Before however, touching upon the customs and ceremonies of the night, or upon those natural superstitions which have hung themselves around its sacred watches, we must take a glimpse at an out-of-door scene which forms a curious enough feature of Christmas Eve, and is rather connected with the great festival of to-morrow than with the hushed and expectant feelings which are the fitting moral condition of to-night.

Everywhere throughout the British isles Christmas Eve is marked by an increased activity about the good things of this life. "Now," says Stevenson, an old writer whom we have already quoted for the customs of Charles the Second's time, "capons and hens, besides turkeys, geese, ducks, with beef and mutton, must all die; for in twelve days a multitude of people will not be fed with a little;" and the preparations in this respect of this present period of grace, are made much after the ancient prescription of Stevenson. The abundant displays of every kind of edible in the London markets on Christmas Eve, with a view to the twelve days' festival of which it is the overture, the blaze of lights amid which they are exhibited and the evergreen decorations by which they are embowered, together with the crowds of idlers or of purchasers that wander through these well-stored magazines, present a picture of abundance and a congress of faces well worthy of a single visit from the stranger, to whom a London market on the eve of Christmas is as yet a novelty.

The approach of Christmas Eve in the metropolis is marked by the Smithfield show of over-fed cattle; by the enormous beasts and birds, for the fattening of which medals and cups and prizes have been awarded by committees of amateur graziers and feeders; in honor of which monstrosities, dinners have been eaten, toasts drunk, and speeches made. These prodigious specimens of corpulency we behold, after being thus glorified, led like victims of antiquity decked with ribbons and other tokens of triumph, or perhaps instead of led, we should, as the animals are scarcely able to waddle, have used the word goaded, to be immolated at the altar of gluttony in celebration of Christmas! To admiring crowds, on the eve itself, are the results of oil-cake and turnip-feeding displayed in the various butcher's shops of the metropolis and its vicinity; and the efficacy of walnut-cramming is illustrated in Leadenhall market, where Norfolk turkeys and Dorking fowls appear in numbers and magnitude unrivalled. The average weight given for each turkey, by the statement heretofore quoted by us of the number and gravity of those birds sent up to London from Norfolk during two days of a Christmas some years ago, is nearly twelve pounds; but what is called a fine bird in Leadenhall Market weighs, when trussed, from eighteen to one or two-and-twenty pounds,—the average price of which may be stated at twenty shillings; and prize turkeys have been known to weigh more than a quarter of a hundred weight.

Brawn is another dish of this season, and is sold by the poulterers, fishmongers, and pastry-cooks. The supply for the consumption of London is chiefly derived from Canterbury, Oxfordshire, and Hampshire. "It is manufactured from the flesh of large boars, which are suffered to live in a half-wild state, and, when put up to fatten, are strapped and belted tight round the principal parts of the carcass, in order to make the flesh become dense and brawny. This article comes to market in rolls about two feet long and ten inches in diameter, packed in wicker baskets."

Sandys observes that "Brawn is a dish of great antiquity, and may be found in most of the old bills of fare for coronation and other great feasts." "Brawn, mustard, and malmsey were directed for breakfast at Christmas, during Queen Elizabeth's reign; and Dugdale, in his account of the Inner Temple Revels, of the same age, states the same directions for that society. The French," continues Sandys, "do not appear to have been so well acquainted with it; for, on the capture of Calais by them, they found a large quantity, which they guessed to be some dainty, and tried every means of preparing it; in vain did they roast it, bake it, and boil it; it was impracticable and impenetrable to their culinary arts. Its merits, however, being at length discovered, 'Ha!' said the monks, 'what delightful fish!'—and immediately added it to their fast-day viands. The Jews, again, could not believe it was procured from that impure beast, the hog, and included it in their list of clean animals."

Amid the interior forms to be observed, on this evening, by those who would keep their Christmas after the old orthodox fashion, the first to be noticed is that of the Yule Clog. This huge block, which, in ancient times, and consistently with the capacity of its vast receptacle, was frequently the root of a large tree, it was the practice to introduce into the house with great ceremony, and to the sound of music. Herrick's direction is:—

In Drake's "Winter Nights" mention is made of the Yule Clog, as lying, "in ponderous majesty, on the kitchen floor," until "each had sung his Yule song, standing on its centre,"—ere it was consigned to the flames that

This log appears to have been considered as sanctifying the roof-tree, and was probably deemed a protection against those evil spirits over whom this season was in every way a triumph. Accordingly, various superstitions mingled with the prescribed ceremonials in respect of it. From the authority already quoted on this subject, we learn that its virtues were not to be extracted, unless it were lighted with clean hands—a direction, probably, including both a useful household hint to the domestics, and, it may be, a moral of a higher kind:—

The Yule Clog is still lighted up, on Christmas Eve, in various parts of England, and particularly in the north. In some places, where a block of sufficient dimensions is not readily come by, it is usual to lay aside a large coal for the purpose, which, if not quite orthodox, is an exceedingly good succedaneum, and a very rich source of cheerful inspirations.

Another feature of this evening, in the houses of the more wealthy, was the tall Christmas candles, with their wreaths of evergreens, which were lighted up, along with the Yule log, and placed on the upper table, or dais, of ancient days. Those of our readers who desire to light the Christmas candles, this year, may place them on the sideboard, or in any other conspicuous situation. Brand, however, considers the Yule log and the Christmas candle to be but one observance, and that the former is only a substitute for the latter. By our ancestors, of the Latin church, Christmas was formerly called the "Feast of Lights," and numbers of lights were displayed on the occasion. The lights and the title were both typical of the religious light dawning upon the world at that sacred period,—of the advent, in fact, of the "Light of lights," and the conquest over moral darkness. Hence, it is thought, arose the domestic ceremony of the Christmas candle, and that the Yule block was but another form of the same,—the poor man's Christmas candle.

Occasionally, the Catholics appear to have made these Christmas candles (as also the candles exhibited by them, on other occasions of the commemorations connected with their religion) in a triangular form, as typical of the Trinity. Mr. Hone, in his volume on the subject of "Ancient Mysteries," gives a representation of one of these candles; and Mr. Crofton Croker, in a letter to us, speaking of the huge dip candles called Christmas candles, exhibited at this season in the chandlers' shops in Ireland, and presented by them to their customers, says, "It was the custom, I have been told (for the mystery of such matters was confined to the kitchen), to burn the three branches down to the point in which they united, and the remainder was reserved to 'see in,' as it was termed, the new year by." "There is," says Mr. Croker, "always considerable ceremony observed in lighting these great candles on Christmas Eve. It is thought unlucky to snuff one; and certain auguries are drawn from the manner and duration of their burning."

The customs peculiar to Christmas Eve are numerous, and various in different parts of the British isles; the peculiarities, in most cases, arising from local circumstances or traditions, and determining the particular forms of a celebration which is universal. To enter upon any thing like an enumeration of these, it would be necessary to allow ourselves another volume. We must, therefore, confine ourselves to the general observances by which the Christmas spirit works, and each of our readers will have no difficulty in connecting the several local customs which come under his own notice with the particular feature of common celebration to which they belong.

But all men, in all places, who would keep Christmas Eve as Christmas Eve should be kept, must set the wassail-bowl a-flowing for the occasion. "Fill me a mighty bowl!" says Herrick, "up to the brim!" and though this fountain of "quips and cranks and wreathed smiles," belongs, in an especial sense, to Twelfth-night (Twelfth-night not being Twelfth-night without it), yet it should be compounded for every one of the festival nights, and invoked to spread its inspirations over the entire season.

The word "wassail" is derived from the Saxon was haile; which word, and drinc-heil (heil, health) were, as appears from old authors quoted by Brand, the usual ancient phrases of quaffing, among the English and equivalent to the "Here's to you," and "I pledge you," of the present day. "The wassail-bowl," says Warton, "is Shakspeare's gossip's bowl, in the Midsummer Night's Dream." It should be composed, by those who can afford it, of some rich wine highly spiced and sweetened, with roasted apples floating on its surface. But ale was more commonly substituted for the wine, mingled with nutmeg, ginger, sugar, toast, and roasted crabs. "It is," says Leigh Hunt, "a good-natured bowl, and accommodates itself to the means of all classes, rich and poor. You may have it of the costliest wine or the humblest malt liquor. But in no case must the roasted apples be forgotten. They are the sine qua non of the wassail-bowl, as the wassail-bowl is of the day (he is speaking of New Year's Day); and very pleasant they are, provided they are not mixed up too much with the beverage, balmy, comfortable, and different, a sort of meat in the drink, but innocent withal and reminding you of the orchards. They mix their flavor with the beverage, and the beverage with them, giving a new meaning to the line of the poet,—

We find that in some parts of Ireland and in Germany, and probably in districts of England, too, Christmas Eve is treated as a night of omens, and that practices exist for gathering its auguries having a resemblance to those of our northern neighbors at Halloween. Many beautiful, and some solemn superstitions belong to this night and the following morning. It is stated by Sir Walter Scott, in one of his notes to "Marmion," to be an article of popular faith, "that they who are born on Christmas or Good Friday have the power of seeing spirits, and even of commanding them;" and he adds that "the Spaniards imputed the haggard and downcast looks of their Philip II. to the disagreeable visions to which this privilege subjected him."

Among the finest superstitions of the night may be mentioned that which is alluded to by Shakspeare in the lines which we have placed as the epigraph to the present chapter. It is a consequence or application of that very ancient and popular belief which assigns the night for the wanderings of spirits, and supposes them, at the crowing of "the cock, that is the trumpet to the morn," to start "like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons," and betake themselves to flight. Here again, as in so many cases of vulgar superstition, a sort of mental metonymy has taken place; and the crowing of the cock, which in the early stage of the belief was imagined to be the signal for the departure of evil spirits, only because it announced the morning, is, in the further stage which we are examining, held to be a sound in itself intolerable to these shadowy beings. Accordingly it is supposed that on the eve of Christmas "the bird of dawning singeth all night long," to scare away all evil things from infesting the hallowed hours:—

In the south-west of England there exists a superstitious notion that the oxen are to be found kneeling in their stalls at midnight of this vigil, as if in adoration of the Nativity,—an idea which Brand, no doubt correctly, supposes to have originated from the representations by early painters of the event itself. That writer mentions a Cornish peasant who told him (1790) of his having with some others watched several oxen in their stalls, on the eve of old Christmas Day. "At twelve o'clock at night, they observed the two oldest oxen fall upon their knees, and, as he expressed it in the idiom of the country, make 'a cruel moan like Christian creatures.'" To those who regard the analogies of the human mind, who mark the progress of tradition, who study the diffusion of certain fancies, and their influence upon mankind, an anecdote related by Mr. Howison in his "Sketches of Upper Canada," is full of comparative interest. He mentions meeting an Indian at midnight, creeping cautiously along in the stillness of a beautiful moonlight Christmas Eve. The Indian made signals to him to be silent; and when questioned as to his reason replied,—"Me watch to see the deer kneel; this is Christmas night, and all the deer fall upon their knees to the Great Spirit, and look up."

In various parts of England, bees are popularly said to express their veneration for the Nativity by "singing," as it is called, in their hives at midnight, upon Christmas Eve: and in some places, particularly in Derbyshire, it is asserted that the watcher may hear the ringing of subterranean bells. In the mining districts again, the workmen declare that—

Superstitions of this kind seem to be embodied in the carol commencing with "I saw three ships come sailing in," to which we have before alluded; the rhythm of which old song is to our ear singularly melodious:—

We must not omit to mention that these supposed natural testimonies to the triumph of the time have been in some places used as means of divination on a very curious question. The change of style introduced into our calendars nearly a century ago, and by which Christmas Day was displaced from its ancient position therein, gave great dissatisfaction on many accounts, and on none more than that of its interference with this ancient festival. The fifth and sixth of January continued long to be observed as the true anniversary of the Nativity and its vigil; and the kneeling of the cattle, the humming of the bees, and the ringing of subterranean bells, were anxiously watched for authentications on this subject. The singular fact of the budding about the period of old Christmas Day of the Cadenham oak, in the New Forest of Hampshire, and the same remarkable feature of the Glastonbury thorn (explained in various ways, but probably nowhere more satisfactorily than in the number for the 31st December, 1833, of the Saturday Magazine), were of course used by the vulgar as confirmation of their own tradition; and the putting forth of their leaves was earnestly waited for as an unquestionable homage to the joyous spirit of the true period.

We have already alluded to the high ceremonies with which the great day is ushered in amongst the Catholics, and to the beautiful music of the midnight mass:—

The reader who would have a very graphic and striking account of the Christmas Eve mass, as performed by torchlight amid the hills in certain districts of Ireland, will find one in Mr. Carleton's "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry."

We have also mentioned that all the watches of this hallowed night shall ring to the sounds of earthly minstrelsy, intimating, as best they may, the heavenly choirs that hailed its rising over Judea nearly two centuries ago. Not for the shepherds alone, was that song! Its music was for us, as for them; and all minstrelsy, however rude, is welcome on this night that gives us any echoes of it, however wild. For us too, on the blessed day of which this vigil keeps the door, "is born in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord;" and we too amid the sacred services of to-morrow will "go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known to us."