The Old Magic of Christmas: Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year by Linda Raedisch

Author:Linda Raedisch [Raedisch, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9780738733340
Google: R_BhmAEACAAJ
Amazon: 0738733342
Goodreads: 17436868
Publisher: Llewellyn Publications
Published: 2013-10-08T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

A Christmas Bestiary

A bestiary was a book of animals: not a catalogue of accu-

rate descriptions, but a flight of medieval fancy in which the reader was supposed to draw Christian lessons from

the habits and aspects of all sorts of creatures from lions to roosters to mermaids. There is no such moralizing in

this chapter, though there is plenty of fancy. The fancies are not mine but those of our ancestors who, unlike the clerical bestiary author locked in his scriptorium, all had up-close, personal encounters with the animals in question: the horse, the goat, the pig or boar, the cat, the wolf and the dog.

The names of four of these creatures—I suppose you

could call them monsters—are preceded by the world

“Yule.” In the case of the Yule Buck and Yule Cat, these

are direct translations from the various Scandinavian lan-

guages. I use the names “Yule Horse” and “Yule Boar” as

generic terms encompassing a variety of costumes, charac-

ters and phenomena. Of the four, the Yule Boar is certainly 131

132 A Christmas Beastiary

the most confounding, for within the tradition we find not just a spectral Christmas pig but also a boar-shaped loaf of bread (or marzipan) and the unquiet ghost of a child. One

might not immediately associate the spectral dog or the

werewolf with Christmas, but they each once held a place

therein, back in the days when the streets were not yet festooned with lights during the Twelve Nights of Christmas

and one could never be sure what moved among the shad-

ows.

Medieval bestiaries were often elaborately illuminated.

As you read, you might wish to imagine the Black Dog

chasing the grizzled Yule Cat round an ornamental capi-

tal or the Lair Bhan cropping the grass in the margin. You might want to hold the book at arm’s length when you

arrive at the Whisht Hounds, and do not be surprised if the sparks thrown from the Gloso’s bristling back burn a few holes in the parchment.

The Yule Horse

Had Hansel and Gretel ventured into the forest surround-

ing the Ilsenstein at Christmastime instead of at Midsum-

mer as they do in Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera, they

might have run into the Habersack. As Yuletide horse get-ups go, the Habersack is one of the easiest to make. All

you need is a broom, a forked branch to hold the bristled

end up and a white sheet to hide under. Since the effect is more that of a horned beast than a horse, the north German Habersack may originally have been a goat like the

Scandinavian Yule Buck. In Yorkshire, no Christmas used

to be complete without a ram, namely, the Old Derby Tup,

A Christmas Beastiary 133

while not far away, chimerical Oosers and Woosets stalked

the moors, walking upright and wearing both beards and

antlers. But the most enduring Christmas animal disguise

is the horse.

Hobi in Old French is a robust little horse. A hobby-horse is a carved wooden horse’s head set on a wooden

frame covered by a cloth or caparison. It is indeed smaller than the average, real-life horse. The “rider” stands inside the framework so that he appears to be mounted on the

horse.

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