HOLLY (Ilex aquifolium). Holly, with its beautiful red berries and unique leaf, stiff and prickly, but highly decorative, is the chief emblem of Christmas. We are continuing very ancient traditions when we hang up our Christmas wreaths and garlands. The earliest records of the human race contain references to the custom of decorating houses and temples and evergreens on occasions of rejoicing. Holly comes to us from pagan usage. Five hundred years before the birth of Christ the Romans had been celebrating their midwinter festival—the Saturnalia—commemorating the equality supposed to have existed on earth in the golden reign of Saturn. The Saturnalia was a period of general merry-making and relaxation. People gave each other presents, wished each other "Io Saturnalia," just as we wish each other "Merry Christmas," and decorated their houses and temples with evergreens, among which holly was conspicuous. The early Christians, who celebrated the birth of Christ during the Saturnalia, adorned their homes with holly for the purpose of safety. They would have been unpleasantly noticed had they left their homes undecorated. After a time holly became associated with the Christian festival itself. As the Christmas celebration spread throughout Europe and into Great Britain, local observances naturally became added to the original rites; and gradually to certain features taken over from the Saturnalia were added customs which the Germanic tribes, the Scandinavians, the Gauls, the Celts, and early Britons practised for the midwinter festival. "Thus," says a modern writer, "all the pagan winter festivals were transmuted and sanctified by the Christian Church into the beautiful Christmas festival that keeps the world's heart young and human. The Church also brought from ancient observances a number of lovable customs, such as the giving of presents, the lighting of candles, the burning of the Yule-log, the Boar's Head, the Christmas Tree, the mistletoe, the holly, laurel and other greens and the mince-pies."

At a season when everything was chosen to commemorate, or invoke, the spirit of growth, or fertility, the holly, mistletoe and ivy—all of which bear fruit in the winter—become particularly precious. Beautiful, cheery holly, with its glossy, prickly leaves and its coral bells, was a sacred plant in the childhood of the world and will continue to be a sacred plant as long as the world lasts. We may make garlands of laurel or bay-leaves, we may bind together ropes of crow's-foot or smilax, and we may bring into our rooms pots of poinsettia; but nothing takes, or will ever take, the place the holly occupies in our affections. In our literature holly is honored. It now symbolizes the spirit of Christmas as nothing else does.

One of the earliest Christmas carols, dating from the Fifteenth Century, describes a contest of Holly and Ivy for the chief place in the hall. Holly is the man and Ivy the woman. They have an argument (which is a kind of duet), each setting forth his or her claim to superiority. Finally, it is decided that Holly, with his beautiful red berries, shall reign in the hall instead of Ivy, whose berries are black. Moreover, many sweet birds are attracted to Holly; but only the owl loves Ivy.

Holly is, of course, the subject of many carols. A typical one of the Fifteenth Century is as follows:

From the above it will be seen that it was a crime to say a derogatory word about holly. Holly was not only loved for its beauty but it was a holy plant. Witches detested it and it was a charm against their evil machinations. The name comes from the Anglo-Saxon holegn. The Norse word is hulf, or hulver; and as Chaucer calls it "Hulfeere" we may conclude that holly was familiar to the people of Chaucer's time under that name.

It is somewhat singular that Shakespeare has written a song of wintry wind and holly berries to be sung in the Forest of Arden. It affords, however, a delightful contrast to the sun-lit summer woodland.

While in it holly is not actually described, Amiens's song will always remain the song of songs to holly:

IVY (Hedera Helix). Shakespeare mentions ivy twice: in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" where Titania, bidding Bottom sleep, says:

and in "The Tempest," when Prospero compares his false brother with the ivy:

In the old carols and plays Ivy is always represented as a woman, and yet, although beloved, was used for the outside decorations and doorways. Ivy never had the place within that holly occupied.

As ivy clings and embraces the object near it, the plant was chosen as an emblem of confiding love and friendship. Tusser's commands are as follows: "Get Ivy and Holly, women, deck up thy house." Ivy was also used in the church decorations at Christmas-tide. In the Middle Ages ivy was a favored and most auspicious plant. An old carol says:

Ivy was the crown of the Greek and Roman poets, whose myths proclaimed the plant sacred to Bacchus. Indeed the plant took its name from Bacchus (kissos) for it was said that the child was hidden under ivy when abandoned by his mother, Semele. The ivy was mingled with the grape in the crown of Bacchus and it enwreathed his thyrsus. Ivy berries eaten before wine was swallowed prevented intoxication, so Pliny says. Perhaps because of its association with Bacchus ivy was hung at the vintners' doors in England as well as on the Continent, and a reference to this custom is contained in Nash's "Summer's Last Will and Testament" (1600).

In Shakespeare's time ivy was considered a remedy against plague, which gave another reason for veneration.

England would almost cease to be England without the ivy that so luxuriantly covers the walls of old buildings and adds its soft beauty to the crumbling ruins. Everybody loves it—strangers as well as natives; and every one loves the poem that Dickens inserted into "The Pickwick Papers":