OLD >;APvXrA. 29.5 



Vieiix Bout tie I'An," and >fter parading it through the streets 

 hj torchlight with the mock ceremonial of a funeral procession, 

 to end bj burying it on the beach, or in some retired spot, or 

 make a bonfire and burn it. 



New Year's Day. 

 January 1 reminds us of several passages in the homilies 

 of the Gallican Fathers on the Festival of Mithras, or the 

 new-born Sun, whicli the country people celebi-ated on that 

 day. Like our Bete de la Tonav and the weir w^olves of 

 Sweden and Norway, men disguised in a variety of bestial 

 forms, especially those of stags and oxen, formed an essential 

 part of the Mithraic procession ; and it is remarkable that not 

 only does the American Indian still Avatch to see the stag 

 kneel on the mystical eve of the infant year, but that it was a 

 very common notion among the pious Guernsey women that 

 all the cattle, meekly kneeling on their knees, paid the same 

 homage to the Infant Saviour on Christmas Eve. 



Old Christinas. 



♦January 6 was the original Christmas of the Eastern 

 Church. We admit it in our Calendar, because four centuries 

 before "the Desired of Nations" appeared on earth "the 

 fountains of God's birth, in the Temple of Bacchus, at 

 Andros, always overflowed on that day with ruddy wine." 

 This day w^as not merely that of Bacchus's nativity ; heathen 

 Greece commemorated at the same period " the changes of 

 water into nectar and ambrosia " by the little god whom Egypt 

 then brought out of his " adytum " and exhibited to the fana- 

 tical gaze of innumerable worshippers. Traces of all these 

 heathen rites will be found in our Christian liturgies and 

 domestic traditions. It is true that in Devonshire and Corn- 

 w^all the cattle are still believed to fall down and worship on 

 Christmas Eve. The same superstition prevails in Guernsey, 

 with the belief that at midnight on Christmas Eve all water is 

 changed temporarily into wine. 



During my nonage at least, remarks the same above- 

 mentioned writer, the peasantry here were convinced that 

 at midnight " toutes les fontaines se remplissaient de vin 

 rouge comme du sang," — blood-red wine gushed from every 

 spring. Women are always curious, at least the censorious 

 male sex will have it so, sometimes even a little incredu- 

 lous, and there is an awful instance of the unbelief of one 

 of the " weaker vessels " in the unwritten record of the 

 Friday Wake and Mother night. A female in one of the 

 country parishes was determined to ascertain the reality of 



