It is that time of year once more! We at Number One London are inordinately fond of Christmas. We kick off the month of December with a Christmas favorite!

CHRISTMAS EDITION

I write Regency historical romance because I fell in love with the era at the age of nine, and my love has only grown stronger since. I love the manners, the rules of proper conduct, the elegant clothes (especially men in breeches and boots,) travel in carriages and on horseback, the stately homes, and every aspect of life in this unique period.

Be that as it may, I have come to realize there are some aspects of Regency life, even in the most elite portions of society, that would not be amiss in the red plastic cup, mud-bogging, tobacco spitting locale in which I live today. Directions to my house do include the words “Turn off the paved road.”

Lest you think I use the term “redneck” as a pejorative, I spent a large portion of my childhood living in mobile homes in the South. My mother’s family were Native American sharecroppers. My father’s family were Pennsylvania coal miners. I know who and what I am. Jeff Foxworthy, the leading expert on the redneck lifestyle, defines it as “a glorious lack of sophistication.” For the purposes of this essay, and in my semi-expert opinion, that is the definition we will use.

There are examples of redneck behavior to be found in every race, religion, socio-economic group, and country in the world. I now realize the same is true of every historical era. Rednecks have been with us forever. Even during that most gracious and elegant of times—The Regency.

Prove it, you say? I give you a series of Regency Christmas traditions any self-respecting redneck would be happy to call his or her own.

Snapdragon

Under the heading of a Regency version of “Hey y’all, watch this!” comes the Christmas game of Snapdragon. Raisins and nuts were soaked in brandy in a large shallow bowl. The lights were put out, and the brandy lit. People had to try and grasp a raisin or nut and eat it without burning themselves. The winner was the person who managed to capture and eat the most. I think you’d have to soak me in brandy to get me to try it!

Bullet Pudding

Another Regency era Christmas game with a redneck flair is bullet pudding. One must have a large pewter dish piled high with flour pushed to a peak at the top. A single bullet is placed at the crest of the “pudding.” Players take turns cutting a slice of the “pudding” with a knife. The person who is slicing the “pudding” when the bullet falls must then put their hands behind their back and poke about in the pile of flour with their nose and chin to find the bullet. Once they find it, they must retrieve it with their mouth. All the while trying desperately not to join their companions in laughter as this will result in flour being inhaled into the mouth and nose. Regardless, the bullet retriever ends up with flour all over his face. Any game played with live ammunition and the promise of someone ending up covered in a mess would be as welcome at a Redneck Christmas as it was at Regency Christmases.

Wassailing!

There were no Christmas carolers in Regency England. However, wassail groups would go from house to house singing begging songs in the hope of receiving food, drink, and money. Wassail was a mixture of beer, wine, and brandy and was usually served to the singers at each house. Every house. A great many houses before the night was done. I think I’ve seen groups like this around my neighborhood at Christmas-time.

Very few houses had our idea of Christmas trees during the Regency. Such decorated Christmas trees were made popular in England by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in the middle of the 19th century. However, trees were not left out of the Regency holidays. On Epiphany Eve, men would gather round a fruit tree, usually in an orchard, with cider and guns. In an ancient ceremony, they would drink to the tree and fire the guns to drive away evil spirits and promote the vigor of the trees. Horn-blowing was an alternative to firing guns. (Sounds like a Regency tail-gating party to me!)

The Yule Log

Speaking of trees, what could be more fun than a large group of men sent out into the woods to find the largest log possible to burn in the Christmas fireplace? The yule log had to be large enough to burn through the entire twelve days of Christmas. In fact, it had to be large enough to burn through to Twelfth Night and leave enough to be used to light next year’s log. Between the mine is bigger than your’s aspects of the hunt for the yule log and the opportunity to show off one’s strength in helping to drag the log home, this Regency Christmas tradition is rife with redneck possibilities.

Mistletoe and Kisses

Round out your Regency Christmas outdoor adventures with shooting mistletoe out of the trees (a method used by many Regency bucks) and hanging it about the house in every doorway and dark corner, a Regency version of spin-the-bottle if ever I’ve heard one.

A FLAMING DESSERT

Oh, and don’t forget a Christmas dessert for which many families put the ingredients on layaway. K-Mart did not invent the concept. The original Christmas clubs were for families who could not afford to pay for the ingredients for their Christmas pudding all at once. Wives in less affluent households deposited their pennies with their local shopkeepers in order to have the money to purchase those luxury food items necessary for a proper Christmas pudding. And after all of that, said dessert was brought to the table amidst great pomp and ceremony and… set on fire. Anyone who doesn’t believe your average redneck would shout “Hell, yeah!” at the idea of a flaming Christmas dessert has never been to a Christmas barbecue in the South.

At the end of Christmas Day, men and women of every age, no matter how strict the rules of society, tend to celebrate this joyous holiday with a bit more exuberance than decorum prescribes. Even Regency ladies and gentlemen, at least during Christmastide, might show “a glorious lack of sophistication.” So should we all!

From The Book of Christmas: Descriptive Customs, Ceremonies, Traditions by Thomas Kibble Hervey (1845)

Everywhere, throughout the British Isles, Christmas-eve is marked by an increased activity about the good things of this life. “Now,” says Stevenson, an old writer, “capons and hens, besides turkeys, geese, ducks, with beef and mutton, must all die; for in twelve days, a multitude of people will not be fed a little . . .” The abundant displays of every kind of edible, in the London markets, on Christmas-eve, with a view to the twelve days’ festival, the blaze of lights amid which they are exhibited, and the evergreen decorations by which they are empowered —together with the crowds of idlers or of purchasers that wander through these well-stored magazines—present a picture of abundance, and a congress of faces, well worthy of a single visit from the stranger, to whom a London market, on the eve of Christmas, is, as yet, a novelty.

The approach of Christmas-eve, in the metropolis, is marked by the Smithfield show of over-fed cattle; by the enormous beasts and birds, for the fattening of which medals and cups and prizes have been awarded by committees of amateur graziers and feeders;—in honor of which monstrosities, dinners have been eaten, toasts drunk, and speeches made. These prodigious specimens of corpulency we behold, after being thus glorified, led like victims of antiquity, decked with ribands and other tokens of triumph— or perhaps, instead of led, we should, as the animals are scarcely able to waddle, have used the word goaded—to be immolated at the altar of gluttony, in celebration of Christmas! To admiring crowds, on the eve itself, are the results of oil-cake and turnip feeding displayed, in the various butchers’ shops of the metropolis and its vicinity; and the efficacy of walnut-cramming is illustrated in Leadenhall market,—where Norfolk turkeys and Dorking fowls appear, in numbers and magnitude unrivalled. The average weight given for each turkey, by the statement heretofore quoted by us, of the number and gravity of those birds sentup to London from Norfolk, during two days of a Christmas, some years ago—is nearly twelve pounds; but what is called a fine bird, in Leadenhall Market, weighs, when trussed, from eighteen to one or two-and-twenty pounds,—the average price of which may be stated at twenty shillings; and prize turkeys have been known to weigh more than a quarter of a hundred weight.

Brawn is another dish of this season; and is sold by the poulterers, fishmongers, and pastry-cooks. The supply for the consumption of London is chiefly derived from Canterbury, Oxfordshire, and Hampshire. “It is manufactured from the flesh of large boars, which are suffered to live in a half-wild state, and, when put up to fatten, are strapped and belted tight round the principal parts of the carcass, in order to make the flesh become dense and brawny. This article comes to market, in rolls about two feet long, and ten inches in diameter, packed in wicker baskets.”

 

Another feature of this evening, in the houses of the more wealthy, was the tall Christmas candles, with their wreaths of evergreens, which were lighted up, along with the Yule log, and placed on the upper table, or dais, of ancient days. Those of our readers who desire to light the Christmas candles, this year, may place them on the sideboard, or in any conspicuous situation.

Our account of Christmas would not be complete,—without giving some description of the forms which attended the introduction of the  boar’s head at the feasts of our ancestors. The boar’s head soused, then, was carried into the great hall, with much state; preceded by the Master of the Revels, and followed by choristers and minstrels, singing and playing compositions in its honor. Dugdale relates that at the Inner Temple, for the first course of the Christmas dinner, was ” served in, a fair and large bore’s head, upon a silver platter, with minstrelsye.” At St. John’s, Oxford, in 1607, before the bearer of the boar’s head,—who was selected for his height and lustiness, and wore a green silk scarf, with an empty sword-scabbard dangling at his side,—went a runner, dressed in a horseman’s coat, having a boar’s spear in his hand,—a huntsman in green, carrying the naked and bloody sword belonging to the head-bearer’s scabbard,—and “two pages in tafatye sarcenet,” each with a “mess of mustard.”

BUT NOT IF THEY WERE WELSH!

Accusations of witchcraft across Europe for several centuries resulted in the persecutions, imprisonments, torture and executions of hundreds to thousands of people, most of them women. There were an estimated 1000 executions in England, and between 3,000 and 4,000 killings in Scotland.  However, oddly enough, only five people were hanged for witchcraft in Wales. Why?

After all, Welsh court records dating from the 16th century, held at the National Library of Wales, show that suspicions and verbal accusations of witchcraft like those seen across the rest of Britain and Europe were common in Wales. They also happened under similar circumstances where accusations often followed an argument, or a request for charity which was denied.

The records indicate bitter arguments between neighbors and family members often precipitated these accusations. Horses were killed, cattle were bewitched, pigs perished, men and women were injured, there were miscarriages and even murders in these accusations. Their accusers were neighbors, relatives, and in many cases, people with financial and personal reasons to make such accusations. However, if a case came to court, juries usually found the accused not guilty. Again, we ask Why?

Actually, there were a couple of very good reasons.

First of all, Wales was considered a land of magic, enchantment, superstition, and connection to the supernatural long after the rest of Britain had become enlightened. People from the rest of England, both the wealthy and aristocratic and the poor and uneducated, often went to Wales looking for consultations with enchanters and soothsayers and healers.

Wise women, cunning folk and soothsayers, were highly regarded in Wales, using magic to perform important services for the community. They were often the only physicians available in entire counties. Their knowledge of herbal medicine and folk remedies was unsurpassed in Britain. They served as midwives, arbitrated arguments, advised on animal husbandry and crop plantings, and performed myriad other services through the simple witchcraft of centuries of knowledge passed down from mother to daughter.

Women in Wales even looked like witches. They tended to dress in long, heavy woolen skirts, aprons, blouses and large woolen shawls. Most village women brewed mead and ale. They let their community know that there was ale for sale by placing some form of signage outside their cottages. The most popular and well-remembered of these signs was a broomstick.

There is speculation among some researchers that the traditional tall, black hat of the Welsh woman served as inspiration for the wide-brimmed hat of the fairy tale witch.

Another good reason was the adherence of the Welsh to unreformed religion long after the Church of England was established and made the faith of Britain. The Welsh preferred to worship within the household in ways that mimicked Catholic practices.  They believed in prayer rather than doctrine. There is evidence that many people continued to seek the aid of charmers instead of the church. Elizabethan and Stuart politicians frequently spoke about the religious ignorance in Wales.

Priests were asked to create curses in the form of prayers. People consulted wise women to offer prayers that melded the Catholic faith with old Celtic practices. Many in Britain considered Wales a country steeped in darkness due to their adherence to so many of the old ways.

A charm attributed to Gwen ferch Ellis, the first woman to be hanged for witchcraft in Wales, included the words “Enw’r Tad, y Mab, a’r Ysbryd Duw glân a’r tair Mair” (translated as “the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit of God, and the three Marys”.) These charms were never really meant to cause harm, but only to ward off evil.

A third, and most fascinating reason was the power of language, the Welsh language, to be more specific. When witch hunts came to Wales in the form of witch hunters appointed by Parliament like Matthew Hopkins (c. 1620 – 12 August 1647)  they had a number of strikes against them. In addition to the attitudes of the people who were judges and made up juries when it came to witchcraft none of the witch hunters spoke or read Welsh.

Evidence in many of these cases consisted of people hearing supposed spells and being able to speak them back to the witch hunter to be written down. Any writings of the accused witch be they recipes or books of herbal medicine were seized, but they proved useless because none of the English or Scot witch hunters could read them. Needless to say any Welsh-speaking individuals asked to translate pleaded ignorance of what was written. No sense in taking chances when it came to crossing a Welsh woman, just in case!

IN MEMORY OF THE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE, MOSTLY WOMEN, MURDERED FOR THE SUPPOSED CRIME OF WITCHCRAFT ALL OVER THE WORLD TO THIS DAY.

AND IN HONOR OF THESE FIVE MARTYRS TO WELSH TRADITION

BENDIGEDIG FYDDO

1594

Gwen ferch Ellis, of Bettws, Denbighshire

1622

Rhydderch ap Evan, a yeoman, Caernarvonshire,

Lowri ferch Evan, Caernarvonshire

Widow Agnes ferch Evan,  Caernarvonshire

1655

Margaret ferch Richard,  Anglesey