trees, passing by those that are not good bearers, he addresses it in the following words:

And then, drinking up part of the contents, he throws the rest with the fragments of the roasted apple at the tree.— At each cup the company set up a shout.'

In Devonshire a similar custom prevailed, of which the following account is given by a correspondent of the bland Sylvanus Urban.-"On the eve of the Epiphany, the farmer, attended by his workmen, with a large pitcher of cider, goes to the orchard, and there encircling one of the best among the trees, they drink the following toast three several times:

Here's to thee,

Old apple tree !

Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow,
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!

Hats-full, caps-full!
Bushel-bushel-sacks-full!
And my pockets full too.
Huzza!"

After this they return to the house, where they find the doors barred, as in Herefordshire; only here their admittance is made contingent upon their guessing what is on the spit, "which is generally some nice little thing difficult to be hit on, and is the reward of him who first names it." Mrs. Bray, however, when speaking of the same custom, says, that "they throw some of the cider about the roots of the trees, placing bits of the toast on the branches; and then forming themselves into a ring, they, like the bards of old, set up their voices and sing a song.'

TWELFTH-DAY; EPIPHANY; January 6th.-This is called Twelfth Day because, being the twelfth from the Nativity, it is that on which the Magi came out of Persia and passed through Arabia into Bethlehem, to offer homage to the Infant in the manger. Collier, however, has given us one of Alfred's laws, which seems to point at another reason for

this appellation. He says, "I shall mention one law with relation to holydays, by virtue of which the twelve days after the Nativity of our Saviour are made holydays." There is certainly nothing improbable in the idea that it might thus be named as being the twelfth and finishing day of the festivals.

In popular language these Magi are called the Three Kings of Cologne, the first of them being named Melchior, an aged man with a long beard, who offered gold to our Saviour, as to a king, in testimony of his regality; the second, Jasper, a beardless youth, who offered frankincense, as unto a God, in acknowledgment of his divinity; the third, Balthazar, a black, or Moor, with a large spreading beard, who offered myrrh, as to a man that was ready or fit for his sepulchre, thereby signifying his humanity. Their skulls, or what is said to be their skulls, are preserved as reliques at Cologne.*

Let us inquire who the Magi really were, and to what country they belonged.

Without entering into a disquisition, that must of necessity be tedious, on the etymology of the word, it will be sufficient to observe that by the concurrent testimony of all ancient writers the Magi were Persians, and that in the language of their country neither magia nor magus had the slightest reference to the black art as we now understand it. In that tongue the word Magus meant a philosopher and a priest, or at all events a philosopher who was particularly addicted to the study of religion; and who besides might be,-if he was not, for the most part-a royal counsellor, a physician, an astrologer, and a mathematician. In fact they were the same in Persia, that the Brahmins were in India, the Druids amongst the Gauls, and the Philosophers amongst the Greeks. We shall therefore the less wonder if we find strong reason for believing that Zoroaster was of their number, and that Pythagoras learnt his philosophy from them.

It is difficult to understand, upon mere human grounds, why the Persian Magi, who had a distinct faith of their own, should have travelled so far as Bethlehem to worship the

* In "Quentin Durward" Hayraddin makes Heinrick the "honest" lanceknecht face to the east, and swear by the Three Kings (or dead men) of Cologne, knowing that he cares for no other oath.

future founder of a yet unexistent religion. Two circumnstances however may help to throw a light upon this difficulty, and both of them so singular in themselves as to be well worthy of consideration.

There is a prophecy of Zoroaster, and which had even reached the ancient Irish, wherein we find him predicting in terms not to be mistaken, the future birth of a Saviour and its announcement by a star. "He," says Abulpharagius, speaking of Zoroaster, or Zeradusht, "taught the Persians the manifestation of the Lord Christ, commanding that they should bring him gifts; and revealed to them that it would happen in the latter time that a Virgin would conceive, and that when her child was born, a star would appear and shine by day, in the midst of which would be seen the figure of a virgin. But you, my children, will see its rising before all the nations. When, therefore ye shall behold it, go whither the star shall guide ye, and adore the child, and offer up to him your gifts, seeing that he is the WORD, which has created the Heavens."

The second circumstance alluded to, and scarcely of less importance in the solution of this apparent difficulty, now remains to be explained. The Magi had long been accustomed to pay their annual visits to Bethlehem for the purpose of worshipping in the temple of Adonis on the 24th of December, at which time similar religious rites were celebrated throughout all the Mithraic caves of Persia in honour of the birth of their God Iao, who was supposed to have been born in a cave on the 25th of December, to have been put to death, and to have risen on the 25th of March. Perhaps too we miss the spirit of the sacred text by taking it in too literal a sense. When it is said that the star went before the Magi, it is not to be understood that the light actually preceded them as the pillar of fire went before the Israelites. Any star would naturally seem to be moving before those who followed in its direction; and the Magi, who were astrologers even more than they were astronomers, had read in his star the birth of Christ as foretold in the prophecy of Zoroaster.

This day was also called the EPIPHANY, that is to say the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles; and by some writers, though more rarely, the THEOPHANY, or Manifestation of the

TWELFTH NIGHT.

41

Deity. Lastly, it was termed BETHANIA, from a word compounded of Hebrew and Greek, namely n (beth), a house, and paivew, to show or to appear, "because he appeared in the house by the transformation of wine and water"-a singular derivation, but for which we have the authority of Belethus.

It may easily be imagined that so important a day in the Christian calendar would not be without its full share of ceremonies, either grave or farcical. These have gone through the usual routine; from pagan rites they have become Christian solemnities, and from these again they have degenerated into popular customs, which have grown fainter and fainter from year to year, and in all probability will be one day extinguished. Of those that still remain, the drawing for king and queen is the most important. In the olden time it was thus managed in our own country, and the same custom prevailed throughout the continent, with more or less variation in the details.-" After tea a cake is produced, and two bowls containing the fortunate chances for the different sexes. The host fills up the tickets, and the whole company, except the king and queen, are to be ministers of state, maids of honour, or ladies of the bedchamber. Often the host and hostess, more by design, perhaps, than accident, become the king and queen. According to Twelfth-Day law, each party is to support his character till midnight.' There was, however, at one time, another mode of electing their Twelfth Night Majesties, of which this seems to be only a corruption. The cake was made full of plums, a bean and a pea being mixed up amongst them; whoever upon the division of it got the bean, he was acknowledged for king; whoever got the pea, she was to be queen. Nothing can be more graphic than Herrick's poetical account of this ceremony:

TWELFE NIGHT, OR KING AND QUEENE.

Now, now the mirth comes

With the cake full of plums,

Where Beane's the king of the sport here;

Besides we must know

The Pea also

Must revell as queene in the court here.

This has generally been supposed to be in honour of the Three Kings of Cologne; but in all probability owes its origin to the Greek and Roman custom of casting lots at their banquets, for who should be the rex convivii, or, as Horace calls him, the arbiter bibendi. The lucky cast was termed Venus or Basilicus, and whoever threw it gave laws for the night to his competitors. The unlucky throw was called canicula and chius.

ST. DISTAFF'S DAY; ROCK DAY; January 7th.-St. Distaff is nothing more than a jocular saint of the people's creation, the rock being a distaff that is held in the hand, from which the wool is spun by twirling a ball below. It would appear from Herrick's little poem on the subject that the men now amused themselves with burning the flax and tow of the women, who in requital dashed pails of water over them.