THE HOLLY TREE 53 



mas Day, and appears as "Father Christmas" in 

 modern celebrations. There is no great antiquity about 

 this part of the tradition which we try to keep alive 

 at Christmas. The making of Christmas Day and Christ- 

 mastide into a special children's festival is, on the other 

 hand, a moving back of the festival of the Epiphany, 

 when gifts were brought to the child Christ by wise 

 men of the East. In Rome I have assisted in celebrating 

 our Twelfth Night under the name " Befani," at a 

 great illuminated public fair, near the Pantheon, where 

 children are taken to buy toys. 



There has been in England also a similar moving 

 back of the very ancient even prehistoric celebrations 

 of the New Year to Christmas, and hence it is that the 

 mysterious and sacred " mistletoe " of the Druids is 

 mingled in our houses with the less significant but 

 beautiful holly as a decoration. The Christian Church, 

 however, did not, and does not, sanction the introduction 

 of mistletoe into the sacred edifice, and not many years 

 ago those who loved and truly understood tradition 

 would not permit mistletoe to be mixed with holly even 

 in the private house at Christmastide. Mistletoe, it 

 was held, could not be rightly introduced until the new 

 year. The new year, however, of the Druids differed in 

 date from that of the later calendar, and fell in what is 

 to us the second week of March. 



The holly tree, with its splendid red berries and 

 shining, prickly leaves, is a beautiful decorative plant, 

 very hardy and abundant : it was used by the old 

 Romans ^in their " Saturnalia, 1 ' a feast which nearly 

 coincided with the Christmas of the new religion. 

 There is a species of holly in South America the leaves 

 of which are made into tea by the Indians, the Paraguay 

 tea or matte. This tea is an unpleasant, bitter 

 decoction, devoid of aroma, if I may judge from samples 

 which I have tasted in London. " Ilex " is the 

 botanical name of the genus to which both our holly- tree 



