out on New Year's
Eve by Macedonian boys,{69} and also with the St. Martin's rod (see last
chapter).

One more English custom on December 21 must be mentioned--it points to a
sometime sacrifice--the bull-baiting practised until 1821 at Wokingham in
Berkshire. Its abolition in 1822 caused great resentment among the
populace, although the flesh continued to be duly distributed.{70}

* * * * *

We are now four days from the feast of the Nativity, and many things
commonly regarded as distinctive of Christmas have already come under
notice. We have met, for instance, with several kinds of present-giving,
with auguries for the New Year, with processions of carol-singers and
well-wishers, with ceremonial feasting that anticipates the Christmas
eating and drinking, and with various figures, saintly or monstrous,
mimed or merely imagined, which we shall find reappearing at the greatest
of winter festivals. These things would seem to have been attracted from
earlier dates to the feast of the Nativity, and the probability that
Christmas has borrowed much from an old November festival gradually
shifted into December, is our justification for having dwelt so long upon
the feasts that precede the Twelve Days.

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CHAPTER IX

CHRISTMAS EVE AND THE TWELVE DAYS

Christkind, Santa Klaus, and Knecht Ruprecht--Talking Animals and
other Wonders of Christmas Eve--Scandinavian Beliefs about Trolls and
the Return of the Dead--Traditional Christmas Songs in Eastern
Europe--The Twelve Days, their Christian Origin and Pagan
Superstitions--The Raging Host--Hints of Supernatural Visitors in
England--The German _Frauen_--The Greek _Kallikantzaroi_.

[Illustration: CHRISTMAS EVE IN DEVONSHIRE--THE MUMMERS COMING IN]

CHRISTMAS EVE.

Christmas in the narrowest sense must be reckoned as beginning on the
evening of December 24. Though Christmas Eve is not much observed in
modern England, throughout the rest of Europe its importance so far as
popular customs are concerned is far greater than that of the Day itself.
Then in Germany the Christmas-tree is manifested in its glory; then, as
in the England of the past, the Yule log is solemnly lighted in many
lands; then often the most distinctive Christmas meal takes place.

We shall consider these and other institutions later; though they appear
first on Christmas Eve, they belong more or less to the Twelve Days as