Today is the final day of the twelve days of Christmas . . .
This is the Eve of the Feast of the Epiphany, also known as "Twelfth Night." The Epiphany celebrates the day the three Magi, Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, completed their journey. They had travelled for many nights, following the Star of Bethlehem until finally it led them Christ. There they gave him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Their visit was the first revelation of Christ's divinity. (Matthew 2:1-19)
This event is celebrated in the 19th century carol, We Three Kings . . .
Shakespeare used this eve as the title for one of his plays, Twelfth Night.
Two of the customs passed down to us on Twelfth Night include drinking a medieval wassail of apples, ale and spices called "Lamb's Wool" and choosing a King and Queen for the eve's feast. The traditional method of choosing involved baking a cake with a dried pea in it, one for the men and one for the women. The man and woman so chosen are honorary king and queen of the feast to be "honored, obeyed, treated and addressed as royalty."
The custom of choosing Twelfthnight "royalty" is described in a poem by 17th century poet, Robert Herrick:
"Twelfth Night"
Now, now the mirth comes
With the cake full of plums,
Where bean's the king of the sport here; Beside we must know,
The pea also
Must revel, as queen, in the court here.
Begin then to choose,
This night as ye use,
Who shall for the present delight here,
Be a king by the lot,
And who shall not
Be Twelfth-day queen for the night here.
Which known, let us make
Joy-sops with the cake;
And let not a man then be seen here,
Who unurg'd will not drink
To the base from the brink
A health to the king and queen here.
Next crown a bowl full
With gentle lamb's wool:
Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,
With store of ale too;
And thus ye must do
To make the wassail a swinger.
Give then to the king
And queen wassailing:
And though with ale ye be whet here,
Yet part from hence
As free from offence
As when ye innocent met here.
Happy 12th Night All. And for a more modern story of the magi - from the quill of Gerard Van Der Luen - see his retelling of The Gift Of The WalMagi
In the modern era, Christmas celebrations begin on Christmas eve and, for many of us, end with the celebration of the birth of Christ on Christmas day. But for much of the last two millennia, Christmas wasn't the end of the season of celebration - it was the start of it. And as the song tells us, it went on for twelve days.
Fortunately, there is a historian on the net,
Got Medieval, who has, in the past, shed some light on the history of our celebrations:
. . . The Nativity is celebrated on December 25, a date set in 337 by Pope St. Julius I. So, Merry [1674th] Christmas, everybody! For most of the Middle Ages, Christmas was not, as it is today, the culmination of the holiday season, but rather its beginning. The twelve days of Christmas begin on Christmas, after all, and stretch until January 5th, also known as Twelfth Night, the day before Epiphany, the day the Magi arrived. . . .
December 26 marks the Feast of St. Stephen the Protomartyr of all Christianity. You may remember him as the guy that Saul helps to stone in Acts. And if you're American, you probably spent at least part of your childhood wondering why "Good King Wenceslas" looked out on the feast of Stephen instead of Christmas, since you sing the song at Christmastime. . . .
The Feast of St. John the Evangelist--not to be confused with St. John the Baptist--comes the next day, on December 27. St. John has the distinction of being the only one of the original twelve apostles to live to be an old man, rather than dying as a young martyr. According to one story, John was almost martyred, however, when someone tried to poison his wine, but he was saved because it was his habit to bless his wine before he drank it. John's blessing didn't just passively purify the wine--according to the story, the poison rose up magically from the chalice and formed into the shape of a servant that then slithered off. Thus, St. John often appears in medieval iconography as a man holding a chailce with what looks like steam coming out of it.*** In recognition of this near miss, traditional Catholics celebrate St. John's with lots of wine. I guess magic snakes are as good an excuse as any.
If you look closely at the image from the medieval calendar above, you can see that December 28 is illustrated by two midgets impaled on a spear that's being propped up by someone's decapitated head. That's because December 28th is The Feast of the Holy Innocents, commemorating the children massacred by Herod in his failed attempt to kill off Christ. . . .
St. Thomas Becket, Henry II's "turbulent priest" is commemorated with a feast on December 29. (He's the one pictured above near the end with a dagger sticking out of his head.) As a Chaucerian, I'm pretty tired of Thomas Becket. I mean, what's the big deal? He's just a bishop who got killed by some overzealous royal sycophants. Sure, he's known for curative powers, but what saint isn't? . . .
Rounding out the year, The Feast of Pope St. Sylvester is celebrated on December 31. Sylvester is chiefly notable for being the pope that Emperor Constantine was said to have given all his lands to, thus granting the papacy superiority to all temporal monarchs--at least, that's the story the popes told. . . .
Just as a person is the sum of their choices in life, so are we, in a collective sense, the sum of our history. It pays to know it. . . . Do visit Got Medieval for his additional commentary on the Saints above.
The NYT tells us today that, according to the CPI (Christmas Price Index), the cost for giving a loved one all of the gifts set out in the "Twelve Days of Christmas" has risen this year to $101,000.
For more on the origins of our Christmas traditions, including why we celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 and how the Norse God Odin came to be Santa Claus, please visit here.
As a palate cleanser, here is Frank Kelly's Irish version of the 12 days of Christmas . . .Heh - it's rolling on the floor funny.
On a final note, no Anglo-American celebration of Christmas is complete without egg-nog. You will find several very fine recipes here.
Do please have a merry and happy 12 days of Christmas.
Today is the final day of the twelve days of Christmas . . .
This is the Eve of the Feast of the Epiphany, also known as "Twelfth Night." The Epiphany celebrates the day the three Magi, Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, completed their journey. They had travelled for many nights, following the Star of Bethlehem until finally it led them Christ. There they gave him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Their visit was the first revelation of Christ's divinity. (Matthew 2:1-19)
This event is celebrated in the 19th century carol, We Three Kings . . .
Shakespeare used this eve as the title for one of his plays, Twelfth Night.
Two of the customs passed down to us on Twelfth Night include drinking a medieval wassail of apples, ale and spices called "Lamb's Wool" and choosing a King and Queen for the eve's feast. The traditional method of choosing involved baking a cake with a dried pea in it, one for the men and one for the women. The man and woman so chosen are honorary king and queen of the feast to be "honored, obeyed, treated and addressed as royalty."
The custom of choosing Twelfthnight "royalty" is described in a poem by 17th century poet, Robert Herrick:
"Twelfth Night"
Now, now the mirth comes
With the cake full of plums,
Where bean's the king of the sport here; Beside we must know,
The pea also
Must revel, as queen, in the court here.
Begin then to choose,
This night as ye use,
Who shall for the present delight here,
Be a king by the lot,
And who shall not
Be Twelfth-day queen for the night here.
Which known, let us make
Joy-sops with the cake;
And let not a man then be seen here,
Who unurg'd will not drink
To the base from the brink
A health to the king and queen here.
Next crown a bowl full
With gentle lamb's wool:
Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,
With store of ale too;
And thus ye must do
To make the wassail a swinger.
Give then to the king
And queen wassailing:
And though with ale ye be whet here,
Yet part from hence
As free from offence
As when ye innocent met here.
Happy 12th Night All. And for a more modern story of the magi - from the quill of Gerard Van Der Luen - see his retelling of The Gift Of The WalMagi
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