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In those times, when in comfortable homes the Christmas feast was set, there would be heard outside a plaintive voice calling: "Give something from your yule-log to the sorrowful poor!" And then the children quickly, would carry out to the calling poor one good portions of food.
The home-bringing ceremony being thus ended, we walked back to the Château together startling Esperit and Magali standing hand in hand, lover-like, in the archway; and when we were come to the terrace, and were seated snugly in a sunny corner, the Vidame told me of a very stately yule-log gift that was made anciently in Aix and very likely elsewhere also in feudal times.
Marchmont's, induced Alice to accept; and so their illumined faces were added to the circle that gathered around the yule-log in the large dining-room, that had been cleared for games and dancing.
Michael are themselves at odds? 'Mayhap it but seemeth so, and they but dispute across the Yule-log, said Dorothy; 'and men down here, like the dogs about the fire, take it up, and fall a-worrying each other. But the end will crown all. 'Discrown some, I fear, said Richard to himself. As they reached the farm-house, it was growing light.
By noon Hemstead had finished his sermon, and Lottie had completed her mysterious fancy-work; and both were ready for the festivities of Christmas eve. Mr. Dimmerly was a great stickler for the old English customs, and always had the yule-log brought in with great ceremony.
A green drugget covered the floor like grass, rustic chairs from the garden stood about, and in the middle of the room a handsome hemlock waited for its pretty burden. A Yule-log blazed on the wide hearth, and over the chimney-piece, framed in holly, shone the words that set all hearts to dancing, "Merry Christmas!" "Do you like it, dear?
The clock had only just struck nine when there came a knock on the door of the dining-room, where the Captain and his wife sat still by the Yule-log. She said "Come in," wearily, thinking it was the frumenty and the Christmas cakes. But it was her father, with her child in his arms!
She sent to the Exhibition in Philadelphia, 1876, a chimney-piece on which were sculptured "Children and the Yule-Log and Fireside Spirits." This was purchased by Mrs. Hemenway, of Boston. "Her works are full of poetic fancy; her bas-reliefs of the seven days of the week and of the hours are most lovely and original in conception. Her sketches of Dante in bas-reliefs are equally fine.
The holiday began on Christmas Eve, and perhaps you have wondered why we hang up mistletoe, and decorate our churches and houses with holly, why our ancestors brought in the Yule-log, and performed many other customs which do not seem to be very closely connected with the celebration of the birthday of our Lord.
Down to a late date, fire was a conspicuous element at the festival of the winter solstice. As the yule-log blazed upon the hearth, our ancestors set up huge stones and danced round them, thus worshipping the god of fertility. On the 20th and 21st of March the sun illumines exactly half the earth. At this time the Day has conquered the Night.
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