The Old Magic of Christmas: Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year (30 page)

Ember Days
: fasting days, occurring one in each season, in the medieval liturgical year. “Ember” here has nothing to

do with fireplace embers; the name comes from the Old

English
ymbrendagas
, meaning “periodic days,” because they occur periodically throughout the year. The other

Ember Days are the Wednesday following Ash Wednes-

day, Whitsunday (Pentecost, the seventh Sunday after

Easter) and Autumn Crouchmas (September 14). Those

born on Ember Days were supposed to be able to see

spirits.

Finnic
: non- Indo-European family of languages belonging to the broader Finno-Ugric family. The Finnic languages

include Finnish, Sami and Estonian.

flax
:
Linum usitatissimum
, a tall, willowy annual whose stems are the source of both fine linen and of the coarser byproduct, tow. If you are “flaxen-haired,” your hair

resembles the stem’s fine, pale inner fibers which were

spun into thread. The flax plant bears delicate light blue flowers and hard round seeds, known as linseed.

250 Glossary

flue
: a passage which conducts the smoke from the fireplace or grate up into the main chimney.

Glückspilz
: German for “lucky mushroom,” the
Amanita
muscaria
or fly agaric. The fly agaric has a fat white stalk, red cap and white spots. Also known as “the little man of

the forest,” the image of this hallucinogenic and highly

poisonous fungus is an intrinsic part of the German

Christmas celebration.

goblin
: an ugly, mischievous spirit not unlike a troll, though perhaps smaller. The word goblin comes from Old

French,
gobelin
rather than German
kobold
. Both words, however, stem from the Greek,
kobalos
, a mischievous spirit.

gorse
:
Ulex europaeus
, a thorny shrub of the moors. Unlike its fellow heath-dweller, the Common Broom (see

broom
) which blooms only in springtime, gorse keeps its cheerful yellow blossoms going all year long. Gorse also

answers to the names “furze” and “whin.”

Green Knight
: a.k.a. “Knight of the Green Chapel,” anti-hero of the fourteenth-century Middle English poem,

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
. Because he is green-skinned, carries a holly branch and survives decapita-

tion, many take him for a pre-Christian Celtic vegetal

spirit.

Hidden Folk
: the
landvaettir
or aboriginal land spirits of Iceland. When the Norse arrived in Iceland, there were

no elves or
Álfar
on the island, but there were plenty of hidden or
huldre
folk. Soon after settlement, the place started filling up with “elves” as well, and the two terms are now used interchangeably by most translators.

Glossary 251

howe
: a burial mound, especially one that is so old no one can remember who is actually buried in it. Howes are

usually supposed to contain royal bones and treasure. In

England, they are also known as “lows” or “barrows,” but

one is only ever laid “in howe.”

Ilsenstein
: now
Ilsestein
, a barren granite mountaintop poking out of the Harz forest in the German province of

Sachsen-Anhalt. An iron cross was installed at its sum-

mit in 1814, but this did not seem to deter Hansel and

Gretel’s Nibbling Witch who lived at its foot. “Ilse” is a German girl’s name, which begs the question, “Who was

Ilse?” According to one legend she was the daughter of

a knight whose castle stood on the nearby Westerberg.

In another, her father was the
Brockengespennst
, a giant similar in appearance to the Green Knight but who carried a fir tree instead of a holly branch. In any case, the beautiful Ilse was turned to stone as the result of a love triangle involving herself, a tricky young journeyman,

and the resident witch’s daughter, Yellow Trudi.

Jacobean
: pertaining to the reign of King James I who ruled England from 1603 to 1625. James is the English form of

the medieval Spanish “Jayme,” which comes from “Jaco-

bus” which is the Latin form of the Hebrew “Ya’aqob.”

kota
: a traditional, tipi-like Sami dwelling which can be set up wherever the reindeer are grazing. In “The Snow

Queen,” both the Finmark woman’s and Lapland wom-

an’s houses resemble the
kota
in that the roofs slope all the way to the ground. Because the Finmark woman’s

house has no door, Gerda must knock at the chimney.

252 Glossary

Lucifer
: Latin, “light-bringing,” instigator of an angelic revolt in heaven, more or less synonymous with Satan,

but also used to denote Venus in its role of morning star.

The name “Lucia” also means “light-bringer.”

Magi
: plural of
Magus
, priests of the Zoroastrian religion of ancient Persia. In popular Greek imagination, the Magi

were skilled sorcerers, astrologers and mirror gazers—

how else would they have known to follow the Star of

Bethelehem? See also
Three Kings
.

Moor
: name given by Europeans to an Arabic-speaking person of northwestern Africa or early medieval Spain.

The name “Moor” comes from Greek
mauros
, meaning,

“black, dark,” and, in fact, the Moor was usually repre-

sented as a Sub-Saharan African rather than an actual

Arab or Berber. The character of the dark-skinned Moor

added a note of exoticism to medieval pageants and the-

atre pieces. The most famous Moor of all is Othello, the

humblest Black Peter.

moor
: treeless land unsuitable for farming on which such low, scrappy shrubs as heather, broom, gorse and juniper may thrive.

mumming
: costumed cavorting, often door to door, with the participants (mummers) taking care to disguise their

identities. Like trick-or-treaters, mummers must be paid

off with food, drink or money. Unlike trick-or-treaters,

mummers are usually adults and may perform a short

play at each stop.

norns
: a class of supernatural women in Norse mythology, the most famous of whom were Urd, Verdandi and

Glossary 253

Skuld who sat spinning the threads of destiny at the foot

of the World Tree.

northern lights
: the aurora borealis: officially, a phenomenon caused by electrical sparks tossed about on the solar

wind. Unofficially, there is little agreement about the

source of this arctic show of lights. In Lapland, they are said to be the dancing souls of the happy dead, the restless souls of the
un
happy dead, and the switching tail of a celestial fox. Although green often dominates in pho-tographs, the northern lights actually come in a whole

range of colors. In one of his letters to J. R. R. Tolkien’s children, Father Christmas paints the “Rory Bory Aylis”

as a fiery rainbow, though he admits to not having done

it properly. Out of respect for the phenomenon’s audi-

tory component—a sort of crackling hiss—the Sami

make a point of observing the northern lights in silence.

(In “The Snow Queen,” Andersen would have the lights

say, “’Isch! isch!’” as if “the sky was sneezing.”)

Picts
: antique natives of northern Scotland who, in lieu of clothes, tattooed or painted themselves blue and apparently spoke a language unrelated to any other. The Picts’

air of mystery probably stems from the fact that their

homeland lay north of Hadrian’s Wall, a region too cold

and damp for the Roman recorders to venture into. All

in all, the Picts, who had their own kingdom until AD

843, were probably not much different from their Celtic

neighbors. The Picts had their own robust, curving artis-

tic style and, judging by the artifacts they left behind,

liked to make pictures on stones and silver jewelry as

much as on themselves.

254 Glossary

pitch:
a sticky, black substance distilled from pine wood, almost, but not quite, the same thing as tar. In the fairy tale, “Mother Hulda,” (German
Frau Holle
),
pitch is poured over the stepsister’s head. “Pitch” is the translation of the German
Pech
, but I think the Grimms should have used
Teer
, or “tar,” which is much easier to pour over someone’s head. Pitch oozes slowly enough that

even a lazybones probably could have dodged it and got-

ten away scot-free. The German
Pech
means “bad luck”

as well as “pitch.” The opposite of
Pech
is
Schwein
which denotes both a pig and a stroke of uncommonly good

luck. See
tar
.

primogeniture
: the practice of bequeathing all one’s worldly goods to the eldest son.

primstav
: “prime staff,” the Norwegian stave calendar, a long, flat stick on which feast days and dates of agricultural importance were marked by pictograms. Most

Scandinavian stave calendars also employed runes and

required specialized knowledge to read.

Puck
: See
Robin Goodfellow
.

Ragnarök
: also,
Ragnarøkkr
, in Norse mythology, the vio-lent, fiery End of the World, gods and all (though a

few chess pieces survive). Ragnarök is really nothing to

worry about, because a new world will spring up imme-

diately in the old one’s place.

reel
: a four to six-spoked rimless wheel on which spun thread was wound into a skein. The rotary flax wheel

on which thread could be easily wound from the bob-

bin was not introduced until the 1700’s. The handheld

skein-winders of earlier centuries were much quieter, so

Glossary 255

it’s anybody’s guess how Frau Holle might have made the

thunder back in the Middle Ages. It’s possible she left it to Thor.

Reformation
: religious movement initiated by Martin Luther’s nailing of his “Ninety-Five Theses on the Power

and Efficacy of Indulgences” to a church door in Witten-

berg, Germany in 1517. Rather than achieving Luther’s

goal of reforming the Catholic Church, the Reformation

gave rise to the many Protestant denominations we have

today. German legend credits Luther with putting up the

first Christmas tree.

risir
: in Norse mythology, a class of primordial giants who were supposed to be especially beautiful.

Robin Goodfellow
: a.k.a. “Puck,” a helpful, yet mischievous, English sprite. He would enter the house at night to do

such chores as sweep the floor and grind flour, mustard

seeds or barley grains for beer. In return, he accepted

milk and bread but never clothes.

skyr
: a homemade, Icelandic yogurt-like dairy product. The making of skyr, along with an older form of the language

and a passionate belief in elves, is one of those cultural artifacts which have been kept up in Iceland long after

they died out in the rest of Scandinavia.

tar
: a black, oozy substance distilled from pine roots. When all the tar and pitch have been drawn from the wood, all

that remains is that other essential ingredient of Christ-

mas: charcoal. Tar, which smells strongly of turpentine,

was used for waterproofing boats and wooden buildings

as well as sticking feathers to unfortunate humans.

256 Glossary

Thor
: thunderer, giant-killer, red-bearded son of Odin and the earth goddess Jörd. Though unskilled in magic, Thor

was one of the most popular Norse gods, especially out-

side the aristocracy. He got out of most scrapes by laying about him with the double-headed hammer Mjöllnir,

the image of which was employed by his worshippers

as a talisman and mark of the god’s cult. Thor drove a

cart pulled by two goats which could be killed and eaten,

then put back together and made to pull the cart again.

Three Kings
: Kaspar (or Caspar), Melchior and Balthasar who followed the Star westward to Bethlehem in order

to present gifts to the Baby Jesus. In Spain and Latin

America, it is the Three Kings who bring gifts to children on Epiphany Eve. See also
Magi
.

tow
: the shorter, coarser fibers left over from the working of flax into linen thread. If you are “tow-headed,” your hair resembles these coarser blond strands which were used

to make rope, ship’s caulking, wigs and false beards. See

also
flax
.

Turkish delight
: a confection consisting of gluey hunks of rosewater and almonds or pistachios dusted with powdered sugar. Personally, I would be horrified to find a

box of Turkish delight in my stocking no matter how

prettily it was wrapped, but I may be alone in this. Slabs of Turkish delight form the roof of the witch’s house in

Hansel and Gretel
, and the confection is the principal means by which the White Witch gains Edmund’s confidence when he first arrives in Narnia. (When Father

Christmas is finally able to make his way into that land,

Glossary 257

he conjures the humbler treat of a pot of tea with cream

and lump sugar.)

warp
: the set of vertical threads which must be carefully assembled on the frame of the loom before weaving can

begin. Once the loomed has been “warped,” the weft

(also “woof ”) or horizontal threads can be inserted to

achieve the desired pattern.

Bibliography