merry christmas to you all

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

If Christmas Day doth fall upon a Tuesday a cold winter and much snow, the summer wet but good peace shall be among Kings and Princes.

deck the halls

Yes it's that time again, to deck the house with holly and ivy but apparently not 

before Christmas Eve as it unlucky to bring into the house before. 

Holly is the most popular, the berries symbolizing Christs blood and it's prickles 

his crown of thorns. I t was also used in pagan times as protection against 

witchcraft and against lightening.

Ivy is useful to have in the house at Christmas as drinking wine with a handful 

of bruised leaves in it is a cure for a hangover!

Mistletoe is another plant that must not be brought in before Christmas Eve, 

most powerful against evil it is also a aphrodisiac  and a plant of fertility! 

hence the kissing under the mistletoe.

After each kiss a berry is picked off and when all the berries have gone the kissing stops!

16th Dec called O Sapeinta ( O Wisdom)

This is traditionally the start of mince pie season, and you are supposed to eat as 

many pies  from different cooks as possible, for every cook's pie you will have a

 lucky month in the coming year. 
yum yum!

The mince pie was originally rectangular in shape and said to represent Christ's 

manger, these original pies were abominated by the Puritans as popish superstitions.

Idolatry in crust! Babylons whore

Defiled with superstitions, like the gentiles

Of old, that worshipped onions, roots and lentils

Thankfully we got rid of Cromwell and his puritan ways and now the mince pie is 

a staple part of Christmas!

Of course if you don't like mince pies eat chocolate! according to 

William Coles- Adam in Eden 1657

'The confection made of cacao called chocolate or chocoletto is of wonderful 

efficacy for the procreation of children: for it not only vehemently incites to 

Venus but causeth conception in women... and besides that it preserves health, 

for it makes such as it take it often to become fat and corpulent, fair and amiable.

Feast of St Nicholas

The Feast of St Nicholas takes place on the 6th Dec

 St Nicholas was a fourth century bishop of Myra in Asia Minor, who was so pious 

even as a baby that he would only suckle on fast days. 

He is said to have saved three maidens from prostitution by covertly throwing three 

golden balls for their dowries through their windows by night, and to have

 miraculously revived three murdered boys pickled in a brine tub. 

So he is the special patron saint of children as well as pawnbrokers who use the 

three golden balls as a sign. 

His nocturnal kindness is perpetuated in the gifts left by 'Sinte Klass' the Dutch 

American version of his name.

Two farmworkers were on their way to work one day when they saw a mermaid rising from a local pool. She told them of the treasure that had lain at the bottom of the pool for many years and that they could take as much of it as they wished. The two men could not believe their luck so when the mermaid dived back under the water they waded into the muddy water to follow her.

She re -emerged suddenly carrying a huge lump of gold that was as big as the mens heads . They were so astonished that one man swore that 'by God he had never had such luck in his life'. Hearing the oath the mermaid screamed and dived back into the water taking the gold with her. And that was the last they ever saw of the mermaid and the treasure.

a few faerie thingymebobs!

available from www.magic-myth-legend.co.uk

Faerie Hills

There are many hills that are inhabited by faeries and they can be dangerous places to  set foot upon. But there are a few intrepid souls who venture on to them either in hope of being transported to faerieland  or would be musicians who hope to be endowed with the gift of faerie magic if they spend the night sleeping on the mound.

There is a hill called Pipers Grave at Ednam in the Scottish borders, it is only half a mile from the village where a piper from a local band lived. One night he crept inside the hill so that he could learn  some of the faeries tunes. He was never seen again but sometimes he can be heard playing from deep inside the faerie hill.

But even if he had been released time is different in faerieland and as soon as he stepped foot back in the mortal world the piper would have probably crumbled away to nothing. Which is what happened to two fiddlers who had been hired by the Faerie Queen to play for her guests one night. When they were released and stumbled back onto the hillside after playing all night they crumbled to dust for they had been playing for 200 years.

The hill of Ile in the west highlands is another faerie dwelling where the Faerie Queen lives. Here she hands out from a golden goblet wisdom to all the women of the world.

'Still on the hill when the wisdom was handed out' is the local saying for anybody less than bright! 

 Faeries and Folklore of the British Isles