The Hammock Papers: Misrule.

24 December 2023

Misrule.

Chambers, Collecting the Yule Log, 1864

Every one has heard of the matchless “Lord of Misrule” (also known as the “Abbot of Unreason” and the “Master of Merry Disports”), who, attended by his mock court, king's jester and grotesquely masked revelers, visited the castles of lords and princes to entertain them with strange antics and uproarious merriment. His reign lasted until Twelfth Night, during which period he was treated as became a genuine monarch, being feted and feasted, with all his train, and having absolute authority over individuals and state affairs.

The great event of the evening, after the holiday feast, was the bringing in of the famous yule log, which was often the entire root of a tree. Much ceremony and rejoicing attended this performance, as it was considered lucky to help pull the rope. It was lighted by a person with freshly washed hands, with a brand saved from the last year's fire, and was never allowed to be extinguished, as the witches would then come down the chimney.

The presence of a barefooted or cross-eyed individual or of a woman with flat feet was thought to foretell misfortune for the coming year.

The games of “snap dragon” and “hot cockles” are supposed to be relics either of the “ordeal by fire” or of the days of the ancient fire-worshippers. The former consists of snatching raisins from a bowl of burning brandy or alcohol, and the latter of taking frantic bites at a red apple revolving rapidly upon a pivot in alternation with a lighted taper.

Christmas carols are commemorative of the angels' song to the shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem, and are seldom heard in America save by the surpliced choirs of the Episcopal churches. The English “waits,” or serenaders, who sang under the squires' windows in hopes of receiving a “Christmas box,” unconsciously add a touch of romance and picturesqueness to the associations of the season. For upon the frosty evening air arose such strains as—

“Awake! glad heart! arise and sing!
It is the birthday of thy King!”

Or—

“God rest you, merry gentlemen!
Let nothing you dismay,
For Jesus Christ, our Savior,
Was born upon this day.”

Bertha Herrick, from Myths and Legends of Christmastide

No comments:

Post a Comment

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL