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This newspaper page contains 4 articles. Subscribers can read the full text of each article.
Newspaper
Semi Weekly Herald
Location
Eldora, Iowa, United States of America
Date
Dec 23, 1905
Page
3
The article traces how Christmas arose from older solstice rites and became a grand festival in medieval and Tudor England. It describes mystery plays in cathedrals, Wakefield and Orleans performances, court masques under Elizabeth I and James I, and range of feasts and rites. It notes Puritan bans, Commonwealth suppression, and restoration, plus evolving customs into the Victorian era.
The piece traces Elizabethan and Jacobean masques, their grand machinery by Inigo Jones, and Ben Jonson’s plays. It notes Henry VIII’s costly disguisings, mummers visiting houses with St. George plays, and Old Father Christmas as a Santa figure. It describes the Christmas Eve yule log tradition and its nocturnal burning in baronial halls, linking to Victoria era practices.
A curious superstition states nine holly leaves tied with nine knots worn under a pillow on Christmas night will cause the sleeper to dream of their future wife or husband. The old belief links holiday hubris with prophetic romantic dreams.
An old superstition links Christmas day birth to lifelong luck while in Silesia a belief claims a boy born on Christmas must be brought to a lawyer or he will become a thief.
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