored paper, etc., hangs
and flutters from the twigs.

“Under this bough the children lay out, in great order, the presents
they mean for their parents, still concealing in their pockets what
they intend for each other. Then the parents are introduced and each
presents his little gift; they then bring out the remainder, one by
one, from their pockets, and present them with kisses and embraces.
Where I witnessed this scene, there were eight or nine children, and
the oldest daughter and the mother wept aloud for joy and tenderness;
and the tears ran down the face of the father, and he clasped all his
children so tight to his breast, it seemed as if he did it to stifle
the sob that was rising within it. I was very much affected. The shadow
of the bough and its appendages on the wall, and arching over on the
ceiling, made a pretty picture; and then the raptures of the very
little ones, when at last the twigs and their needles began to take
fire and snap--O! it was a delight to them!

“On the next day (Christmas day) in the great parlor, the parents lay
out on the table the presents for the children; a scene of more sober
joy succeeds; as on this day, after an old custom, the mother says
privately to each of her daughters and the father to his sons, that
which he has observed most praise-worthy and that which was most faulty
in their conduct.”

Continuing, Coleridge tells us that formerly, and still in all the
smaller towns and villages throughout North Germany, these presents
were sent by all the parents to some young fellows, who, in high
buskins, a white robe, a mask, and an enormous flax wig personates
Knecht Ruprecht, i. e. the servant Rupert.

“On Christmas night he goes round to every house, and says that Jesus
Christ, his Master, sent him thither. The parents and elder children
receive him with great pomp and reverence, while the little ones
are most terribly frightened. He then inquires for the children,
and according to the character which he hears from the parents, he
gives them the intended presents, as if they came out of heaven from
Jesus Christ, or if they should have been bad children, he gives the
parents a rod, and, in name of his Master, recommends them to use it
frequently. About seven or eight years old, the children are let into
the secret, and it is curious how faithfully they keep it.”




CHAPTER X

THE CHRISTMAS TREE IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA


Coleridge’s letter, as we have seen, was written in January 1826. In
the succeeding December the English people were to obtain a nearer view
of the Christmas tree. A great German lady, the Princess Lieven, who
had taken up her residence for a season in London brought many German
customs with her.

“On Christmas,” says Henry Greville, an amusing gossip whose diary was
published after his death, “the Princess Lieven got up a little fête
such as is customary all over Germany. Three trees, in great pots,
were put upon a long table covered with pink linen. Each tree was
illuminated with three circular tiers of colored wax candles,--blue,
green, red and white. Before each tree was displayed a quantity of
toys, gloves, pocket-handkerchiefs, work boxes, books and various
articles--presents made to the owner of the tree. It was very pretty.
Here it was only for the children. In Germany the custom extends to
persons of all ages.”

Not yet, however, did the custom pass over to England. The people who
saw the tree in the parlor of the Princess Lieven or who heard about
it from those who had there seen it, made no attempt to copy it in
their own homes. A dozen years were to pass before the tree took firm
roots in English soil.

It was the marriage of Queen Victoria to a German prince--Albert of
Saxe-Coburg--that brought about this result. The first child was a
daughter (named Victoria after her mother) who became Empress of
Germany and the mother of the present Emperor William. The second child
was a son, who is now King Edward VII of England. When the Princess
Victoria was about five years old Prince Albert set up a Christmas
tree, German fashion, in the royal nursery at Windsor Castle.

A writer in the _Cornhill Magazine_ places the date of the introduction
of the Christmas tree into England as December 1841. He remembers,
he says, when his parents, “who had spent many winters in Germany,
first introduced it, some forty-five years ago into England, what
astonishment it created, what surprised delight it afforded.”

This writer gives a little too much credit to his parents. No mere
subjects of the queen could have made other people follow so readily
in their footsteps. The royal example, however, was sufficient. Once
a Christmas tree had been set up in Windsor Castle, you may be sure
that Christmas trees blazed and twinkled in every British household
that could afford one. It has remained ever since just what it is with
us,--the centre of all the Christmas festivities.

From the _London News_ for December, 1848, I have taken a picture which
represents the Windsor Castle Christmas tree with the English royal
family of that date grouped around it. It is interesting to note how
this English paper deals with the novelty recently brought over from
Germany.

  “The tree employed for this festive purpose,” says the _News_, “is a
  young fir about eight feet high, and has six tiers of branches. On
  each tier, or branch, are arranged a dozen wax tapers. Pendent from
  the branches are elegant trays, baskets, _bonbonnières_, and other
  receptacles for sweetmeats, of the most varied and expensive kind;
  and of all forms, colours, and degrees of beauty. Fancy cakes, gilt
  gingerbread and eggs filled with sweetmeats, are also suspended by
  variously-coloured ribbons from the branches. The tree, which stands
  upon a table covered with white damask, is supported at the root
  by piles of sweets of a larger kind, and by toys and dolls of all
  descriptions, suited to the youthful fancy, and to the several ages
  of the interesting scions of Royalty for whose gratification they are
  displayed. The name of each recipient is affixed to the doll, bonbon,
  or other present intended for it, so that no difference of opinion
  in the choice of dainties may arise to disturb the equanimity of the
  illustrious juveniles. On the summit of the tree stands the small
  figure of an angel, with outstretched wings, holding in each hand a
  wreath.”

The tree, we are further told, was an object of much interest to all
visitors at Windsor Castle from Christmas Eve, when it was first set
up, until Twelfth Night, when it was taken down. Other trees were
placed in other rooms of the castle. Prince Albert had his, which was
decorated and hung with presents by Queen Victoria, who in her turn
received a tree furnished in the same manner by her consort.

Two trees also stood on the sideboard of the royal dining room and
presented, we are told, “a brilliant appearance when all the tapers are
lighted up among the branches.”

In America the Christmas tree had become a fixture long before its
appearance in England. German emigrants to our shores had brought it
over with them, just as in earlier times the Dutch settlers of New York
had brought over Santa Klaus. But it flourished in German settlements
alone for many years before it was adopted by their neighbors, the
northern descendants of the English Puritans and Pilgrims, or the
southern descendants of the English Cavaliers.

New York, as the great landing place for emigrants and also as a city
whose Dutch beginnings had given it a leaning towards the Teutonic
spirit, was the first spot in which the German Christmas tree made a
new home for itself. Gradually but surely the custom spread to citizens
of other than German birth. Fathers of families got into the habit
every Christmas of going out into the forests surrounding New York to
cut a young spruce or fir tree for the holiday times. Or if they were
rich enough to employ men-servants, they sent out the footman or the
butler for this purpose.

It is said that a woodsman named Mark Carr, who was born among the
foothills of the Catskill Mountains in the early part of the nineteenth
century, was the first to make a regular business of Christmas trees.
He had heard or read of the holiday festivities in the great city of
New York, where churches and private parlors were hung with holly and
hemlock leaves, and a pine or a fir tree stood in the middle of the
nursery, covered with presents for the children.

It occurred to him that the young fir trees growing on the
mountain-sides all around his little country home might be made use
of for these holiday purposes. He could run no great risks in making
trial of the idea. All he could lose was the time it took him to chop
the trees down and bring them into market and the cost of a few days’
living in New York.

In December, 1851, he put his plan into practice. Early in the month he
and his boys loaded a couple of great sleds with young trees cut down
from the neighboring forests, and having hitched a yoke of oxen to each
sled drove them through the deep snow to the Hudson River at Catskill,
whence the father started with them to the city.

One old-fashioned silver dollar secured the use of a strip of sidewalk
on the corner of Greenwich and Vesey streets. Here the hopeful
mountaineer arranged his forest novelties for Christmas buyers. Nor
had he long to wait. Customers flocked to his corner. Starting with
moderate prices he soon raised them, as tree after tree left his hands,
to sums that he would have deemed fabulous when he first dreamed of the
experiment.

Next year he returned to the same place with a much larger stock, and
“from that time to this,” says Hexamer, an old historian of New York,
“business has continued to exist until now hundreds of thousands of
trees are yearly sold from Mark Carr’s old corner.”

At the present day, Christmas tree choppers usually begin work about
the first of November. Thus they avoid the early snow falls which are
liable greatly to increase the difficulties of the business by melting
and freezing again on the trees and making their branches too brittle.

Firs and pines growing in open spaces are preferred to those in dense
woodlands because they are more stocky and symmetrical. As the trees
are felled the woodsmen pile them up beside the forest roads, where
they will keep fresh and green for weeks or if necessary for months.

The balsam fir is the favorite for Christmas trees in the middle and
eastern states. Its leaves retain their color and elasticity longer
than those of the black spruce, of which large numbers are however
shipped into markets further south.




CHAPTER XI

THE STORY OF THE THREE KINGS


In the Latin countries, that is to say, in Italy and the southernmost
edge of France, Switzerland and Austria, our good old friend Santa
Klaus rarely acts as the bearer of gifts at the Christmas season. Even
Russia, though she has adopted Saint Nicholas as her patron saint, and
celebrates his day in her own way, gives him no special place in the
festivities that attend the birthday of Christ.

Indeed in all these countries it is not Christmas but the Epiphany, not
December 25th but January 6th, which is the day on which presents are
exchanged among friends and relations.

Epiphany, best known among English-speaking peoples as Twelfth Day, is
the feast of the Three Kings, who figure in the New Testament story as
the Magi or Wise Men of the East. You will undoubtedly remember how
these Wise Men were warned of the birth of Christ by the appearance of
a strange star in the heavens, and how, by following its guidance they
arrived at the stable in Bethlehem where the Savior had been born.

[Illustration: On the way to Bethlehem.

Painting by J. Portaels.]

They brought with them gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh which they
presented to the Holy Child.

It was in memory of the gift-bearing kings that Epiphany among the
Latin and Russian peoples is celebrated as the season for exchanging
presents.

Little is said in the New Testament about these wise men. Popular
legend has greatly filled out the Biblical story. It makes them three
rich and powerful monarchs:--Caspar, King of Tarsus, the land of myrrh;
Melchior, King of Arabia, where the land is ruddy with gold, and
Balthasar, King of Saba, where frankincense flows from the trees.

According to some authors these kings were of the race of Balaam, the
Old Testament prophet, who had prepared the Gentiles for the coming of
Christ into the world. He had foretold that a new star should appear in
that part of the sky under which lay the land of Judea, and had warned
his descendants that when they saw the star they should follow it and
should go to adore a great king who would be born somewhere in Judea
and be Lord of the Universe.

Even from the time of Balaam, it is added, sentinels had been posted
upon a mountain towards the east, in order that as soon as the star
rose into view they should give notice of it to the lords of the
country, that the latter might go without delay to pay reverence to the
new king. This notice, as it happened, was not necessary in the case
of Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. Being very wise and learned kings
they were under the special care of the Holy Spirit, who informed them
in person of the appearance of the star.

Each of them at once gathered together a retinue of servants, as well
as troops of horses, camels and dromedaries, all of which were laden
with the choicest products of their respective countries. Then they
started out in search of the new-born king. They looked up to the star
as their guide, for it moved forward as they moved, and they well knew
that it had been sent to show them the way.

Where the three kings met is not told, but they arrived in Jerusalem
together. As soon as they had entered the city gates the star which had
guided them disappeared.

Now this was in accordance with the will of God,--that on the failure
of their starry guide the kings might make inquiries in the capital of
Judea, and by these means publish abroad the birth of the Son of God.
Hence Herod and the Jews in general could have no excuse for ignoring
this great event, and “the care and diligence of the Magi would reprove
their negligence and indifference, because having Christ so near
them, they did not seek Him, while these strangers came from distant
countries for this cause alone.”

[Illustration: The Three Kings visit Herod.

Painting by Sebastian Conea.]

And in fact the three kings, as they rode through the streets of
Jerusalem, asked of every one they met:

“Where is He who is born King of the Jews? We have seen the star and
have lost it.”

None could give them any information, for no one in Jerusalem had seen
the star.

One of the writers who tells this legend pauses to praise the “holy
boldness” with which the Magi published a new king in Jerusalem without
having fear of Herod who might have been capable of putting them to
death for this cause. This writer quotes with approval the words which
Saint John Chrysostom later addressed in imagination to the kings.

“Tell me, oh good kings, do you not know that whoever proclaims a new
king in the life of a reigning king is liable to death, that you do
this thing, and thus place yourselves in manifest danger from Herod,
who may easily command you to be put to death?”

The same writer quotes with similar approval Saint John’s answer to his
own question:--

“The faith of these kings was so great and the love they bore to the
new-born King so fervent, that even before they had seen Him they were
ready to die for love of Him.”[3]

The news of how three great kings, with a vast following of servants
and beasts of burden had arrived in Jerusalem soon reached the ears of
King Herod. He was greatly troubled when he heard that they had come
in quest of a new-born King of the Jews, well knowing that the kingdom
of Judea did not belong to him by succession or by birth, but that he
had received it as a reward from the Romans, who had unjustly taken
possession of it.

The first thing he did was to call together all the wise and learned
men of Jerusalem, and ask them what the prophets had said about the
coming of the Messiah, and the place where he would make his first
appearance on earth.

And when they answered that the babe would be born in Bethlehem he
was still more troubled. He at once sent out messengers to invite the
kings to his palace, where he prepared a great banquet for them. After
they had feasted he advised them to continue their journey as far as
the little town of Bethlehem, where they might come upon the object of
their quest.

“If you find that the child of prophecy has been born there,” he added,
“hasten back and tell me the joyful news that I, too, may come and
worship Him.”

The kings promised to do as Herod bid them, little knowing the guile
and deceit that festered in his wicked heart. Then they resumed their
journey.

No sooner had they issued out of the gate of Jerusalem than the star
once more appeared in the sky, to their great joy. Following it, they
arrived at the house where, thirteen days before, Christ had been
born.

[Illustration: The Journey of the Three Kings.

Painting by Andrea del Sarto.]

Here the star stood still, burning even more brightly than ever, as if
to say,

“Here is He whom you seek; this is the palace of the new-born King;
this is the court of heaven, since here its King has His abode.”

Strange and complex must have been the emotions these wise men felt in
their hearts when they saw what the star showed them--this chamber of
the King whom they sought, a place more suitable for beasts than for
men; since not for men but for beasts had it been prepared.

Within the stable the virgin mother was watching over the manger,
wherein lay her Divine Son. Her quick ear caught the sound of footsteps
and hoof-beats outside the door. In great alarm she lifted the Child
out of the manger and encircled Him with her arms. This was the
attitude in which the three kings, entering, found the mother and the
Child.

The scales fell from their eyes at the sight. They now realized that
it was in truth no human king who had been born into the world, but
the King of Heaven who had taken upon himself a human form. Throwing
themselves upon their knees, one by one they approached him, and
worshipped him as God and the Savior of man.

Then they presented Him with their gifts which had now acquired a new
meaning. Caspar’s gold testified that the babe was a king, Melchior’s
frankincense showed that he was God, and Balthasar’s myrrh was a
reminder that he was a man and doomed to suffer a painful death.

For gold was kept in kings’ treasuries, frankincense was burnt in
divine worship, and myrrh was used in embalming the bodies of the dead.

The infant Jesus returned their offerings with gifts more precious
still. For gold He gave charity and spiritual riches, for incense,
faith, for myrrh, truth and meekness.

That night the kings were warned in a dream that they should not go
back by way of Jerusalem because King Herod cherished evil designs
against the child Jesus, but that they should return by other roads to
their own kingdoms. They obeyed in all meekness and humility.

“From this arose the custom,” says the quaint old author I have already
quoted, “which the church observes in processions, of leaving the
church by one road and returning to it by another. By this it would be
well that all Christians should learn from the Magi not only to see
Christ, but having found Him again, even though they had lost Him, to
return by a different way from the other; because if at first they
walked in the ways of sin, they should return to it by the ways of
holiness; and in this country they will arrive at the true country,
which is heaven.”

[Illustration: The Arrival of the Three Kings.

Painting by Bernardo Luini.]

When Herod found that the three kings had returned home without
fulfilling their promise to him he was greatly wroth. It was then that
he issued his edict commanding that all children under the age of
two years should be put to death. He hoped that the Messiah would be
slaughtered among the rest. But, as the New Testament tells us, the
Holy Family received a special warning from heaven and fled into Egypt
before the emissaries of wicked King Herod could reach them.

As to the three kings, when they had arrived, each at his own capital,
they cast aside their royal robes and abandoned their royal state.
Giving all their goods to the poor they wandered about the earth
announcing that the Savior of man had been born in Bethlehem.

Seven years after the death of Christ upon the cross the wise men were
found in India by Saint Thomas, once the doubting disciple, now become
firm in the faith, and an apostle to the East. Saint Thomas baptized
them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and they
too became missionaries of the gospel. In the end they fell martyrs for
their faith and their bodies were all buried together outside the walls
of Jerusalem.

Three hundred years passed away. Then Saint Helena, mother of the
Emperor Constantine, made her famous pilgrimage to Palestine. Though
she was quite eighty years of age she was still full of life and
vigor. All her time and energies she devoted to the discovery of early
Christian remains. She is credited with the finding of the cross on
which Christ suffered and the tomb in which He was buried.

She also identified the tomb of the Three Kings and carried their
bodies away with her, on her return journey to Constantinople, to
re-bury them in the church of Saint Sophia. Later the remains were
transferred to Milan and later still to Cologne. There they are still
shown, in a side chapel of the great Cathedral, lying in a golden
shrine--their grinning skulls girt with golden crowns, and their
skeleton bodies clad in royal purple, bedecked with jewels of enormous
value.

This is the story of the Three Kings as it is related all over Europe.
In the Latin countries and in Russia, an episode is added which is
unknown in other lands.

On their way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, so this added legend runs,
the three kings came across an old woman who was cleaning up her house.

[Illustration: The Adoration of the Magi.

Painting by Fra Angelico.]

She asked them whither they were going. And when they told her that
they were on their way to pay homage to the new-born King of the
Jews she prayed them to tarry until she had finished her task.

“Fain would I go with you,” she pleaded, “and join in your homage.”

“Nay,” replied the kings, “we have no time to wait. But leave your work
and come with us.”

The old woman refused to leave her work until it was all finished. Then
it was too late. She strove, indeed, to follow the kings, but they were
lost to sight.

Ever since that day she has been wandering about the earth seeking for
the child Jesus. And on the eve of the Epiphany she comes down the
chimneys of the houses, leaving gifts for the little ones, as the kings
left gifts for the infant Jesus, and hoping against hope that she may
find Him whom she still seeks.

In Italy she is known to this day as the Befana (a corruption of
Epiphania, the Italian for Epiphany) and in Russia as the Baboushka or
little old woman.

On the eve of Epiphany, Italian children hang up their clothes, after
carefully emptying the pockets, around the huge fireplaces which are
common both in palaces and in hovels. During the night the Befana
comes down the chimney, just like Santa Klaus on Christmas eve. If the
children have been good, she stuffs their pockets full of candies and
other presents, but if they have been bad all they get from her are
charcoal ashes or birchrods.

In Spain, however, it is not the Befana nor the Baboushka, but one of
the three kings, no less a person indeed than Balthazar, who is the
gift bearer. On the eve of the Epiphany children leave their shoes and
boots out in some convenient spot near the chimney, expecting Balthazar
will fill them during the night.

From early times he has been represented as a blackamoor or negro.
But not from the earliest. In the pictures by Giotto and Fra Angelico
representing the Adoration of the Magi, Balthazar is shown as a white
man. In a picture on the same subject by Bernardo Luini he appears with
the woolly hair, black face and thick lips of the negro.

Somewhere between the time of Fra Angelico and Bernardo Luini,
Balthazar changed his skin and became a colored gentleman.

In many Italian cities, it is the custom of shop-keepers to decorate
their windows with puppets meant to represent the three kings.
Conspicuous among these grins the black face of Balthazar.

There is a poem by the famous Dean Trench which was probably suggested
by Luini’s picture. Here are some of the most striking lines. They will
show you how closely the poem follows the picture:

[Illustration: The Adoration of the Magi.

Painting by Veronese.]

  From what region of the morn
  Are ye come, thus travel-worn,
  With those boxes pearl-embost,
  Caskets rare, and gifts of cost?
  While your swarth attendants wait
  At the stable’s outer gate,
  And the camels lift their head
  High above the lowly shed;
  Or are seen, a long-drawn train,
  Winding down into the plain,
  From below the light-blue line
  Of the hills in distance fine,
  Dear for your own sake, whence are ye?
  Dearer for the mystery
  That is round you--on what skies
  Gazing, saw you first arise,
  Thro’ the darkness, that clear star,
  Which has marshall’d you so far,
  Even unto this strawy tent,
  Dancing up the Orient?
  Shall we name you Kings indeed,
  Or is this our idle creed?
  Kings of Seba, with the gold
  And the incense long foretold?
  Would the Gentile world by you
  First-fruits pay of tribute due;
  Or have Israel’s scatter’d race,
  From their unknown hiding-place,
  Sent to claim their part and right
  In the Child new-born to-night?

An older poet than Trench, the seventeenth century George Wither, has
woven some pretty fancies about the story of the wise men as it is told
by Saint Matthew in the New Testament.

  That so thy blessed birth, oh Christ,
    Might through the world be spread about,
  Thy Starre appeared in the East,
    Whereby the Gentiles found thee out;
  And, off’ring Thee Myrrh, Incense, Gold,
  Thy threefold Office did unfold.

  Sweet Jesus, let that Starre of Thine,
    Thy Grace, which guides to find out Thee,
  Within our hearts for ever shine,
    That Thou of us found out maist bee:
  And Thou shalt be our King, therefore,
  Our Priest, and Prophet evermore.

  Teares that from true repentance drop,
    Instead of Myrrh, present will wee:
  For Incense, we will offer up
    Our Praiers and Praises unto Thee;
  And bring for Gold each pious deed,
  Which doth from saving faith proceed.

  And as those Wise men never went
    To visit Herod any more;
  So, finding Thee, we will repent
    Our courses follow’d heretofore:
  And that we homeward may retire,
  Our way by Thee we will enquire.

[Illustration: The Adoration of the Three Kings.

From the painting by E. Burne Jones.]




CHAPTER XII

SOME TWELFTH NIGHT CUSTOMS


As Twelfth Night, or Epiphany, is a day dedicated to the three Wise Men
of the New Testament--the three kings of popular legend--it is only
natural that one or more kings should be everywhere prominent in the
celebration of the holiday.

The full trio are present in many places. Thus in Milan, Italy, three
young men dress themselves up in royal robes on Epiphany morning and
mounting horses as splendidly attired as themselves appear before
the city gates. They are admitted with loud cheers, and a procession
is formed. Before the kings marches a man bearing a large gilt star;
behind them the citizens fall into line. At every street corner new
batches of citizens join the parade. They file through the streets
to the cathedral. At its steps the kings dismount, and, with their
followers, march up the aisle to the high altar where a figure of
the infant Christ lies in a manger. Every one who wishes may leave a
present in the manger. Then the procession disbands.

In Madrid a bit of practical joking is still indulged in on Epiphany
eve. The peasants from miles around flock into the city at that time.
Many of them are very ignorant and very superstitious. The town folk
think it funny to gather together in small crowds all playing on noisy
horns and thumping discordant drums. The mobs parade up and down the
streets. Their great delight is to fall in with some simpleton who is
new to city ways. Such a man is easily made to believe that they are on
their way to meet the three kings, who are expected to arrive at one of
the gates some time that night.

The mob urge the countryman to join them. If he consents they throw
over his neck a mule collar with a string of bells attached to it. Then
a step ladder is thrust into his hands. To the jingling of his own
bells the poor yokel is made to carry the ladder through the streets.
At every one of the gates of the city the mob halt and command their
victim to climb up the ladder and peer over the walls to see if the
kings are anywhere in sight.

Sometimes when he reaches the top the poor wretch is allowed to fall,
at the risk of a cracked head or a broken limb. If he escapes all
dangers, he is led on from gate to gate until his patience or his faith
is exhausted.

[Illustration: The Child’s Twelfth Night Dream.

Drawing by John Leech.]

In England, as well as in France, a single king survives in the
ceremony of the Twelfth Cake. France, which was probably the
inventor of this eatable, known there as the King’s Cake, cherishes the
custom with especial gusto. So let us begin with the Galette du Roi.

The size of the cake is determined by the number of the guests for whom
it is to be served. It is usually made of pastry and is baked in a
round sheet like a pie. A broad bean was formerly baked into the cake,
but in our day a wee little china image is usually substituted for the
bean. When ready the cake is cut into slices and the youngest child at
the table directs how these slices shall be distributed to the others.
There is great excitement as slice after slice is handed out and eaten.

At last some one’s teeth come in contact with the image and he spits
it out. “He,” I say, on the supposition that it is a boy. If it is,
indeed, a boy, he is called King of the Bean (le Roi Favette), and
chooses a queen from among the girls. If it be a girl she becomes queen
and chooses a boy as her consort.

King and queen are now closely watched by their companions. When either
of them drinks the whole party has to cry out “The king drinks” or “the
queen drinks,” as the case may be. Any one who fails to join in the cry
has to pay a forfeit.

In England the custom varies in different localities as it has varied
at different dates.

What it was in London during the middle of the nineteenth century is
best described by Hone in his “Table Book:”

“First buy your cake,” says this author. “Next, look at your invitation
list, and count the number of ladies you expect, and afterwards the
number of gentlemen.

“Then you write down on slips of paper the names of as many famous
characters in history, male and female, as will cover the list of
guests. Add to each slip some pleasant bit of verse.

“Fold them up exactly of the same size, and number each on the back;
taking care to make the king No. 1 and the queen No. 2. Cause tea and
coffee to be handed to your visitors as they drop in. When all are
assembled and tea is over, put as many ladies’ characters in a reticule
as there are ladies present; next put the gentlemen’s characters in a
hat. Then call on a gentleman to carry the reticule to the ladies as
they sit; from which each lady is to draw one ticket and to preserve
it unopened. Select a lady to bear the hat to the gentlemen, for the
same purpose. There will be one ticket left in the reticule, and
another in the hat,--which the lady and gentleman who carried each is
to interchange, as having fallen to each. Next arrange your visitors,
according to their numbers;--the king No. 1, the queen No. 2 and so on.
The king is then to recite the verse on his ticket; then the queen a
verse on hers; and so the characters are to proceed in numerical order.

“This done, let the cake and refreshments go round; and hey! for
merriment!”

In earlier days, however, we know that the cake played a more
important part in the festivities than Hone allows to it. In fact the
English here closely followed the French fashion which I have already
described, although in England the King’s bean was supplemented by
a pea for the Queen. This much we may learn from a poem by Robert
Herrick, who lived in the seventeenth century:

      Now, now, the mirth comes
      With the cake full of plums,
  Where bean is the king of the sport here;
      Beside we must know,
      The pea also
  Must revel as queen in the court here.

      Begin then to choose
      This night as ye use,
  Who shall for the present delight here;
      Be a king by the lot,
      And who shall not
  Be Twelfth-day Queen for the night here.




CHAPTER XIII

ST. NICHOLAS IN ENGLAND


St. Nicholas is practically forgotten to-day in Protestant England. But
in the merrie England of olden times, before the Catholic religion had
given way to Protestantism, he was one of the most popular saints in
the calendar.

This is shown not only by the number of churches dedicated in his
honor, but also by the number of boys who received his name in baptism.
Nicholases were once as common among the Englishmen of the past as
Maries were among English women. A curious fact may be brought up in
evidence. In English catechisms, whose forms date from a very early
time, the question is put to the pupil:

“What is your name?”

And the answer is printed thus: “N. or M.” Of course the pupil is
expected to put his or her name in place of these initials. Now it is
probable that N stands for Nicholas and M for Mary, and the choice of
these initials was made not only because Nicholas was the patron of
boys and Mary of girls, but because these were the commonest names in
Old England.

The feast of St. Nicholas used to be celebrated by a ceremony known as
the election of a Boy-bishop. This custom existed to some extent on
the continent of Europe, but it nowhere flourished so vigorously as in
England. It has been traced as far back as the thirteenth century.

To the choir boys and altar boys of English churches it was a
particularly exciting time.

On St. Nicholas’ eve all the boys who sang in the choir or served at
the altar met at their parish church, or in the great cathedral, if
they belonged to a bishop’s see, and elected one from among their
number, who took the title of “the Boy-bishop.” This title with its
dignities he retained until December 28th, Holy Innocents’ Day, so
called because it is the anniversary of the slaughter of the children
in Palestine by order of the wicked King Herod.

The Boy-bishop was dressed in the robes of a real bishop. On his head
was placed a mitre, in his right hand a crozier. Another boy was
elected dean, while the rest were styled canons, all being dressed in
the robes of their office.

During the three weeks from December 5 to December 28, the Boy-bishop
could perform all the duties of a real bishop, except that of saying
mass. If a priest died during the period when he held office he could
appoint another to take his place in the church left vacant. If he
himself died before Holy Innocents’ Day he was given a bishop’s grand
funeral in the cathedral.

“There is a little tomb of this kind,” says Miss Abbie Farwell Brown,
“not half the size of a full-grown one, in a great cathedral that I
know. It is of white marble, grandly carved and decorated, and though
it is worn and nicked by eight hundred years of change, one can plainly
see that it is a child’s face among the long curls beneath the bishop’s
mitre. No one knows his name, nor aught about him, save that he must be
one of the Boy-bishops who died at Christmas time, or he would not be
buried in the great cathedral tomb.”[4]

Doubtless Miss Brown has in mind the cathedral of Salisbury, England.
In the nave of that great minster there is just such a tomb, with just
such a likeness carved upon it. The boy’s foot rests on the figure of
a monster with a lion’s head and a dragon’s tail, in allusion to the
words of the psalmist “Thou shalt tread on the lion and the dragon.”

But to continue. On December 6th the newly elected Boy-bishop with his
dean and canons held a grand service in the church to which they were
attached, the prayers being chanted in the boy’s sweet childish voice.
A great crowd always thronged the church to gaze on so rare a sight,
and the offerings that they made were all for the Boy-bishop.

After the services were over the bishop and his boy-assistants would
form themselves into a procession and parade through the streets of the
town or the lanes of the countryside, asking some small money tributes
from all they met and at every door where they knocked. This was known
as the Bishop’s Subsidy and though no one was likely to give a great
deal, yet as the procession was continued every day during the three
weeks, the amount collected sometimes rolled up into quite a pretty sum.

Faster and more furious grew the fun as the time of the bishop’s rule
neared its close. On the afternoon of December 27th little Nicholas
and his companions sang vespers, while the real priests of the church
acted as altar boys and choristers. Then the Boy-bishop gave a solemn
benediction to all present. Making the sign of the cross over the
kneeling throngs, he dismissed them with the words:

  Crucis signo vos consigno; vestra sit tuitio,
  Quos nos emit et redemit suae carnis pretio.

These latin words being translated into English mean:

“I bestow upon you the sign of the cross, yours be it to learn what is
sent for our redemption through the price of his flesh.”

Next day (the actual feast of the Holy Innocents), the Boy-bishop
preached a sermon which usually was written for him by some famous
prelate. On his dismissal of the congregation at the close of the
sermon, the festival of the Boy-bishop was at an end.

When Henry VIII became a Protestant and brought over a great many of
his subjects to the new faith one of his first acts was to abolish the
Boy-bishop and his festival. Henry’s daughter, Queen Mary, restored
both for the few years of her own reign, but Queen Elizabeth, her
sister and successor, put an end to the mummery forever.

We catch our last glimpse of the Boy-bishop in the pages of a historian
called William Strype, who informs us that on the fifth day of
December, 1556, (Queen Mary being then still alive) “a boy habited
like a bishop in pontificalibus, went abroad in most parts of London,
singing after the old fashion, and was received by many ignorant but
well disposed people into their houses, and had as much good cheer as
was ever wont to be had before, at least in many places.”

Old customs die hard. We have come across many instances of the truth
of this saying in the course of our study of the Christmas festivals.
Just as Christianity had to retain and remodel many old heathen
customs, so Protestantism (often without meaning it) retained and
remodeled many an old Catholic custom. Just as Silenus, and Saturn,
survived in a measure as Santa Claus, so the Boy-bishop, in a measure,
survived as the hero of a ceremony which flourished at the school of
Eton until nearly the middle of the nineteenth century.

This was known as Eton Montem. It was celebrated not in December but in
June, though tradition tells us that the original date was St. Nicholas
Day and that the ceremony was instituted in the year 1440, the very
year when Eton was founded.

Later it took place every third year on the Tuesday after Whitsunday
or Pentecost, which usually falls in June. On that day a procession of
all the scholars went from the school buildings to a hill known as Salt
Hill that rises just outside of the grounds. At their head marched the
captain and his chaplain, the one being the head boy of the highest
class in school, the other the head boy of the second class. The
chaplain was dressed in a suit of priestly black with a bushy wig upon
his head.

Two boys called “salt bearers” with “scouts” dressed like old-time
footmen ran beside the procession begging from all passersby and they
scattered through the roads to beg at the doors of houses for miles
around.

The money thus collected was put into a great bag, already sprinkled
with a small quantity of salt and at the end of the day this bag was
handed over to the captain. It was used to pay his expenses when he
left Eton for some one of the great universities. Not infrequently it
mounted up to hundreds of dollars and sometimes even to a thousand or
more.

Up to the middle of the eighteenth century it was customary for the
chaplain to read prayers on Salt Hill. He was assisted by a clerk whom
he kicked down hill at their conclusion. The irreverence of this part
of the ceremony shocked Queen Caroline and at her request it was ever
afterwards omitted. In 1847 the entire ceremony was abolished by act of
Parliament, the last celebration having taken place on June 28th, 1844.

And thus the last vestige of Saint Nicholas passed out of the
ceremonial life of England.




CHAPTER XIV

FATHER CHRISTMAS AND HIS FAMILY


The English, as I have said, have no Saint Nicholas, no Santa Klaus, no
Chris-kinkle to act as a distributor of gifts on Christmas eve. They
hail as the patron of the season a vague allegorical being, usually
called Father Christmas, though he has, sometimes, been known also as
Old Christmas, Captain Christmas, and by other titles.

He appears only in picture, in poetry, and in dramatic pieces specially
got up for the holidays. In the latter he has played an important part
from a very early period. The most famous of such pieces was a “masque”
written by Ben Jonson, Shakespeare’s friend and rival, and produced at
the court of King James I in the year 1616. That, by the way, is the
very year of Shakespeare’s death.

Christmas festivities at that time were frowned down upon by many of
the more zealous Protestants--just then beginning to earn the name of
“Puritans”--who fancied that these mummeries and rejoicings smacked
too strongly of “Papist” or Roman Catholic tendencies. Indeed many
fanatics had striven to abolish Christmas altogether, and had partly
succeeded in doing so, at least among the people who believed as they
did. But James I, though a foolish person in some respects, was a
learned man and a great lover of the traditions of the past.

It is in allusion to the Puritan attempt to suppress him altogether
that Ben Jonson’s Father Christmas utters these words as he makes his
entrance upon the stage:

  “Why, gentlemen, do you know what you do? Ha! would you have kept
  me out? CHRISTMAS!--Old Christmas--Christmas of London, and Captain
  Christmas! Pray you let me be brought before my Lord Chamberlain;
  I’ll not be answered else. ‘_’Tis merry in hall, when beards wag
  all._’ I have seen the time you have wished for me, for a merry
  Christmas, and now you have me, they would not let me in: _I must
  come another time!_ A good jest--as if I could come more than once a
  year. Why, I am no dangerous person, and so I told my friends of the
  guard. I am old Gregory Christmas, still, and, though I come out of
  the Pope’s Head-alley, as good a Protestant as any in my parish.”

He must have been a quaint looking figure, this same Father Christmas,
for we are told that his costume consisted of

  “round hose, long stockings, close doublet, high-crowned hat, with a
  brooch, long, thin beard, truncheon, little ruffs, white shoes,
  with his scarfs and garters tied cross, and his drum beaten before
  him,”

[Illustration: Father Christmas.

Drawn by Kenny Meadows.

From the Illustrated London News, December, 1847.]

And now, to the sound of the drum, in troop all his merry family--sons
and daughters and nephews and nieces. Among them are the Lord of
Misrule, who in old days directed the Christmas revels; Roast Beef,
“that English Champion bold,” who has saved many a sturdy Englishman
from starvation; Plum Pudding, a blackamoor, with rich round face
and rosemary cockade; and Minced Pie, and Baby Cake, and Mumming and
Wassail and Offering and Carol, and New Year’s Gift, and others too
numerous to mention.

Many members of this robust family will be recognized as contributors
to the Christmas cheer of to-day. Others have disappeared forever.

The Lord of Misrule, for example, the “Grand Captain of Mischief,” as
the Puritans called him, no longer summons around him all the madcap
youths of town or village for a brief period of lawless revelry.

In Scotland this personage was known as the Abbot of Unreason, a
name which clearly shows that he was a direct descendant from the
chief performer in the mediæval Feast of Fools, and as such was a
great-great-etc.-grandson of Silenus, the merrymaker in the Greek
Bacchanalia.

King James I of England was succeeded by his son Charles I. During
the reign of the latter unhappy monarch, the Puritan party in England
gathered so much strength that, under the lead of Oliver Cromwell, they
hurled Charles from his throne and cut off his head, sending his entire
family into exile for a period of a dozen years. Father Christmas
shared the exile of his royal patrons, or if he dared show his face in
England at all, it was only here and there in remote country places
or behind locked doors in the obscurer parts of the great cities.
Meanwhile his absence was greatly deplored by that part of the English
people who had remained loyal to the crown. One of these put forward
a curious little book entitled “An Hue and Cry after Christmas.” The
following paragraph shows the spirit in which the book was written:

“Any man or woman, that can give any knowledge, or tell any tidings of
an old, old, very old grey-bearded gentleman, called Christmas, who was
wont to be a very familiar guest and visit all sorts of people, both
poor and rich, and used to appear in glittering gold, silk and silver,
in the court, and in all shapes in the theatre in White Hall, and had
ringing, feasts and jollity in all places, both in the city and the
country, for his coming--whoever can tell what is become of him, or
where he may be found, let him bring him back again into England.”

[Illustration: Father Christmas, another conception.

Drawing by Kenny Meadows.]

Well, Father Christmas did come back to England in the train of Charles
I’s son, Charles II who shortly after Cromwell’s death was restored to
the English throne by the wish of the majority of the English people.

When he resumed the rule that had been wrested by the Puritans from his
father the old celebrations of Christmas were to some extent revived in
the royal and other mansions and at the theatres.

“To some extent”--that is too often a sad phrase!

It means, in this case, that pretty much all the life and spirit of the
old ceremonies had departed so that no revival could restore them to
their former vitality.

The changes wrought by the troublous times through which England had
passed were fatal to the old-time splendors of the Christmas season.
In the country many of the great old estates had passed into new hands
and the old ties between the lord of the manor and his tenants had
been forever sundered. The rafters of the old baronial halls no longer
rang with the merriment which had graced the meeting of master and
servants on a holiday basis of equality. Friends and relatives who from
childhood had gathered together around the Yule log were now scattered
or had been slain by the chances of war. Members of old country
families deprived by Cromwell of their estates and driven into exile,
now flocked to London to become hangers-on at the court of a “Merry
Monarch” whose mirth was often bought at the expense of his subject’s
years.

The Merry Monarch, himself (that was the name given to Charles II), was
a prodigal and a spendthrift, who found all sorts of new ways in which
to squander the money raised by taxes from his subjects. He had little
left, therefore, to imitate the splendid pageants that distinguished
the courts of Queen Elizabeth and James I at the ancient holiday
seasons.

A famous song called “The Old and Young Courtier” was written shortly
after Charles II had regained his throne. It sadly contrasts the good
old times and the good old people with the bad new times and the bad
new people of the Restoration.

The old courtier is lovingly described as “a worshipful old gentleman
who had a great estate,” with a lovely old wife by his side, and a
great band of servants around them. Then followed this verse:

  With a good old fashion when Christmas was come,
  To call in all his old neighbors with bagpipe and drum,
  With good cheer enough to furnish every room,
  And old liquor able to make a cat speak, and man dumb;
          Like an old courtier of the queen’s
          And the queen’s old courtier.

[Illustration: The Old and the New Christmas.

From London Punch, Dec. 24, 1881.]

A contrast is drawn between this old courtier of the queen’s and the
young courtier of the king’s, with all his new-fangled notions, and
especially

  With a new fashion, when Christmas is drawing on,
  On a new journey to London we must straight all begone
  And leave none to keep house but our new porter John
  Who relieves the poor with a thump in the back with a stone.
          Like a young courtier of the king’s
          And the king’s young courtier.

From time to time, even in periods nearer to our own, complaints have
been raised in England that the spirit of the old-time Christmas
merriment has departed forever, and that good old Father Christmas is
once more an exile from his own.

A cartoon by Linley M. Sambourne published in the _London Punch_ for
December 24, 1881, shows the Old-Fashioned Christmas holding a lively
conversation with the New.

This prose bit is printed beneath the picture:

  _Christmas_ (_New Style_). “WE ARE THE MODERN CHRISTMAS CARDS--WE ARE!
  WE ARE! WE ARE!”

  _Christmas_ (_Old Style_). “YOU REPRESENT CHRISTMAS! POOH! WHAT DO YOU
  MEAN BY COMING OUT LIKE THAT AT THIS TIME OF YEAR?”

Then follows this poem, which still further explains the meaning of the
picture:

  Says the Old-fashioned Christmas to the New-fangled Christmas,
    “’Pon my word, my boy, I don’t think much of you.”
  Says the New-fangled Christmas to the Old-fashioned Christmas,
    “Well, with tastes like yours, I don’t suppose you do.
  For, to celebrate a season, very fortunately brief,
  At _your_ age too,--with an orgie of plum-pudding and roast beef,
  Crowned with holly, in a dressing-gown! The thing’s past all belief!”
    Says Old Christmas, with a nod, “My boy, that’s true.”

  Says the New-fangled Christmas to the Old-fashioned Christmas,
    “For tomfoolery like yours we have no zest.”
  Says the Old-fashioned Christmas to the New-fangled Christmas,
    “What now! _You_ to talk like that! Well, I am blest!
  ‘Tomfoolery’? Why, what do you call all this here modern fad,--
  Sending gimcrack cards by dozens, dauby, glaring, good, and bad,
  Nymphs--and what not? Why, between you, you drive friends and Postmen mad.”
    Says Young Christmas, “When it’s over, they can rest.”

[Illustration: Bringing in Old Christmas.

From the Illustrated London News.]

  Says the Old-fashioned Christmas to the New-fangled Christmas,
    “Where’s the jollity of twenty years ago?”
  Says the New-fangled Christmas to the Old-fashioned Christmas,
    “How on earth, now, do you think that _I_ should know?
  For to-day, with Art and Culture’s dainty trifles by the score,
  We just manage to scrape through the time, confessing it’s a bore;
  But, by Jove, if _you_ came back again, ’twould soon be something more!”
    Says Old Christmas, “Well, I really call that low.”

  Says the New-fangled Christmas to the Old-fashioned Christmas,
    “I don’t see the day a bit, you know, like you.”
  Says the Old-fashioned Christmas to the New-fangled Christmas,
    “Never mind, my boy, there’s something you can do.
  Have your fads; but copy me, my boy. Go on as I’ve begun.
  Remember, when your table’s spread, the thousands that have none.
  So, get your cheque-book out, my boy. Show you’re your father’s son.”
    Says Young Christmas, “Well, I don’t mind if I do.”

After all, may it not be safe for us to decide that it is not the
spirit but the fashion which alters, that the heart of Old Father
Christmas still beats warm under the new garb wherein changing tastes
have clothed him? Surely, if we have dropped some of the revellings
of the past, we have dropped also the abuses which gradually made
distasteful the horse play that attended those revelries.

On the whole the “new-fangled Christmas” has many points that show an
improvement over the old-fashioned Christmas while in all essentials
the two remain one and the same.

Some humble members of Father Christmas’ family still surviving to
a small extent in London are the “waits” or wandering musicians who
play dismal tunes under the windows of the well-to-do in the hopes of
obtaining a few pennies.

These are direct descendants from the “jongleurs” or minstrels who in
the Middle Ages celebrated the birth of Christ on Christmas night with
song and dance.

[Illustration: The Christmas Waits.

Drawing by Kenny Meadows.

From the Illustrated London News, December, 1848.]




CHAPTER XV

PANTOMIME IN THE PAST AND PRESENT


Some people still living (but they must be very aged people by now) may
be able to remember the pantomime which was one of the great features
of the Christmas holidays in early nineteenth century England, and may
be looked upon as the legitimate successor of the ancient “masque.” The
word pantomime comes from two Greek words meaning “all mimicry.” It is
a play in which the actors say never a word but perform their parts
in dumb show, that is, by signs and gestures. Being almost unknown in
America this word of explanation may be necessary.

England borrowed the pantomime from Italy, where it has survived from
the masked frolics of the Roman Saturnalia. Pantaloon, Harlequin and
the Fairy Columbine were the principal actors in all the Italian
pantomimes and all of them wore masks.

A famous player named Rich, who was known on the stage as Lun, was the
first to introduce pantomime into England. In the year 1717 he produced
a play of this sort called Harlequin Executed, in which he himself
performed the part of Harlequin. It is said that he “could describe to
the audience by his signs and gestures as intelligibly as others could
express by words.”[5]

David Garrick, perhaps the greatest of all English actors, was a
younger contemporary of Rich and after his friend’s death he celebrated
the silent but powerful language of Rich in these lines:

  When Lun appeared, with matchless grace and ishm,
  He gave the power of speech to every limb,
  Though masked and mute, conveyed his quick intent,
  And told in frolic gestures all he meant;
  But now the motley coat and sword of wood
  Require a tongue to make them understood.

By the last lines Garrick evidently means to say that spoken words had
in his time been introduced into the so-called pantomime, because no
actor remained who was capable of conveying his meaning by nod or wink
or gesture in the old-time manner.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, all and more of
the original glories of pantomime were brought back to the English
stage by Joseph Grimaldi, an Italian by birth, but an Englishman by
adoption. He was the greatest clown known to the history of English
drama.

[Illustration: Jongleurs announcing the birth of our Lord.

From a painting by A. F. Gorguet.]

After his retirement, in 1828, pantomime still flourished for a number
of years as the chief dramatic feature of the Christmas season.

St. Stephen’s Day (December 26, the day after Christmas) was the day
specially set aside for the production of a pantomime, but in due
time those performances were extended all over the Christmas season.
They were the particular delight of the young folk, though older folk
also liked to attend them and live their youth over again in the joy
reflected from the faces of the boys and girls in the audience.

Leigh Hunt, a charming English writer who never lost his boy-heart
tells us how much pleasure he found in watching the children at a
pantomime.

“I am more delighted,” he says, “in watching the vivacious workings
of their ingenuous countenances at these Christmas shows than at the
sights themselves.... Stretching half over the boxes at the theatre,
adorned by maternal love, see their enraptured faces, now turned
to the galleries, wondering at their height and at the number of
regular-placed heads contained in them; now directed towards the green
cloud which is so lingeringly kept between them and their promised
bliss. The half-peeled orange laid aside when the play begins; their
anxiety for that which they understand; their honest laughter which
runs through the house like a merry peal of sweet bells; the fear of
the little girl lest they should discover the person hid behind the
screen; the exultation of the boy when the hero conquers. But, oh, the
rapture when the pantomime commences! Ready to leap out of the box,
they joy in the mischief of the clown, laugh at the thwacks he gets for
his meddling, and feel no small portion of contempt for his ignorance
in not knowing that hot water will scald and gunpowder explode; while,
with head aside to give fresh energy to the strokes, they ring their
little palms against each other in testimony of exuberant delight.”

Pantomime in the England of to-day has dwindled into a mere side
show for spectacular ballets, which are now all the fashion. Clown
and Columbine are indeed, occasionally introduced into these ballets
but the clown is no longer a leading character and Columbine and her
companions are selected more for their skill in dancing than in the art
of gesture.

Very rarely, indeed, is a comic mask introduced into a Christmas
piece nowadays. Formerly, Harlequin and Columbine wore little black
masks that just covered the upper part of the face, while the rest of
the jolly crew of elves, ogres and buffoons were disguised in huge
headpieces arranged over their shoulders.

And here comes in the point of the picture by Mr. Potter which I have
reproduced from the Christmas number of an English weekly called
_The Sporting Times_.

[Illustration: Going to the Pantomime.

Drawing by John Leech.

From the Illustrated London News, December 24, 1853.]

The young woman of this picture is a “high-kicker” who evidently has
made a hit with the audience at a modern Christmas ballet. When she
gets behind the scenes among “properties” left over from the ancient
days, she gives a frisky vent to her feelings by flashing her heels in
the faces of the grinning old masks.

In short, she represents pantomime in its most modern development, the
ballet, as contrasted with the grotesque humors of the past.

You may find food for both humor and pathos, in the idea which Mr.
Potter has worked out in this pretty and ingenious manner.




CHAPTER XVI

SAINT NICHOLAS IN EUROPE


There is no country in Europe where Saint Nicholas is more honored than
in Holland. Even before his festival arrives--during all the first five
days of December--the shops in town and city put on their most festive
array. All the people in shop and street assume a brisk and bustling
air. Dutch men and Dutch women, usually silent and stolid, hail one
another with noisy greetings as they meet. Everybody, in short, has his
best foot foremost.

Amsterdam, one of many cities which claim Saint Nicholas as their
patron saint, is especially wideawake. During the first week of
December the confectioners’ shops are ablaze with all sorts of
splendors in cake and candy. Sugar rabbits, sugar cats and sugar
mice disport themselves amid scenery of sugar and chocolate and wood
shavings. The shavings (painted a vivid green), supply the foliage
for chocolate trees and candied fruits. In all shapes and sizes are
figures of men and women made out of crisp brown gingerbread, called
Saint Nicholas cake, which is specially prepared for the holiday. These
figures are sometimes known as “sweethearts” and it is a merry jest
to send a girl figure to a boy and a boy figure to a girl. Nay the
elders themselves are not forgotten if they are unmarried. It is good
fun, we are told, to have a servant burst into a roomful of people and
say to the lady of the house:

[Illustration: Mute admiration.

By Raymond Potter.]

“If you please ma’am, here is Miss Annie’s sweetheart,” and hand over
to mamma a gingerbread man for her little girl.[6]

Other jokes of the same kind are played with so-called “hearts,” large
and luscious pieces of march-pane moulded into the familiar shape
supposed to resemble the organ that is supposed to be the seat of
human affection. These are exchanged among the young people much as
valentines, with us, are exchanged on February 14th.

“Of course,” says the authority I have already quoted, a lady of
Holland birth who speaks of what she herself has seen and experienced,
“most girls like having such an innocent heart sent to them, and it is
funny to see the mysterious look with which one tells another:

“‘I had a large heart sent to me last night. I cannot possibly think
who sent it.’”

Here and there in the streets you will see groups of boys and girls
clustered around a linen-draper’s shop. For it is the linen drapers who
especially love to display in their windows a life-like image of Saint
Nicholas, ruddy-faced, white-bearded, crowned with his mitre and clad
in his bright red robe lined with soft white fur, bearing a crozier in
his hand, and mounted on a fiery white horse. Behind him stands his
negro servant Jan, or John.

On December 5th, the eve of the saint’s feast, he is said to ride over
the roofs of the houses, dropping candies into the wide chimneys. And
indeed, in houses where children believe this, their faith is rewarded
by the fact that candies and other goodies do stream down into the
great open hearths and are gathered in by eager little people who have
been singing the saint’s praises all through the evening.

In many households, moreover, the saint actually presents himself to
the eyes of his worshippers and admirers. A knock is heard at the door;
it is opened, and amid the breathless silence of the children, Santa
Klaus, in flesh and blood, and in all the glory of scarlet robe and
bejewelled mitre, steps into the room. He is closely followed by his
servant Jan, who bears a basket containing all sorts of presents for
the good children, and all sorts of unpleasant reminders for the bad
ones.

[Illustration: Santa Claus comes to grief on an automobile.

Copyright 1908 by Life Publishing Company.]

Before these things are distributed, Santa Klaus calls up the children
one by one. He praises the good ones for all the kind deeds they have
done during the past year, while gently reproving any faults which
may have mingled with their virtues. To the bad ones he is stern but
just. He reminds them of their misdeeds, and tells them that he cannot
give them any presents until they improve. If they have been very, very
bad, he hands a birch-rod over to their parents with the advice that it
should be used upon their little backs in the task of reformation.

Great is the wonder that Santa Klaus should know so much about the
children in a whole neighborhood. He goes, or is supposed to go, from
house to house in the course of the day, and everywhere he praises the
virtues or condemns the faults of the boys and girls arrayed to meet
him. Sometimes it is found, by comparing notes, that he was in two or
more houses at the same time.

Of course, you who have had your eyes opened, guess that the part of
Santa Klaus is taken by some older member of each family, who confines
his visits to his own circle of relatives. Except in very small
villages, there are many Santa Klauses, therefore, going the rounds on
Saint Nicholas’s day, each well acquainted in the houses he visits.

In Austria, also, and in many parts of Southern Germany, St. Nicholas
Eve is made memorable in every nursery by a visit from the saint. A
well grown boy with a quick and clever mind and some knowledge of
church doctrine, is chosen to play the part of Santa Klaus. He is
masked in long white vestments. A silk scarf is wound around his neck,
a mitre crowns his head, a crozier is put in his hand. He is attended
by two angels and a whole troop of devils.

The angels are dressed much like the choir boys you have seen in
Catholic and Episcopalian churches, save that they also wear silken
scarfs around their necks. Each carries a basket.

The devils blacken their faces, put horns upon their heads and decorate
their faces with pig’s snouts or any other grotesque device that may
suggest itself to their fancy. All are girt with chains, which they
shake or rattle furiously.

Boy-like, it is thought much better fun to play devil than angel, and
any boy who can lay his hands upon a suitable costume is at liberty to
join the infernal train.

Late in the afternoon of December 5th the Boy-bishop and his attendants
begin their round of visits. It is the season for young folks’ parties,
and all the children of the village who are not masquerading as bishop
or angel or imp have gathered together in a few of the principal
houses. At each Saint Nicholas calls in its due turn.

He enters with the two angels, leaving the demons outside to indulge in
any pranks they will.

[Illustration: No, I don’t believe in you any more, but you may leave
the things.

Drawing by J. R. Shaver.

Copyright 1908 by Life Publishing Co.]

A great hush falls upon the assembled children as the Saint advances
into the room. One by one he calls them up to examine them. Simple
questions suited to their various ages are put to them by the bishop,
after which each has to repeat a hymn or a prayer. All this part of
the evening’s business is carried on with the greatest seriousness and
decorum on the part of children and grown-ups alike.

If the child passes a satisfactory examination the angels present it
with nuts and apples--if not it has to stand aside. When the last of
the examinations is over, the devils are admitted into the room.

They are not allowed to come near the good children, but they may tease
and frighten the naughty little boys and girls as much as they choose.
They delight in strange dances, and in all sorts of odd antics, such
as smearing the girls’ faces with lamp-black, or putting coal dust and
ashes down the backs of the boys.

When Saint Nicholas has left, the children return to their own homes.
Before going to bed they hang up their stockings by the chimney or,
more likely, place their little boots and shoes close to the hearth,
expecting to find them filled with gifts in the morning.

Boots and shoes indeed, came before stockings almost everywhere, the
advantages of clean stockings as receivers for candies and other
eatables being a comparatively new discovery. In Belgium to this day
the children give their shoes an extra fine polish on Christmas Eve,
fill them with hay, oats, carrots, for Santa Klaus’s white horse, and
put them on the table, or set them in the fireplace. The room is then
carefully closed and the door is locked.

In the morning a strange thing is found to have happened! The furniture
is all turned topsy-turvy, the fodder has been removed from the shoes
and in its place the good little children find all sorts of nice things
and the bad ones only rods of birch and bits of coal.

Boots and shoes are also in use in many parts of France. But here,
as a general rule, it is the good little Jesus (le bon petit Jesus)
who comes down the chimney to fill all this footgear with sweetmeats.
Formerly this custom extended to Paris. A French journalist named
Charton thus describes the sights that met his eye on Christmas eve in
Paris in the middle of the nineteenth century:

[Illustration: Santa Claus: “Whew! I suppose if I don’t remember those
poor boys in Wall Street they’ll complain to Teddy.”

Drawing by C. J. Taylor.]

“Lo! what a strange thing! Before all the mantelpieces of Paris are
ranged, with a wonderful symmetry, charming little shoes, pretty
little _bottines_, miniature slippers, and, as the extremities of the
_faubourgs_, poor little sabots! It will be asked, what all those tiny
little boots and shoes are doing there? There are enough of them to
cover the feet of all the inhabitants of the vast kingdom of Lilliput.
What are they doing there? They are waiting for a beautiful little
luminous hand to descend from heaven to fill them with preserved fruits
and bonbons! In the olden time the presents intended for children were
fastened to the two ends of the Yule Log. Later an attempt was made to
introduce into France the Christmas tree, which, in a large portion
of Europe, has superseded the Yule Log. But it is most usual to keep
to the simple custom of filling the little shoes with bonbons, which
more than one mother of the laboring classes has had the foresight
to reserve for that purpose. We will not venture to say that, whilst
the good mother or the elder sister is stealthily approaching the
hearth and stooping down, one of the little sleepers, kept awake with
expectation, does not open his eyelids slily, and say to himself: ‘Ah!
I was sure it was not the little Jesus!’ But the prudent child will
take care not to confess that he has discovered the mystery; he has
too much interest in being cheated next Christmas day; and in a few
hours the room will ring with his cries of false surprise but real
gratification.”

Only candies and sweetmeats, you will see, were brought down through
the chimney by the Christ-child on Christmas eve. The favorite time for
gift-making from parent to child, from child to parent, from friend to
friend, was on New Year’s Day. Hence that holiday is known as “Le Jour
des Étrennes” (the day of presents), “étrennes” being a corruption of
the Latin word “strenae,” the gifts exchanged during the Saturnalia,
about which I have written in the fourth chapter of this book.

Though Saint Nicholas is honored as the patron of children in nearly
all the Catholic countries of continental Europe, he is rarely
associated in any way with Christmas. That day is there held sacred to
the Christ-child alone. In a very few localities Saint Nicholas may
appear on his own day to find out what good little boys and girls would
like to have on Christmas, or, sometimes, at New Year’s, but it is
generally the little Jesus who is the actual gift bringer.

In the Catholic portions of Austria and Germany all of the windows are
lit up on the night of December 24 so as to enable Him to pick His way
from house to house. Here you may again recognize a lingering memory of
the Pagan and Jewish festivals wherein lighted torches, or lamps, or
candles form a chief feature.

[Illustration: Santa Claus up in a balloon.

Copyright 1908 by Life Publishing Co.]

And, indeed, one may point out right here that the Christ-child
supplies another link with the old pagan Silenus. The latter, as I have
told you, was, among other things, the guardian and tutor of the infant
Bacchus. Whenever picture or statue represented him in this capacity
all his evil traits were dropped. He became a very different being
from the graceless reveller of the Bacchanalian feasts. He was now
painted or carved as an old man, grave and sober, clean-cut in limbs
and features, holding little Bacchus in his arms or on his shoulders.
Possibly this figure may have suggested the mediæval legend of Saint
Christopher, who, it is fabled, bore the Christ-child on his shoulders
across a river in Germany.

In Italy almost every church has an altar dedicated to the Christ-child
and decorated with a wooden or waxen effigy known as “Il Bambino,” or
“the babe.” On Christmas day this Bambino is specially honored by being
dressed up in his finest clothes and placed in a mimic cradle, called
a presepio. All good Catholics flock to do the image honor during the
twelve days from Christmas to Epiphany.

The most famous Bambino in Italy is that in the Franciscan church of
Ara Cœli at Rome, which is believed to heal the sick and perform other
miracles. On Christmas day a curious ceremony is performed in his honor
which makes our thoughts travel back to the Boy-bishop of old England
and elsewhere. Opposite the presepio in which the little waxen figure
reposes is built a palco, or platform, and on this platform a number of
baby orators follow one another with little speeches, written by their
elders, that dwell upon the birth of our Lord and the incidents of His
childhood.




CHAPTER XVII

SAINT NICHOLAS IN AMERICA.


Just as the Christmas tree was brought over to this country by early
German immigrants so Saint Nicholas, or Santa Klaus, came here in the
train of the Dutch settlers of New York. He established himself first
in the little island of Manhattan and then gradually spread all over
the country, being greatly assisted by the fact that he was no stranger
to the German settlers everywhere. But his Dutch origin is shown by the
very name Santa Klaus, which is common alike to Holland and America,
though it is elsewhere unknown.

At first he was honored on his own day with the same observances that
marked the festival in the Fatherland.

Before the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, St. Nicholas’s
day had been all but forgotten in New Amsterdam (the Dutch name for New
York) and we find that New Year’s eve was the occasion when he made
his rounds as a gift bearer to the children. Later he transferred his
activities to Christmas.

[Illustration: New Year’s gifts in a French workingman’s family.

Drawing by Gavarni.]

I reproduce from an old New York magazine, dated January, 1844, a
print which shows Santa Klaus on the point of remounting a chimney
after filling the stockings of the children of the household. The text
expressly says that the time is New Year’s eve.

To go further back, we know that even in the eighteenth century, when
New York was still to a great extent Dutch in blood and in feeling, the
little children of the Knickerbockers would gather expectant around
the great hearth in the parlor on the eve of New Year and not on the
eve of Saint Nicholas’s feast. It was to Saint Nicholas, however, that
they addressed the childish hymns and songs which their forefathers had
brought over from Holland.

Here are two specimen verses:

  Santa Klaus, good holy man!
  Go your way from Amsterdam;
  From Amsterdam to Spain,
  From Spain to Orange,
  And bring us little children toys.

  Saint Nicholas, my dear good friend,
  To praise you ever is my end.
  If you will presents to me give
  I’ll serve you till I cease to live.

It was about the middle of the nineteenth century that the funny men
of America took the Saint under their special patronage. In Holland
he had been austere and dignified, as became a bishop and a saint. In
America he developed into the fat, jolly, pot-bellied old roysterer
whom we all know and love and who reminds us at so many points of the
fun loving Silenus of Pagan times.

Undoubtedly it was the American Clement C. Moore who immortalized the
figure and decided the model which all succeeding poets and artists
have ever followed. This is how Santa Klaus is described in Mr. Moore’s
very popular poem entitled “A Visit from Santa Klaus”:

  He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,
  And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
  A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
  And he looked like a pedlar just opening his pack,
  His eyes how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
  His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry.
  His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
  And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
  The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
  And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath,
  He had a broad face and a little round belly
  That shook, when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly,
  He was chubby and plump--a right jolly old elf--
  And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

Year by year the funny men of the pencil and the pen do their best
to add to his eccentricities yet always they retain a measure of
respect for the dear old gentleman.

[Illustration: French children gazing up the chimney for gifts.

Old French print.]

One comic artist sends him to Wall Street among the brokers and the
bankers, yet he preserves his dignity even among those shrewd and
clever men, and is ready to teach them more than they can hope to teach
him.

Other artists make him turn to account the latest inventions of our
inventors and scientists. Even if one picture does show him coming
to grief on an automobile, another catches him in the very act of
utilizing a flying machine.

Again we are shown another side of the matter. We are brought face to
face with the unbelief of the child who is ripening into boyhood or
girlhood.

At six years old or sometimes later doubts begin to visit the youthful
mind. These doubts are carried very far by the little girl--a juvenile
Saint Thomas in pantalettes--who in Mr. J. R. Shaver’s picture, meets
Santa Klaus face to face, yet tells him to his face that she doesn’t
believe in him.

At this period in their lives young folks of both sexes will sympathize
with the spirit of inquiry that summons Saint Nicholas, as in Mr.
O’Malley’s cartoon, to answer before a judge and jury of their own age
the question as to whether he has any real existence.

And now turn to the last picture of all, that which Mr. Henry Hutt has
kindly lent me for reproduction in this little book, and if you insist
on an answer which will rob you of the bliss of ignorance, perhaps you
will find it there!


THE END

[Illustration: Silenus and Bacchus.

Roman statue of the fourth century.]


[Illustration: The bambino.

In the church of Ara Cœli, Rome.]


[Illustration: Santa Klaus on New Year’s eve.

From an early American print.]


[Illustration: The investigating committee--Santa Claus to the Bar. Is
he a real person?

By Power O’Malley.

Copyright 1908 by Life Publishing Co.]


[Illustration: St. Nicholas unveils.

By Henry Hutt.

Courtesy of the artist.]




FOOTNOTES:


[1] Bacchus is the Latin name for this God. The Greek name was
Dionysos. This festival therefore is more properly the Dionysiac feast,
but the habit of calling Greek Gods by their Roman names is so general
among us that it is as well to stick to Bacchus and Bacchanalia.

[2] London Illustrated News, December 25, 1858. Schulzer: Legends of
the Rhine.

[3] “Il Libro D’oro. Translated by Mrs. Frances Alexander,” Boston.
Little Brown & Co. 1905.

[4] Lippincott’s Magazine.

[5] D’Israeli’s “Curiosities of Literature.”

[6] Annie C. Kuiper in “St. Nicholas” Magazine, January, 1897.




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.

Incorrect entries in the List of Illustrations have been corrected.

The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber and is entered into the public domain.

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