"The ancient fire-festival of the winter solstice...has survived...in the custom of the Yule log...[once]...widespread in Europe, it seems to have flourished especially in England, France, and among the South Slavs"...From "The Golden Bough"...
I wrote about South Slavic Yule log customs in my posts "Badnjak" and "First footer"...
I wrote about old French Yule log customs in my post "La buche de noel"...
In this post I will write about Yule log customs from England:
Robert Chambers, in his 1864 work, "Book of Days" notes that "one of popular observances belonging to Christmas is more especially derived from the worship of our pagan ancestors: the burning of the Yule log."
Clement A. Miles in Christmas in "Ritual and Tradition" published in 1912, says:
"...within the memory of many [Yule log] was a very essential element in the [Christmas] celebration...not just for warmth, but as possessing...magical properties..."
"In some remote corners of England it probably lingers yet. English customs, they can hardly be better introduced than in Robert Herrick's words:
"We may note especially that the [Yule log] must be kindled with last year's brand; here there is a distinct suggestion that the lighting of the log at Christmas is a shrunken remnant of the keeping up of a perpetual fire..."
Another tradition and its origin are thus described by Sir Laurence Gomme in "Folk Lore Relics of Early Village Life"...
"From there being an ever-burning fire, it has come to be that the fire must not be allowed to be extinguished on the last day of the old year, so that the old year's fire may last into the new year"...
"In Lanarkshire it is considered unlucky to give out a light to any one on the morning of the new year, and...if the house-fire has been allowed to become extinguished recourse must be had to the embers of the village fire [on New Year's Eve a great public bonfire is made]"...
J. Ashton, in "A righte Merrie Christmasse!!" says: "In the north of England...[over Christmas] it was useless to ask a neighbour for light, so frightfully unlucky was it to allow any light to leave the house between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day"...
Georgina F. Jackson say in "Shropshire Folk-Lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings":
"In Shropshire the idea is extended even to ashes, which must not be thrown out of the house on Christmas Day, 'for fear of throwing them in Our Saviour's face'"...
"Perhaps such superstitions may originally have had to do with dread that the 'luck' of the family, the house spirit...might be carried away with the gift of fire from the hearth"...
"In the 1880s there were still many West Shropshire people who could remember seeing the Christmas Brand drawn by horses to the farmhouse door, and placed at the back of the wide open hearth, where the flame was made up in front of it"...
"The embers, says one informant, were raked up to it every night, and it was carefully tended that it might not go out during the whole season, during which time no light might either be struck, given, or borrowed"...
"At Cleobury Mortimer in the south-east of the county the silence of the bells during 'the Christmas' points to a time when fires might not be extinguished during that season"...
In 1849 "Notes and Queries" George Bell says: "The place of the Yule log in Devonshire is taken by the "ashen faggot" (sticks of ash fastened together by ashen bands), still burnt in many a farm on Christmas Eve...
In 1740 "Observations on Popular Antiquities", Henry Bourne writes: "Our Fore-Fathers lit up Candles of an uncommon Size, which were called Christmas-Candles, and layed a Log of Wood upon the Fire, which they termed a Yule-Clog, or Christmas-Block"...
"The Yule-Clog therefore...seems to have been used, as an Emblem of the return of the Sun, and the lengthening of the Days. For as both December and January were called Guili or Yule, upon Account of the Sun's Returning, and the Increase of the Days"...
"So, I am apt to believe, the Log has had the Name of the Yule-Log, from its being burnt as an Emblem of the returning Sun, and the Increase of its Light and Heat"...
H. J Rose says in 1923 "Folklore Scraps": "In the last generation the Yule log was still burned, and a piece of it saved to light the next year's log"...
In the 1790 "The Gentleman's Magazine", we can read that: "In England the Yule log was often supplemented or replaced by a great candle"...
"At Ripon in the eighteenth century the chandlers sent their customers large candles on Christmas Eve, and the coopers, logs of wood"...
And finally: In 1841 "Medii Aevi Kalendarium", Hampson says: "Candle that is lighted on Christmas Day must be so large as to burn from the time of its ignition to the close of the day, otherwise it will portend evil to the family for the ensuing year"...
So basically Christmas candle is just a Yule log in disguise...
Anyway, may your fire burn bright...
Merry Christmas eve to all who celebrate Christmas tomorrow...
The solstice log (made out of oak, of course) was reported also in Italy where survived in the north east and in Tuscany untill recent times (but now I don't think it is anymore)
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