omers.
The Yule-log is bought of the carpenters' lads. It would be unlucky to
light either of them before the time, or to stir the fire or candle
during the supper; the candle must not be snuffed, neither must any one
stir from the table till supper is ended. In these suppers it is
considered unlucky to have an odd number at table. A fragment of the log
is occasionally saved, and put under a bed, to remain till next
Christmas: it secures the house from fire; a small piece of it thrown
into a fire occurring at the house of a neighbour, will quell the raging
flame. A piece of the candle should likewise be kept to ensure good
luck."[657] In the seventeenth century, as we learn from some verses of
Herrick, the English custom was to light the Yule log with a fragment of
its predecessor, which had been kept throughout the year for the
purpose; where it was so kept, the fiend could do no mischief.[658]
Indeed the practice of preserving a piece of the Yule-log of one year to
light that of the next was observed by at least one family at Cheadle in
Staffordshire down to the latter part of the nineteenth century.[659]

[The Yule-log in Yorkshire; the Yule log in Lincolnshire; the Yule log
in Warwickshire, Shropshire, and Herefordshire; the Yule log in Wales.]

In the North of England farm-servants used to lay by a large knotty
block of wood for the Christmas fire, and so long as the block lasted
they were entitled by custom to ale at their meals. The log was as large
as the hearth could hold.[660] At Belford, in Northumberland, "the lord
of the manor sends round to every house, on the afternoon of Christmas
Eve, the Yule Logs--four or five large logs--to be burnt on Christmas
Eve and Day. This old custom has always, I am told, been kept up
here."[661] The custom of burning the Yule log at Christmas used to be
observed in Wensleydale and other parts of Yorkshire, and prudent
housewives carefully preserved pieces of the log throughout the year. At
Whitby the portions so kept were stowed away under the bed till next
Christmas, when they were burnt with the new log; in the interval they
were believed to protect the house from conflagration, and if one of
them were thrown into the fire, it would quell a raging storm.[662] The
practice and the belief were similar at Filey on the coast of Yorkshire,
where besides the Yule log a tall Yule candle was lit on the same
evening.[663] In the West Riding, while the log blazed cheerfully, the
pe