2>«» S. N" 104., Dkc. 2G. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



505 



LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2G. 1857. 



CHRISTMAS-BOX, CHBISTMAS-TREE, AND KISSING 

 UNDER THE MISTLETOE. 



National customs and the words of every modern 

 language (and surely words are customs) furnish 

 an amusing chase to ingenuity. Through their 

 numerous windings it is necessary to hunt them 

 out to their final stand. It is indeed a poor cus- 

 tom or etymology which opens itself obviously to 

 the first question. The best of them — that is, the 

 most curious — are like the "mouse's heart" al- 

 luded to by Chaucer's Wyf of Bathe : — 



" I hold a mouse's hert not worth a leek 

 That hath but con hole to sterte to." 



Old whimsical John Danton, in his primitive 

 " Notes and Queries," TAe Athenian Oracle, has 

 the following : — 



" Q. From whence comes the Custom of gathering of 

 Christmas-box money ? And how long since ? 



" A. It is as ancient as the word Mass, which the 

 Romish Priests invented from the Latin word Mltto, to 

 send, by putting the people in mind to send gifts, offer- 

 ings, oblations, to have Masses said for everything almost, 

 that no ship goes out to the Indies, but the Priests have 

 a box in that ship, under the protection of some Saint. 

 And for Masses, as they cant, to be said for them to that 

 Saint, &c., tlie poor people must put in something into 

 the Priests' Box, which is not to be opened till the ship 

 return. Thus the Mass at that time was Christ's- Mass, 

 and the Box Ckrisfs-Mass-Box, or money gathered 

 against that time, that Masses might be made by the 

 Priests to the Saints, to forgive the people the debauch- 

 eries of that time ; and from this, Servants had liberty 

 to get Box-money, because they might be enabled to pay 

 the Priest for Masses, — because No Penny, No Paternos- 

 ter ; — for tho' the Rich pay ten times more than they 

 can expect, yet a Priest will not say a Mass or anything 

 to the Poor for nothing, so charitable they generally are." 

 — Vol. i. p. 360. 



So far honest John Dunton — perhaps not in a 

 very charitable spirit, but nevertheless in accord- 

 ance with orthodox old Chaucer in a similar 

 vein : — 



" He was an esy man to give penance 

 Ther as he uiiste to han a good pitanee ; 

 For unto a povre ordre for to give 

 Is sign that a man is wel i-schreve." 



Dunton's account may serve as an illustration 

 of the custom ; but decidedly, as a national ob- 

 servance, the practice of giving presents at Christ- 

 mas, or at the beginning of the New Year, began 

 at a time when there was no "Mass" — no ship 

 to sail to the Indies on which the " Priests" might 

 speculate. The custom actually ascends to the 

 times of the old Romans, and is one of the very 

 many national characteristics which prove that 

 the Men of Rome, after an occupation and amal- 

 gamation of about 500 years, left their vigorous 

 impress upon this nation, — and that we have al- 



ways, as a nation, exhibited the salient points of 

 their social and political economy — and often not 

 their best features. 



In France such gifts are called Etrennes ; in 

 Italy, Strenne, — only they are given with reference 

 to the New Year. The Romans had the same 

 custom, calling these gifts Strence — new-year's 

 presents for the sake of the good omen — strenam 

 , . . . ominis bout gratia (Festus). As usual, a 

 goddess presided over the New Year's Gifts : her 

 name was Strenia. 



The origin of this custom amongst the Romans 

 is referred to the time of Tatius, the king of the 

 Sabines, who shared his sceptre with Romulus 

 after the rape of his women. It appears that Ta- 

 tius received as a good omen certain branches cut 

 in a wood sacred to the goddess Strenua or 

 Strength, which were presented to him on the first 

 day of January as a sign of peace and concord be- 

 tween the Romans and the Sabines : this presen- 

 tation o£ branches — evidently the original Christ- 

 mas Tree — continued ever afterwards ; and the 

 Romans made presents to each other, wishing "a 

 happy new year : " the gifts being called strence in 

 honour of the goddess Strenua, a word clearly 

 derived from the Greek <np-t]v)]s (fortis), which 

 is evidently the original of our Teutonic or Scan- 

 dinavian strong, strength, string, and of course 

 strenuous. The original gifts on the occasion were 

 figs, dates, honey, &c., with a stips, a small coin, 

 as a presage of riches. But contrary to the 

 modern usage, strence had to be given to pa- 

 trons, to magistrates, and even to the emperors — 

 as to Caligula, by his own edict. (Suet, in Calig., 

 id, in August, and in Tib.) The Greeks adopted 

 the custom from the Romans ; and in spite of the 

 opposition of the Church by her Councils and 

 Fathers, who denounced it as an abuse, the Chris- 

 tians encouraged the practice from the earliest 

 times to the present. 



The Spaniards call a New Year's gift or Christ- 

 mas-box aguinaldo. The etymology of the word 

 is obscure ; but as its older form was aguilando, 

 I venture to suggest, as a mere conjecture, that 

 as aguila is the Spanish for eagle, and as the pro- 

 verb aquilce senectus was applied to those that 

 seem young again — that is, renewed in old age as 

 the eagle, — the Spanish term aguinaldo or agui- 

 lando is really a wish to that effect, together with 

 the gift on such occasions. The conjecture seems 

 countenanced by the fact that a Spaniard's ha- 

 bitual wish as to your " length of days" is some- 

 thing prodigious. He says, " May you live a 

 thousand years!" — Viva Vd. milahos! Nay, still 

 more in confirmation of this conjecture, on the 

 25th of December the Romans celebrated the 

 Ludi Juvenales, instituted by Nero ; and these 

 games were so called because in their celebration 

 " the people, as it were, grew young again." It 

 was properly the day on which the Roman youth 



