2»'» S. VIII. Dec. 17. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



487 



money. This is provincially called a hodening, and the 

 figure above described as a hoden or wooden horse. 



*• This curious ceremony is also observed in the Isle of 

 Thanet on Christmas Eve, and is supposed to be an ancient 

 relic of a festival ordained to commemorate our Saxon 

 ancestors landing in that island." 



This is told by Busby in his Concert Room 

 Anecdotes, thence transferred to Hone's Every 

 Day Booh (ii. 1642). From Hone it finds its way 

 into Brand's great storehouse of Popular Anti- 

 quities (i. 474., ed. 1849), and there it is left ; 

 but who can doubt that if any zealous member 

 of the Kentish Archaeological Society would look 

 into the Deutsche Mythologie of that most profound 

 scholar Jacob Grimm, he would find something 

 new and worth telling in illustration of this very^ 

 curious custom? 



Who can doubt that in many parts of the 

 country traces are still to be found of practices 

 and superstitions which Nork, in his Festhalen- 

 dar, records as being still observed among our 

 German brethren. Are the trees nowhere awak- 

 ened in England with a cry similar to that ad- 

 dressed to them in Thuringia : " Little tree wake 

 up — Frau Holle is at hand"? Does there no- 

 where exist among us any evidences of a belief 

 that on Christmas Eve the cattle and domestic 

 animals are gifted with speech and a higher in- 

 telligence ? or of the offerings still made in Nqfway 

 on Christmas Day to the Spirit of the Waters ? 

 The Norway Legend is so pretty as to deserve to 

 be told in English. 



Once upon a time a fisherman wished on Christ- 

 mas Day to give the Spirit of the Waters a cake ; 

 but when he came to the shore, lo ! the waters 

 were frozen over. Unwilling to leave his offering 

 upon the ice, and so to give the Spirit the trouble 

 of breaking the ice to obtain it, the fisherman 

 took a pickaxe, and set to work to break a hole 

 in the ice. In spite of all his labour he was only 

 able to make a very small hole, not nearly large 

 enough for him to put the cake through. Having 

 laid the cake on the ice, while he thought what 

 was best to be done, suddenly a very tiny little 

 hand as white as snow was stretched through the 

 hole, which seizing the cake and crumpling it up 

 together, withdrew with it. Ever since that time 

 the cakes have been so small that the Water 

 Spirits have had no trouble with them. And in 

 this legend we have the origin of the compliment 

 so often paid to a Norwegian lady, " Your hand is 

 like a water-sprite's ! " 



Passing in review the twelve days of Christmas, 

 we come to St. Stephen's Day : and here let me 

 call the attention of your readers to a curious 

 fragment of a Friesic song in honour of that Saint, 

 which forms a fitting illustration to the Carol on 

 St. Stephen's Day : — 



" St. Stephen was an holy man, , 



Endued with heavenly might," — 

 preserved by Mr. Sandys at p. 140. of his Christ- 



mas Carols Ancient and Modern. The connexion 

 between the English and friesic languages, which 

 latter is indeed more like English than Anglo- 

 Saxon, gives an additional interest to the frag- 

 ment, which is preserved by Mone in his Ubersicht 

 der Niederlandischen Volhs- Liter atur : — 



" Dj' hollige sinte StefFen, dy mylde godes druyt, 

 Jerusalem to de porte so geeng men steten uuyt, 

 Men worp hern mey en flentsteea 

 Het tlaesk al van de been ; 

 Dirom compt sint StefFen's dag 

 Christmoorn nu also ney." 



Of Childermas, or Innocents' Day, we are 

 told over and over again that it was " a custom to 

 whip up the children upon Innocents' Day morn- 

 ing, that the memorie of Herod's murder of the 

 Innocents might stick the closer, and in a moderate 

 proportion to act over the crueltie again in 

 kinde." Now a master of his craft might tell 

 much more than this. Our lively neighbours the 

 French extended this practice beyond children ; 

 and so common was it, that they even coined a 

 word to designate it — Innocenter. Clement Ma- 

 rot does not hesitate to tell his mistress — 



" Si je savais ou couche 

 Votre personne au jour des Innocens 

 De bon matin j'irais h, votre couche, &c." 



Early rising did not rescue the poorer classes 

 of females from this indecent practice, which a 

 princess of France has not hesitated to record, 

 and Les Escraignes Dijonnoises record the subtle 

 scheme of a poor maiden of that city to protect 

 herself from this degrading treatment. We trust 

 we may be pardoned for these allusions, which can 

 only perhaps be justified by the feelings of thank- 

 fulness that we live in better times which a know- 

 ledge of their former existence ought to awaken 

 in us. 



But what a theme does this day present tp the 

 antiquary who has leisure to work it out in the 

 history of the Feast of Innocents^ respecting which 

 Leber has told us so much in his Monnaies des 

 Fous, and of which we have traces in this country 

 in our own Boy Bishops, of one of whom there is a 

 monument at Salisbury, and of another at Bindon 

 in Dorsetshire. 



More I would have said, but that while I am 

 yet writing there comes across the Atlantic the 

 wail of a great nation for the loss of one of her 

 noblest sons, — Washington Irving is no more. 

 He who with all the humour, refinement, and 

 delicacy of Goldsmith, told so well the Story of 

 Christmas in England, has died full of years, and 

 full of honour. 



Gentle Reader, in the midst of thy mirth this 

 coming Christmas, let not the memory of Geoffrey 

 Crayon be forgotten ! Ambrose Mebxon. 



