The Old Magic of Christmas

by Linda Raedisch

  Juniper

  (Juniperus communis)

  In Hänsel and Gretel, the opera, the Nibbling Witch’s wand is a juniper branch that she uses to “freeze” and “unfreeze” her household servants. This is not the first time a cleaning implement has been transformed into a magical instrument in the hands of a witch. While brooms were usually used to sweep the floor, juniper was burned to purify the general atmosphere of the home, especially at Christmastime. Like the blackthorn on St. Lucy’s Eve, dried juniper cuttings were dropped over hot coals in a frying pan and walked through house and stables on the eves of Christmas and Epiphany. The fragrant white smoke purged the premises of pests both real (rats and fleas) and imagined (witches, ghosts, and goblins).

  Juniper smoke may have given the Twelve Nights of Christmas their German name of Rauhnächte—Rauh coming from Rauch, or “smoke.” Then again, rauh could mean “rough, hairy,” referring to the werewolves and other furry characters prowling around at this time of year. (Werewolves, it must be noted, were believed to fear juniper trees.) Rauh can also mean “raw” as in “cold,” as in Rauhreif or “hoarfrost,” which is both cold and rough.

  Juniper has an interesting relationship with the rowan, which was long used to discourage witches because they could not stomach the red berries. You might say that juniper and rowan get on like a house on fire, because that was exactly what would happen if you brought them inside together: your house would burn down. A sliver of juniper incorporated into a rowan wood boat, however, would prevent the boat from sinking.

  In parts of Switzerland, boys still carry “brooms,” poles topped with bunches of juniper, through the town on New Year’s Eve, while in the Alps, Martinmas used to be the occasion to distribute Gerten, birch rods topped with clusters of oak leaves and juniper sprigs. The gerten were kept through the winter, then used to drive the cattle to the spring pastures. The more juniper berries that clung to the gerte, the more calves would be born in the spring.

  Juniper thrives on the Lüneberg Heath in northern Germany, a former gathering place for witches. There, herds of Heidschnucke, “heath nibblers,” an ancient breed of sheep, nibble everything but the sprawling juniper shrubs, which are much too prickly to be tasty. Another sort of spirit, gin, takes its name from the juniper berries (French genièvre) with which it is flavored. In the old days, a dash of gin on a silk handkerchief was the most elegant way to clean the surface of a mirror, so be sure to keep a bottle on hand if you plan to engage in any mirror magic on Christmas or New Year’s Eve. (See also the Addendum in this book.)

  Holly

  (Ilex aquifolium)

  One of the more obscure names for holly is “bat’s wing.” I’m sure my fellow bat-lovers will share my confusion as to why such a descriptive tag has not taken off. The holly’s genus name, Ilex, was the Latin name for the holm oak (Quercus ilex), a Mediterranean oak whose dark green leaves do not turn brown even in winter. There are many mysteries concerning the holly, not the least of which is why so many people consider it to be so much holier than ivy. According to Christian legend, both the Cross and the Crown of Thorns were made of holly. For its crimes, God transformed the holly, which up till then had been a tall and stately palm, into a thorny shrub with berries red as blood. Even today, its German name is Stechpalme, or “prickly palm.”

  But holly as we know it was already among the greens with which the Romans dressed their homes for the pagan feast of Saturnalia. When you look at its history, the holly ought to top the list of disreputable Christmas trees (and shrubs), but except for a few vain attempts by early popes and Puritans, holly has never really fallen out of favor with the Church. It remains the shining Christmas star of the British Isles, in whose relatively mild climate this not-quite-so-cold-hardy evergreen thrives. From the early Middle Ages on, hollen was hauled into both churches and homes by the armful each December. It was best not to bring holly into the house until Christmas Eve, while holly gathered on Christmas Day would keep witches away. Domestic holly decorations had to be taken down and thrown away immediately after Twelfth Night, but church holly would attract good fortune all year.

  Do not be mistaken: the holly is more than a good-time Christmas dandy. In the old days, poor householders in Wales would tie a generously leafy bunch of holly twigs in the middle of a long rope, the end of which the master of the house, having climbed up on the roof, would drop down the chimney. This was caught by the mistress, who took turns with him pulling the rope up and down until their makeshift chimney brush had scrubbed away the worst of the soot and sent it billowing out into the kitchen in an apocalyptic black cloud.44

  A hobgoblin known as Charlie who haunted the kitchen of an inn on the Blackdowns of Somerset was partial to holly. Charlie liked to perch on the Clavey, a holly wood beam that hung above the fireplace and whose sole purpose was to give little Charlie a place to sit and warm his toes. Charlie was both a helpmeet and a mischievous imp. If he took against an expected guest, he would unset the table, putting all the cups and cutlery away before the guest arrived.

  One of the most famous expected guests in English literature, the Ghost of Christmas Past, greets Scrooge with “a branch of fresh green holly in its hand,” while the Ghost of Christmas Present wears a “holly wreath set here and there with shining icicles,” reflecting, perhaps, the ancient Greek belief that holly could freeze water. Earlier on, the most famous of unexpected 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’ chagrin.) 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 associated 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.

  Walter Calverley, Elizabethan master of Calverley Hall, murdered 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 suggested that by the time of his trial, the wretched Calverley 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 the wretched Walter rest. For a time, his ghost lingered in the lane outside Calverley village, where it behaved very much like a member 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 presence, the doomed man’s spirit would have been subject to absorption by a host of preexisting traditions. His ghost was eventually subdued 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 cattern-cakes, large pastries shaped like wagon wheels, filled with honey, figs, minc
emeat, 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 onward, English homes, churches, and 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 inviting 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 profusion of ivy on a virgin’s grave meant that the occupant had pined away for love of a faithless fellow. Naturally, the survivor 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 interesting 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 unfamiliar with the lingonberry, which is also a beloved jam berry of the Swedes.

  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 (Calluna 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 (1)

  (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 also 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 visionary Hildegard of Bingen was aware of its medicinal properties, 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 something 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 that, 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 Pennsylvania 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 (2)

  (Anastatica hierochuntica)

  Elsewhere in the Alps, the vigil takes place indoors and centers around another plant bearing the name of Christmas 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 that 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 (3)

  (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 sundial points sharply to noon on Midsummer Day, when the petals are fully open.

  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 bowl,45 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 anytime from Christmas Eve to Old Twelfth Eve. In eighteenth-century Herefordshire, in the barren winter fields, thirteen fires were kindled: one large, twelve small, like a fiery coven. In some parts of the county, these fires 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 h
awthorn 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 carefully, 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 “wassailing of the trees.” This usually involved the splashing of the roots and trunk with hard cider, but it could also take a violent turn. On the Continent, the trees were stoned and/or beaten roundly with clubs and rods. Back in Herefordshire, 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.”46 Many of the songs were addressed to “thee, old apple tree,” or simply “old fellow,” for special attention was always given to the oldest tree in the orchard.

  The Apple-Tree Man, like the tomten in his botrae, resided in the oldest tree in the orchard, from which he was able to look after the farmer’s fortunes. Every orchard had one. Going sometimes by the uncomplimentary nickname Lazy Lawrence, he discouraged thieves from making off with the apples at harvest time. In this he might be assisted by an elderly White Lady. In Folktales of England, Ruth L. Tongue contributes the Pitminster version of the following tale, in which a disinherited son prospers from a respectful encounter with the Apple-Tree Man.

  According to the Somerset law of “Borough English,” which is the opposite of primogeniture, the youngest son inherited lock, stock, and barrel. In this story, the youngest son rents his elder brother a patch of ground with a crumbling cottage on it, a stand of apple trees, and an ox and a donkey in their dotage. To add insult to injury, the lordly younger brother announces that he’s going to drop by at midnight on Christmas Eve to force the donkey to tell him where on the property a certain treasure is supposed to be buried. It was widely believed that at midnight on Christmas Eve, animals were granted the power of speech, as they are in Beatrix Potter’s The Tailor of Gloucester, the mice, birds, bats, and cats chattering away in nursery rhymes when the clock strikes twelve. The conversations of country livestock were more sinister, the horses, sheep, and cows sometimes uttering prophecies of death for those who dared to eavesdrop.