" NOW IS CHRISTMAS Y-COME."*

IN mediaeval Christmas observances it is easy to detect the blending of two elements,—the primitive rites of Yule, and the superimposed Christian commemoration. From these two Christmas inherited its character. By the coincidence of Yuletide and the celebration of Christ's Nativity the old joy and the new were brought together in one season

"Make we mirth for Christes birth, And sing we Yule till Candlemas."

Miss Rickert is well aware of these facts, and they contribute to the success of the plan upon which she arranges the material collected in her Ancient English Christmas Carols. Her volume deserves to be widely read, for it contains an excellent selection of carols of mediaeval and later date. The modernisation of the language has been carried far enough to make the book easily legible to any one, while at the same time the liberties taken will not unduly hurt the feelings of the student. Miss Rickert has succeeded in amassing -a really representative collection of our quaint and beautiful mediaeval carols; she also writes an interesting introduction and useful notes. Here and there we should have liked to see due recognition given to the fact that the lines printed as

the title of a carol are properly the burden of the song. A few minor errors might also be pointed out, but they hardly demand notice. The carols of the Middle Ages are well worthy of our attention, if only because they reflect so clearly the religious and social sentiments of the past, and Miss Rickert is to be congratulated upon making this beautiful material generally accessible, and upon doing her work so very well. In a few of our quotations below we have felt at liberty to make a trifling alteration or two in her versions in favour of the originals.

There is little doubt that the abundant Christmastide pro- vision of meat, drink, and lights and the burning of the Yule- log originated in primitive magical observances intended to bless the coming year with like plenty of necessaries. Customs of this nature are, of course, very persistent in survival, though often under the aegis of new religious sanctions. There is plenty of information if we seek to know how in the Middle Ages they kept " God's own feast," as one writer of the four- teenth century calls it. Upon the "high days of Yule" we may picture the rich revel and mirth of lords and ladies, joyous din by day in hall and chamber, and dancing at night. And always, be sure, there were,

"At the soper and alter, mony athel songes,

As coundutes of kryst-masse, and caroles newe."

Tourneys and jousts, laughter and song, and the playing of interludes sped the time away, and New Year gifts—signifi- cantly called " hansels "—were exchanged ; while "Nowell, nowell in this hall !" was all the cry. We must not forget the Lord of Misrule, who played so important a part as the master of Yuletide revelry, and we must think of churches and dwellings decked, within and without, with holly and ivy,

bays and other greenery. In the sixteenth century Stow saw a quintain set up on Cornhill, at this feast, to be run at by the attendants of the " Lords of merrie Disports "; they made " great pastime " for the citizens. This was the season of merriment for all classes, and during " the xii dayes in Cristmasse " the lesser folk of the Court and the great households were permitted to indulge in the otherwise forbidden hazards for money of dice, cards, and other such games.

Merry was it in the hall, we may believe, when in the fifteenth century the King "kept estate" there on the day of the Nativity, the New Year, and Twelfth Day. Beneath the tapestry-hung walls assembled the whole Court, while in the gallery orer the screens the Royal minstrels, and others gathered for the festival, made the rafters ring with the joyous notes of trumpets, nakers, and pipes. Then, perchance, might the clerks and children of the chapel (just come from enacting the play of the Nativity) take up the goodly carol:—

" Welcome be ye, gocd New Year,

Welcome Twelfth Day, both in fere, Welcome saintes lief and dear, Welcome Yule !

Welcome Yule, thou merry man, In worship of this holy day ! .

• Ancient English Christmas Carols : MCCCC.-MDCC. Colleetedazid Arranged ty Edith Rickert. With 8 Photogravure Plates from Mecliaeval Books of hours. "New Mediaeval Library.' London Chatto & WMclus. [7s. 61 uet.1

Welcome be ye that are here, Welcome all and make good cheer, Welcome all another year, Welcome Yule!

Welcome Yule, thou merry man, In worship of this holy day !"

Then Lands would be washed, and the meat brought in. At this season, before each course as it came from the surveying board to the King's table, marched Kings-of-Arms, heralds, and pursuivants in their coats-of-arms. Always "the boar's head is the first mess," well decked out and brought to table with ceremony and song and the music of the minstrels:

" The boar's head in hand I bring, With garland gay in portering, I pray you all with me to sing,

With hey, hey, hey, hey, The boar's head is armed gay ! .

The boar's head, as I you say, He takes his leave and goeth his way Soon after the Twelfth Day.

With hey, hey, hey, hey, The boar's head is armed gay!"

In those days agricultural imperfections still prevented the preservation of many cattle through the winter season. No wonder that the boar was duly honoured, as providing the welcome change of fresh meat among the wearisome reitera- tion of salted viands. And the season for bunting the wild swine made his flesh available at Christmastide ; the same facts account for the favour shown to the dish of venison (of does and hinds) with frumenty at Yuletide. We must not be tempted into even an enumeration of the delicacies used at

this season from the fourteenth century onwards; great swans, shoulders of wild boar with the brawn leched, barnacles,

bitterns, cranes and other fowl, merely begin the catalogue. But one of the triumphs cf mediaeval cookery deserves remark,—the peacock "in hakille ryally," which was served forth with the last course. When the peacock, sewn in his skin, with feathers as in life and gilded comb, was borne into the hall, the heralds, as before, led the procession and cried the King's largess. On Twelfth Day the " voide " of spices and wine was taken in hall, and (so it was ordained for the household of Henry VII.) after cups and wine had been brought to the cupboard, the steward and treasurer with staves in hand entered at the bottom of the ball, and the steward cried thrice : " Wassell, wassell, wassell ! " Then the clerks and children of the chapel, standing upon one side of the hall, were wont to " answere with a good songe." Perhaps, it might be, thus :—

" Now is the Twelfth Day y-come,

The Father and Son together are nome, The Holy Ghost, as they were wone, In fere.

God send us good New Year ! Revs de Saba venient, Aurum, tus, myrram efferent.

Alleluia ! "

We read in a fourteenth-century romance of a lordly host who hung up his own hood on a spear, promising it as a prize to him who made most mirth "that crystenmas whyle" ; and a carol of the early sixteenth century gives this warning :—

" Let no man come into this hall, Groom, page, nor yet marshal,

But that some sport he bring withal, For now is the time of Christeines. Make we merry both more and less, For now is the time of Christemes."

Right merry they were, indeed, in every lordly household, with disguisings, "harpyng," " lutyng," singing, and such " lowde dysports "; and no less with quieter games of chess, tables, and cards. Yet if we dwelt only upon the convivial side of the mediaeval Yuletide, the picture would be ill-drawn indeed. The daily devotions of our ancestors in the Middle Ages were very dutifully performed, and the religious aspect of the Nativity was the least likely of all to be neglected :—

" In Bethlehem that fair city,

Was born a Child that was so free, Lord and Prince of high degree, Jam lueis orto sidere.

To bliss God bring us all and some, Christe, Redemptor omnium ! "

But the beauty of the sentiments, and the charm of the expression, render almost impossible the selection of a single example from the many extant carols of this type. We find in the writers of the mediaeval mystery plays a very remark- able sense of the human reality of the divine history. We of to-day have no greater loss to deplore than that naive and childlike faith which could grasp divine truths in terms of its own everyday life. Just as the worship of the Virgin enters largely into many carols, so is the theme of the Mother and Child realised with strong human tenderness. The bambino of the Nativity plays and the Christmas mangers, we may trust, touched the heart of many a "ploughman and swynker," and left him the better man:—

" I saw a fair maiden Bitten and sing,

She lulled a little child, a sweet lording : Loney, mine lykyng, my dear Son, mine sweeting, Loney, my dear heart, mine own dear darling !

That ilk lord is He that made all thing, Of all lords He is Lord, of all kings King.

Lullay, mine lykyng, my dear Son, mine sweeting, Lullay, my dear heart, mine own dear darling ! '

Another carol of the same class and of early-sixteenth- century date Miss Rickert justly refers to as "highly original." It is an exquisite little gem; would that space permitted it to be set here entire. We give the second verse exactly as Miss Rickert prints it, and forbear further remark :

"The mother full mannerly and meekly as a maid, Looking on her little Son so laughing in lap laid, So prettily, so pertly, so passingly well apaid, So passingly well apaid, Full softly and full soberly, Unto her sweet Son she said : Quid petis, 0 Fili?'

Mater dulei.ssima ba be : `Quid petis, 0 Fili ?'

Michi plausus oscula da da ! "