Category Archives: Christmas

Unexpected Victorian images…the four frogs of Christmas

Posted on by
Reply

So far as I can work out there is absolutely nothing festive about four anthroprmorthic frogs – I could be wrong. Somehow or other I’ve now strayed into a slightly bizarre twelve days of Christmas. This is not the only example of a froggy festive card. There is another example, four frogs again, which at least involves a wintery scene and an unfortunate attempt at sequence ice skating….

I’m not sure I’d describe this as particularly jolly either. I think it’s a snowman about to waylay a startled Victorian. Raymond Briggs created an altogether more kindly snowman in his book of the same name in 1978. It was turned into an animated film in 1982. Three years later ‘Walking in the Air’ featured on a Toys R Us advert, sending the song into the top ten. Presumably, since all genealogists know that everyone has a black sheep in the family somewhere, this is The Snowman’s distant ancestor and very definitely not on first name terms with Father Christmas.

I should add that this is not the only alarming snowman Christmas card and if the frogs don’t offer you the kind of festive vibe you were seeking – how about four caterwauling moggies?

It is at least snowing. Jólaköttur or the Yule cat is from the Icelandic tradition – work hard enough and you get a nice set of new clothes…if you’re idle and lazy you’ll be eaten by the Yule cat who is the pet of the ogress named Grýla who eats naughty children – I think you can see how this might be going. And how does the cat know who to eat? Simple, if you’ve worked hard you will have gathered in the harvest, including shearing the sheep and have spun the wool – from which your new clothes have been made. This is, of course, quite important in the cold Iceland winter weather.

I have the feeling that I might find myself somewhat stuck with the number five but we shall see.

A robin comes bob bob bobbing along…in your soup or possibly your wassail bowl

Posted on by
Reply

Public Domain, National Library of Ireland

The reason that robins became so popular at Christmas was because Victorian postmen were nicknamed robins because they wore bright red uniforms. The link between the postmen, the bird and the cards they delivered was almost a ready made one.

There is also a Victorian story of a robin warming the baby Jesus by fanning the fire with its wings and the resulting burn is marked by the robin’s red breast.

I’m not quite so sure how this particular Victorian card fits into the festive message – it seems that three robins have over indulged the sherry or punch and that two of them have expired – one of them actually floating in the punch. After all, what says Christmas like two robins with their toes turned up – besides, of course the small boy being attacked by two geese and a Christmas pudding (see previous post). I don’t hold out much hope for the third robin given the cat lurking in the back ground. But in any event the sender, having provided a troubling image of massed robin extermination, wishes the recipient the usual seasonal greetings…

A slice of cake

Posted on by
Reply

Jane Austen describes rout cake while Charlotte Bronte mentions spice cake in her letters. Leaving the former aside, it seems that spice cake was something of a treat to be taken as part of alms given at Christmas as part of her duties as a clergyman’s daughter and wife.

Mrs Beeton’s book of Household Management was first published in 1861 and was an immediate best seller. Her recipe for spice looks remarkably like Yorkshire Parkin without the addition of oatmeal and without quite so much ginger. Spice cakes were not a new invention, they are listed in The English House Wife of 1615.

8 oz plain flour,

3 oz butter (or rather alarmingly good beef dripping)

2 oz brown sugar

1/2 a gill of golden syrup (a gill is equivalent to a 1/4 pint)

1 oz self raising flour

a pinch of salt

1 teaspoon of mixed spice (cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg)

1 egg

milk.

Essentially the fats, golden syrup and sugar are melted and then added to the flour, spice and salt which is stirred well. The egg is added to the mixture and sufficient milk added to make a soft batter which is then beaten well and poured into a buttered cake-tin. It says it takes an hour to bake but Mrs Beeton doesn’t provide oven temperatures – a moderate oven is as good as it gets.

In Cumbria and Westmorland you might be more likely to receive a slice of pepper cake which contained pepper as well as ginger and treacle. More like a tea loaf, it also contains dried fruit. Like the spice cake it was part of a tradition of festive or celebratory cakes. The increasing amounts of spice used in celebratory cooking from the sixteenth century onwards tells a story of the triangular trade and slavery. In Cumbria the addition of rum to Christmas cakes reflects the import of rum into Whitehaven from the West Indies. And I will admit to being very partial to a slice of Cumberland rum Nicky. Certainly the arrival of cheap sugar made the iced Christmas fruit cake we are familiar with today much more affordable. The Victorians called it Twelfth Cake because that was when they tucked in to it. The consumption of cake on the 25th December is still a relatively new one.

And just when I thought that history had been covered in every possible way I discover Alysa Levine’s Cake: A Slice of History which outlines the evolution of our cake eating habits. You can also take a tour of the country in a book entitled Around Britain by Cake by Caroline Taggart. As it happens I already have the latter in my possession but I have the feeling that Levine’s book is about to make its way into my life.

I would also have to say that the Victorians had some strange ideas about Christmas cards. I’m not sure if anything quite says Christmas like the image of a small boy being attacked by a giant Christmas pudding and two angry geese.. as a warning against indigestion of all things. I was actually looking for a card featuring cake! The image originates from Pinterest via Reddit.

For more information on Victorian Christmas cards follow the link to a video from the Victoria and Albert Museum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdULP-VYuXk.

Christmas ham origins

Posted on by
Reply
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/holidays/christmas-ideas/g4019/best-christmas-hams/

Freya, the Norse goddess, was the goddess of fertility. Traditionally Friday is named after her. The midwinter festival celebrated by the Norse incorporated Mother’s Night – the feminine festival that Bede definitely disapproved. And how does this get us to ham?

Well, Freya rode a boar with golden bristles when she wasn’t using her other method of transport – a chariot pulled by two black cats. Pigs were sacred to her and yes we have arrived at feasting and pork.

From there it is a short step to the medieval boar’s head and with a hop and a skip you have arrived at glazed ham.

Let’s try and be a little practical here. In rural communities many families kept a pig – did you ever read the Peppermint Pig by Nina Bawden? It could be fed from household scraps rather than requiring an expensive diet, acorns could be foraged. Even during World War Two people were encouraged to keep a pig.

So it really isn’t such a step to see how practicality and a tradition of pork on the festive table gives us a glazed ham. Now where is my recipe book? And how long will it take two people to eat a ham that can feed ten people comfortably for two days…

Celebrations before 1066 – what the Vikings celebrated

Posted on by
2
Adam of Bremen – the temple at Uppsala – Olaus Magnus Historia om de nordiska folken. Bok 3 – Kapitel 6 – Om ett härligt tempel helgadt åt de nordiska gudarna. – Utgivningsår 1555.

Prior to adopting Christianity – which was between the eleventh and twelfth centuries (the Swedes were a bit slow to adopt the “White Christ”) -Vikings held a range of seasonal feasts such as Jul in the winter ( Jolnir was one of Odin’s many names) and harvest festivals such as Mabon.

Adam of Bremen describes a festival that took place at Uppsala in Sweden once every nine years at the vernal equinox (the start of Spring) that involved sacrificing nine of every kind of male animal – and yes he does mention human sacrifice.

Major festivals involved feasting for twelve days and for those of you looking for an excuse to get the Christmas decorations out early many Germanic peoples celebrated a form of winter festival that fell somewhere between the middle of November and early January – quick break out the mead! It was King Haakon 1 of Norway who scheduled the winter holiday in the middle of the tenth century to coincide with Christmas, plied everyone with much ale across the celebration and ensured that there was lots of preaching resulting in some festive conversions to Christianity. It wasn’t entirely a smooth transition as the historic painting by Arbo demonstrates. Haakon, a Christian, first had to resist his people’s determination that he should celebrate Jol in the old style with a sacrifice.

Haakon the Good Confronted by the Farmers of Maeren painted by the Norwegian artist Peter Nicolai Arbo (c. 1831–1892)

Haakon is also known as Haakon the Good. His father was Harold Fairhair. Harold sent Haakon to England where he was raised at the court of King Athelstan and pick dup Christianity along the way. The only problem with all of that is that the earliest written source that alludes to all of this is twelfth century. Haakon’s half brother was Eric Bloodaxe and in order to become king Haakon had to depose Eric which is why Eric ended up in Yorkshire or Jorvik.

But back to the Norse before Christianity – there is evidence to suggest that the midwinter feast was linked to the so-called Wild Hunt which turns up in many European pre-Christian religious beliefs where lost souls are hunted across the night sky. In the North of England the pack of other-worldly hounds that Odin uses for his hunt are called Gabriel hounds and their howling is an omen of death – cheery.

I think I’ll return to the Norse festival of drinking and feasting designed to bring back the sun – and that brings us to those wreaths we hang on our front doors. Really they should be much larger and should be rolled down a hill whilst on fire to encourage the return of the sun… please don’t try it at home.

Other traditions with a Norse flavour include the yule log (which was very clearly not a chocolate confection in its original guise); Yule goats – which we don’t have but Scandinavians do; Old Man Winter; trees and mistletoe balls.

The first of the History Jar Zoom classes on Christmas and the festive season through the centuries begins on Monday 9th November 3pm (Greenwich Meantime.) Please see the Zoom class page for details.

https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/heim/05hakon.htm – for the saga of Haakon the Good.