646 REPORT—1896. 
examples, as to the sacred character of the house-fire during the Christmas 
or New Year season, this example emphasises one important particular, 
namely, that the unluck of giving out a light includes the prohibitionagainst 
receiving a light or making a light. Clearly, therefore, we have here 
symbolised in very direct form the continuous life of the New Year’s house- 
fire during the season which carries it on from the old year into the new. 
In Warwickshire the Christmas block was not to be entirely reduced to 
ashes until the end of the twelve days of Christmas.! 
The limitation of continuous burning through New Year’s eve and 
morn has now to be considered as the last of this group, symbolising 
that the house-fire was carried: on from one year to another. In 
Lancashire if any householder’s fire does not burn through the night 
of New Year’s eve it betokens bad luck through the ensuing year ; and if 
any one allow another to take a live coal, or to light a candle, on that 
eve, the bad luck extends to the grantor.? In the border counties it is 
deemed highly unlucky to Jet the fire out on New Year’s eve, All- 
Halloween, Midsummer eve, and Christmas eve, and no one will on the 
following morning give out a light lest he should give away his luck for 
the season. 
In the Northumberland example, quoted above, it was seen how the 
more modern yule candle was apparently displacing the archaic yule log. 
This provides the necessary connecting link to a group of customs where 
the burning of a candle or lamp all night on Christmas or New Year's 
eve appears as the sole remaining form of the survival. That this custom 
is a direct and genuine descendant from the house-fire can be proved by 
the fortunate preservation of the ‘missing link’ evidence between it and 
the Northumberland type. This comes from Lyme Regis, where the 
wood ashes of the family were formerly sold throughout the year as they 
were made, the person who purchased them being obliged to send as a 
present on Candlemas day a large candle. This candle was lighted in 
the evening, and only upon its self-extinction did the family retire to 
rest. JI think this explains the significance of the burning candle 
in connection with the survival of the house-fire cult ; for the trans- 
ference from Christmas or New Year’s eve to Candlemas Day is not a 
serious flaw in the argument. I pass, then, to the more general form of 
keeping a burning candle all night on certain sacred anniversaries. In 
Yorkshire it was believed that unless this was done on Christmas eve 
there would be a death in the house.® In Scotland candles of a particular 
kind were made for Christmas Day, and each candle must be so large as to 
burn from the time of its being lighted till the day be done ; if it did not, 
the circumstance would be an omen of ill-luck to the family for the 
ensuing year. In some parts the candle is not allowed to burn out, but 
is extinguished and carefully locked up in a chest, in order to be burnt 
out at the owner’s date-wake.® 
The third form of this particular phase of the cult of the house- 
1 Yolk-lore Jowrnal, i. 352. 
2 Harland and Wilkinson, Lancashire Folklore, pp. 155, 214. 
3 Henderson, Yolklore, p. 72. 
4 Dyer’s Popular Customs, p. 56. There is also the case of Dublin where, because 
the May-day fires were prohibited, the people fix a bush in the middle of the street 
and stick it full of lighted candles ( Gent. Mag. 1791, p. 428). 
5 Addy, Household Tales, p. 105. 
6 Jamieson, Dictionary, s.v. ‘ Yule.’ 
