Ana’s Christmas Message

Since I’m now about to sign off for the season I just thought I would wish each and every one of you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Tomorrow I’m off to join the rest of my family in a beautiful old manor house in deepest Sussex for our traditional jollifications, a real English Christmas, the sort of thing that mother does so well. It’s not quite as Belloc describes it in his lovely essay A Remaining Christmas, but it’s not far off.

On the Feast of Stephen my boyfriend and I leave with some good friends for a spot of skiing in Val d'Isère, which will take me through the New Year, returning home on 4 January. So, I’ll leave you a seasonal offering from Loreena McKennitt, one of my favourite singers. Snow is a particularly lovely song. You may feel that you’ve had enough of the stuff lately but do listen. The lyrics are adapted from the poem of the same name by Archibald Lampman.

White are the far-off plains, and white
The fading forests grow;
The wind dies out along the height,
And denser still the snow,
A gathering weight on roof and tree,
Falls down scarce audibly.

The road before me smooths and fills
Apace, and all about
The fences dwindle, and the hills
Are blotted slowly out;
The naked trees loom spectrally
Into the dim white sky.

The meadows and far-sheeted streams
Lie still without a sound;
Like some soft minister of dreams
The snow-fall hoods me round;
In wood and water, earth and air,
A silence everywhere.

Save when at lonely intervals
Some farmer's sleigh, urged on,
With rustling runners and sharp bells,
Swings by me and is gone;
Or from the empty waste I hear
A sound remote and clear;

The barking of a dog, or call
To cattle, sharply pealed,
Borne echoing from some wayside stall
Or barnyard far a-field;
Then all is silent, and the snow
Falls, settling soft and slow.

The evening deepens, and the gray
Folds closer earth and sky;
The world seems shrouded far away;
Its noises sleep, and I,
As secret as yon buried stream,
Plod dumbly on, and dream.

Yule-when the Wild Things Come

In ancient calendars, including those of the Romans, the Celts, the Germans and the Slavs a gap of twelve days occurs in mid-winter, now the Twelve Days of Christmas, celebrated in the song. This was perceived in a sense as a kind of fracture in time, a fracture that allowed the boundaries between the living and the dead to dissolve.

In the German lands it was known as Zwolfen, a time when Woden and Frigg-or Odin and Freya-held forth. For witches it was a favoured time for the Wild Hunt and for ordinary mortals a time of wild merry-making, gift-giving, spell-casting and divination. In the English court prior to the Puritan revolution of the seventeenth century, when Christmas was banned, proceedings were governed by a kind of anti-king known as the Lord of Misrule. By the pagan calendar this was, of course, Yule.

Christmas continues to be rich with pagan residues and traditions. Father Christmas, or Santa Claus, though now generally identified with Saint Nicholas, on very insecure grounds, it has to be said, has a lineage going back to Odin, the centre of the evergreen cult among the Nordic peoples, and the Roman god Saturn, also depicted as father Time, whose midwinter festival, known as Saturnalia or the Feast of Ops, was a time of gift-giving, especially to children.

In general December was a time for dancing, singing and feasting. It was a time also of masquerade and mummery, when men dressed as animals and as the Horned God, the chief figure of the fertility cult. The Horned One travelled around carrying a small broom of birch twigs intended to confer greater fertility, his face blackened with soot to suggest that he had just come down the chimney, yet another link with Father Christmas! In the Dutch tradition Black Peter, who accompanies Saint Nicholas, is one obvious descendant of the Horned God.

There is so much more in Christmas that belongs to the pagan world, including decorated evergreen trees, the Yule Log, associated with Frigg, the wife of Odin, the boar as the Yule animal, an offering to the goddess and, of course, mistletoe, the golden bough.

Witches also have their part to play. In Italy Befana, who flies through the air on a broom, is the gift-giver to children, not Father Christmas. In Germany Lutzelfrau, who prefers to receive than to give, also flies through the air, causing havoc in households that have omitted to leave small offerings for her. In other parts of Germany and Austria children go from door-to-door often dressed as witches, begging small treats in the name of Perchta, the witch-goddess. Perchta is also joined by Hulda, Herta and Freya at this time of year in the aforementioned Wild Hunt, sometimes joined by Odin. Yes, wild times, wild things, wild creatures!

The Twelve Days of Christmas

I heard this performed last year at Christmas show, part song, part poetry, part performance. We were all in stitches. With the right reading, the right pacing and the right pausing it’s really priceless. The 'correspondence' was written by John Julius Norwich.

A Correspondence



25th December

My dearest darling
That partridge, in that lovely little pear tree! What an
enchanting, romantic, poetic present! Bless you and thank you.
Your deeply loving Emily


26th December

Mr dearest darling Edward
The two turtle doves arrived this morning and are cooing
away in the pear tree as I write. I'm so touched and
grateful.
With undying love, as always, Emily


27th December

My darling Edward

You do thinks of the most original presents: whoever
thought of sending anybody three French hens? Do they really
come all the way from France? It's a pity that we have no
chicken coops, but I expect we'll find some. Thank you,
anyway, they're lovely.
Your loving Emily


28th December

Dearest Edward

What a surprise - four calling birds arrived this morning.
They are very sweet, even if they do call rather loudly -
they make telephoning impossible. Bit I expect they'll calm
down when they get used to their new home. Anyway, I'm very
grateful - of course I am.
Love from Emily

29th December

Dearest Edward

The postman has just delivered five most beautiful gold
rings, one for each finger, and all fitting perfectly. A
really lovely present -lovelier in a way than birds, which do
take rather a lot of looking after. The four that arrived
yesterday are still making a terrible row, and I'm afraid
none of use got much sleep last night. Mummy says she wants
us to use the rings to 'wring' their necks - she's only
joking, I think; though I know what she means. But I love
the rings. Bless you
Love, Emily


30th December

Dear Edward

Whatever I expected to find when I opened the front door
this morning, it certainly wasn't six socking great geese
laying eggs all over the doorstep. Frankly, I rather hoped
you had stopped sending me birds - we have no room for them
and they have already ruined the croquet lawn. I know you
meant well, but - let's call a halt, shall we?
Love, Emily


31st December

Edward

I thought I said no more birds; but this morning I woke up
to find no less than seven swans all trying to get into our
tiny goldfish pond. I'd rather not thinks what happened to
the goldfish. The whole house seems to be full of birds - to
say nothing of what they leave behind them. Please, please
STOP
Your Emily


1st January

Frankly, I think I prefer the birds. What am I to do with
eight milkmaids - AND their cows? Is this some kind of a
joke? If so, I'm afraid I don't find it very amusing.
Emily


2nd January

Look here Edward, this has gone far enough. You say you're
sending me nine ladies dancing; all I can say is that judging
from the way they dance, they're certainly not ladies. The
village just isn't accustomed to seeing a regiment of
shameless hussies with nothing on but their lipstick
cavorting round the green - and it's Mummy and I who get
blamed. If you value our friendship - which I do less and
less - kindly stop this ridiculous behaviour at once.
Emily


3rd January

As I write this letter, ten disgusting old men are
prancing about all over what used to be the garden -before
the geese and the swans and the cows got at it; and several
of them, I notice, are taking inexcusable liberties with the
milkmaids. Meanwhile the neighbours are trying to have us
evicted. I shall never speak to you again.
Emily


4th January

This is the last straw. You know I detest bagpipes. The
place has now become something between a menagerie and a
madhouse and a man from the Council has just declared it
unfit for habitation. At least Mummy has been spared this
last outrage; they took her away yesterday afternoon in an
ambulance. I hope you're satisfied.


5th January

Sir
Our client, Miss Emily Wilbraham, instructs me to inform
you that with the arrival on her premises a half-past seven
this morning of the entire percussion section of the
Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and several of their friends
she has no course left open to her but to seek an injunction
to prevent your importuning her further. I am making
arrangements for the return of much assorted livestock.
I am, Sir, Yours faithfully,
G.CREEP
Solicitor-at-law