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Updated: May 22, 2025
Cristobal, eager to see what the Yule-log might have in store for him, rushed out of the church with careless speed, stumbling over a boy who stood in his way, the haughty, insolent Jasper. Jasper's beautiful Christmas-candle was cracked in twenty pieces by his fall.
"Ah, my poor Salvette, what a sad Christmas we are going to have this year! If only we had money to buy a little loaf of white bread and a flask of claret wine! What a pleasure it would be before passing away forever to sprinkle once again the Yule-log, with thee!" And, in speaking of white bread and claret wine, the eyes of the sick youth glistened with pleasure. But what to do?
To-morrow another Yule-log would crackle and blaze and shower on the hearth, for the old Doctor molded a custom to suit his fancy. And here was Annie splendidly aproned in white, following them in, and Aunt Ellen in a wonderful old brown-gold brocade disinterred for the doctor's party from a lavender-sweet cedar chest in the garret. And Sister Madge!
Later in the day, when Sir Walter was talking with his steward and Lady Philippa was giving final directions to maids and cooks and dapifers, Eleanor and Roger found Sir Stephen seated alone by the flickering, purring Yule-log. Before they quite knew it they were telling him of all their favorite occupations and plays. He seemed as much interested as if they had been his own children.
In the department of Orne "the Yule-log is called trefouet; holy water is poured on it; it should last the three days of the festival, and the remains of it are kept to be put on the fire when it thunders. This brand is a protection both against thunder and against sorcerers." In Upper Brittany, also, the Yule log is thought to be a safeguard against thunder and lightning.
All being agreed, the Yule-log was stirred up into a blaze, which was duly fed with the goose-feather and the robe of the Apsarasas. Thereafter the trumpets sounded a fanfare, to proclaim that Raymond Bérenger's collops were cooked and peppered, his wine casks broached, and his puddings steaming.
Anciently, this ceremony of the yule-log lighting was universal in Provence, and it is almost universal still; sometimes with a less elaborate ritual than I have described, but yet substantially the same: always with the libation, always with an invocation, always with the rejoicing toast to the new fire.
But now from the kitchen came the sound of the Doctor singing: "Come bring with a noise, My merry, merry boys, The Christmas log to the firing!" Roger clapped his thin little hands with a cry of delight, for old Asher and the Doctor were bringing in the Yule-log to light it presently with the charred remains of the Christmas log of a year ago.
The autumn of their lives was not over, the skies were still bright above them, and the winds soft and low. The winds would grow harder, but they must still fare on through the snow. But there is a joy by the hearth when the yule-log is burning.
With our absurd New England Puritan ways, yet naturally derived from the times of the English Commonwealth, when any observance of Christmas was made penal and punished with imprisonment, I am not sure that we should have known anything of Christmas, but for Richard's Yule-log. There was another class of persons who were frequently engaged to do day's work on the farm, that of the colored people.
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