The Old Magic of Christmas: Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year (27 page)

Year’s Day while still reeling from the excesses of Old New Year’s Eve.

A Christmas Witch's Herbal 219

belief that holly could freeze water. Earlier on, the most famous of
un
expected Christmas guests, the Green Knight, shows up at King Arthur’s court with a holly branch in one hand. (He has an axe in the other, much to the knights’ cha-grin.) The Blue Hag of the Scottish Highlands, meanwhile,

kept her magic staff beneath a holly bush which is why no

grass will grow beneath a holly.

Ever since the Crucifixion, the holly has been associ-

ated with the condemned man or, more specifically, with

his ghost. In the robber-ridden forest of Exmoor, there

once grew a holly tree that cast a noose-shaped shadow on

full moon nights. And in Yorkshire, the ghost of a man who had slain his own family was eventually caught in the holly’s prickles.

Sir Walter, Elizabethan master of Calverley Hall, mur-

dered his wife and two of his children in a fit of pique after he had squandered his inheritance. He attempted to murder a third infant son but was waylaid and imprisoned at

York Castle to await trial. Refusing to plead one way or the other, he was slowly pressed to death between a table and

a heavy door, in accordance with the law. It has been sug-

gested that by the time of his trial the wretched Sir Wal-

ter had come to his senses and that his refusal to plead was a legal maneuver that allowed his surviving son to inherit what was left of the Calverley fortune. (Though it sounds a lot like “Calvary,” the hill on which Jesus died, Calverley is actually an Old English name that refers to the use of calves in clearing the land.)

This final noble gesture was not enough to earn Sir Wal-

ter rest. For a time, his ghost lingered in the lane outside
220 A Christmas Witch's Herbal

Calverley Village where it behaved very much like a mem-

ber of the Wild Hunt. Nearby Calverley Wood has been

inhabited, or at least frequented, since the Bronze Age, as evinced by a large flat rock with numerous hollows and

traces of circles pecked into it: a rather humble example of a cup-marked stone. Where there are cup marks, there are

usually elves, and in the face of such a long human pres-

ence, the doomed man’s spirit would have been subject to

absorption by a host of pre-existing traditions. His ghost was eventually laid by the local vicar who commanded it

not to walk again so long as there were hollies growing in Calverley Wood.

\Ivy

(
Hedera helix
)

On the old Norwegian stave calendar, St. Catherine’s Day

(November 25) was marked by a wheel, both in honor of

the saint who was martyred on a spiked wheel and as a

reminder that, if you hadn’t already started, you had better get busy at the spinning wheel if you were to have all your yarn spun by the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas. In

England, St. Catherine’s Eve was the time to feast on cat-

tern-cakes, large pastries shaped like wagon wheels, filled with honey, figs, mincemeat or some other sticky stuff, decorated on top with ivy leaves. The masculine holly was frozen out of the festivities since Cattern’s Eve was a woman’s holiday.

For the rest of the Christmas season, however, the ivy

stood cold and shivering in the holly’s shadow. From the

medieval period onwards, English homes, churches and

A Christmas Witch's Herbal 221

palaces were festooned with both holly and ivy, though

the ivy was often made to stand out on the porch. Many

believed it was bad luck to bring ivy indoors, for ivy wraps itself around old things, while holly always looks brand

new. And a clump of holly does not look nearly as invit-

ing to snakes and rats as a leafy bed of ivy does. While the ivy could not hope to compete with the robust red berries

of the holly, the inclusion of ivy in a wreath of sterile holly would cancel out the bad luck inherent in the lack of fruits.

For all her evergreen appeal, the ivy has never quite

been able to live down her work in the cemetery. A profu-

sion of ivy on a virgin’s grave meant that the occupant had pined away for love of a faithless fellow. Naturally, the sur-vivor of such a dalliance would shun the ivy as a reminder of his guilt. On the other hand, the absence of ivy on someone’s plot meant that his or her ghost did not lie quietly.

Lingonberry

(
Vaccinium vitis-idaea
)

Lingonberry is a low-lying evergreen shrub that bears small red berries and thrives in the lands of the northern lights.

It is known in England as the cowberry which is interest-

ing in light of the bovine Lucia of West Gotland. In the old days, lingonberries were only gathered in the wild. Clement A. Miles, writing in 1912, identified the twigs in the Lucia crown as “whortleberry,” that is, the dark blue-berried
Vaccinium myrtillis
, a.k.a. “bilberry,” which is not an evergreen.

Never having eaten at IKEA, Miles was probably unfamil-

iar with the lingonberry, which is also a beloved jam berry of the Swedes.

222 A Christmas Witch's Herbal

If you live outside Scandinavia, you probably do not

have access to fresh lingonberry greens, in which case you can make your Lucia crown out of any other shrubby evergreen that won’t prick the scalp. Since lingonberry is a

member of the heath family, Pagans, or “heathens,” might

prefer the etymological significance of using heather (
Cal-luna vulgaris
) instead. Incidentally, another English name for heather is “ling” from Old Norse
lyng
, suggesting that our ancestors were just as confused as we are.

Christmas Rose

(
Helleborus niger
)

Though it looks like a delicate flower, the black hellebore or Christmas Rose is an evergreen alpine perennial that not only over-winters but blooms while there is still snow on

the ground. It thrives throughout the high forests of central and southern Europe, but in Germany it grows wild only in

Berchta’s own country, the Berchtesgadener Alps, its flowers opening in the wake of the Buttnmandllauf. The leaves are

dark green and leathery. The flower buds have a pinkish cast but the five petals are an iridescent white upon opening.

The black hellebore most likely got its name from its

brownish black roots. Then again, it might take its name

from the Black Plague, for the lanced buboes of plague

victims were packed with a poultice made from these

roots. One of the black hellebore’s many German names

is
Schwarzer Nieswurz
, or “black sneezing root,” perhaps because a sneeze was often the first sign of the dreaded

infection. The twelfth-century German abbess and vision-

ary, Hildegard of Bingen, was aware of its medicinal prop-

A Christmas Witch's Herbal 223

erties, but since it is so highly poisonous, this Christmas Rose is now exclusively an ornamental. In the Alps, it was also thought to be effective against plagues of witches. For this purpose, it was gathered on the first day of Christmas and strewn about the house. Meanwhile, the witches themselves used it as an ingredient in their flying ointment.

The first Christmas Rose was supposed to have sprung

from the tears of a poor girl who had nothing to give to

the newborn Baby Jesus. Another legend tells of a beautiful maiden who, like Snow White, was cast out of her home to

wander the snowbound forest. She must have caught some-

thing worse than a cold out there, for to save her, the goddess of the forest found it necessary to transform her into the white blossom of the black hellebore.

At one time, it was said, all the flowers in the forest

bloomed on Christmas Eve. Now it is only the Christmas

Rose which, if all goes well, opens its petals at midnight.

Watching it was a popular diversion on Christmas Eve,

and the vigil continued in the dooryards of the Pennsyl-

vania Dutch who carried their
Christrose
with them to the New World. There it was eventually upstaged by the English holly, the practice dying out at the end of the nineteenth century. Back in Germany, the Christmas Rose continues

to bloom throughout the season on greeting cards, napkins

and wrapping paper.

Christmas Rose

(
Anastatica hierochuntica
)

Elsewhere in the Alps, the vigil takes place indoors and

centers around another plant bearing the name of Christ-

224 A Christmas Witch's Herbal

mas Rose, a dry, dusty ball of tangled leaves. It is the
Anastatica hierochuntica
, also known as the Rose of Jericho or Resurrection Plant, in its dormant state. This Middle Eastern native which tumbles, rootless, along the desert floor, uncurls its long thin leaves only during the rainy season at which time the seeds at its heart quickly sprout and put out tiny white flowers. In Poschiavo, Switzerland, where it does not actually grow, this Christmas Rose is set in a bowl of water early on Christmas Eve. It is then regaled with song.

Just when the repertoire of carols is about to run out, which should happen around midnight, the previously desiccated

plant opens its leaves, believing that spring has come to the Holy Land.

Christmas Rose

(
Rosa alba
)

“’Dead he is not,’” the Roses tell Gerda when she asks after the fate of her lost playmate Kay in Part the Third of Andersen’s “The Snow Queen.” “’We have been down in the earth;

the dead are there, but not Kay.’”

Gerda was neither the first nor the last unmarried girl

to pump a rose for information about her beloved. Unlike

our first two Christmas Roses, this one is an actual member of the genus Rosa. In fact, you could use any kind of white rose, but because the following is a bit of antiquated English divination, it’s probably best to use an old-fashioned Damask or Gallica rose. Whichever rose you choose, it must be white and you must pick it when the shadow on the sun-dial points sharply to noon on Midsummer Day when the

petals are fully open.

A Christmas Witch's Herbal 225

Do not put your rose in water. Wrap it in white tissue

paper and place it at the back of a drawer until Christmas Day. When you get dressed on Christmas morning, choose

something with a plunging neckline. Tuck the rose in your

cleavage and go about your business. Sooner or later, someone will notice the crumpled flower and do you the favor of fishing it out. That someone is your future spouse.

Apple Tree

(
Malus domestica)

To speak the Old English one-word phrase, “Wassail,” is

to encourage the one you are addressing to “be of good

health.” To go “a-wassailing” is to travel about, wishing good health on everyone you meet. Not just people but orchards, fields and even oxen could be wassailed. Most people have

heard of the wassail bowl46, but there was also such a thing as a wassail box in which a china baby doll rested inside a tissue paper nest, surrounded by apples and paper roses—a

more than slightly creepy representation of the Baby Jesus.

Wassailers might be rewarded, or urged to go away, with

wassail cakes, beer or money.

Wassailing took many forms, the most spectacular of

which was the fire-wassail. This could take place any time 46. Many assume that a wassail bowl must contain either hard or soft cider, but while hard cider was poured over the roots of the trees, the medieval wassail bowl, which was meant for human consumption, had no cider in it. Baked apples were floated in an ale-based concoction flavored with wine, sugar and a host of spices. At the last minute, the hot brew was thickened with beaten eggs, thus making the traditional wassail bowl a cross between Bishop’s Wine and eggnog.

226 A Christmas Witch's Herbal

from Christmas Eve to Old Twelfth Eve. In eighteenth-

century Herefordshire, in the barren winter fields, thir-

teen fires were kindled, one large, twelve smal , like a fiery coven. In some parts of the county, they were indeed identified as witches, while in others, they represented the

twelve apostles and the Virgin Mary or someone named

Old Meg. (Oddly enough, Jesus was left out of it.) The large fire might also be recognized as the sun, the smaller ones the months of the year. In Ross-on-Wye, a straw Maiden

was also burned, perhaps as a bride for the Old Man we are soon to meet.

Another old west country fire-wassail involved the

burning of the Bush, a naked hawthorn branch whose twigs

were bent into a globe. It hung in the farmhouse kitchen

all year long but was taken down first thing on New Year’s morning when it was filled with straw and set alight. The

blazing Bush was then carried—both quickly and careful y,

one supposes—over the fields. The evil spirits who might

cause the crops to wither would be trapped inside the globe and consumed along with the Bush. A new Bush was constructed immediately, the ends of the twigs singed in the

fire of the old one, for it was not wise to go even one night without a Bush hanging in the kitchen. In Brinsop, the ceremony was concluded when all the men of the farm intoned

the words, “Auld Cider,” deeply and droningly like Tibetan monks.

Cider brings us to the apple-wassail or the “wassail-

ing of the trees.” This usual y involved the splashing of the roots and trunk with hard cider, but it could also take a vio-lent turn. On the Continent, the trees were stoned and/

A Christmas Witch's Herbal 227

or beaten roundly with clubs and rods. Back in Hereford-

shire, the trees were wassailed with gunfire, but they were also regaled with song. In seventeenth-century Sussex, this was known as “howling the orchard,” as in, “Stand fast root, bear well top/Pray the God send us a howling good crop.”47