Winter with the Trust

Transcript

Three speakers: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Jo Riley [JR]

[MV]
Love Scotland, brought to you from the National Trust for Scotland; presented by Jackie Bird.

[Tune of ‘Deck the halls’ plays, with bells accompanying]

[JB]
Yes, it is time to deck the halls with boughs of holly. And while for most of us, that means retrieving a few boxes of dusty decorations from the attic, the festive season is a frenetic and a fascinating time for many Trust properties aiming for an authentic Christmas feel. Castle Fraser in Aberdeenshire is really going to town by showcasing decorating styles down the centuries, from the medieval period in the Great Hall through a Georgian Christmas dining room, to the festive legacy of Victoriana in the sitting room.

Now, this isn’t just showing off, but the results of a project by Dr Jo Riley from Castle Fraser who now knows that learning about traditional decorations isn’t just for Christmas. It takes months of solid research! Jo, welcome to the podcast.

[JR]
Hello, thank you so much for having me.

[JB]
Jo, your task was to provide a guide to properties about installing festive decorations with historical accuracy, but even you had no idea of the scope that the research would eventually have.

[JR]
No, once you start delving into it, there is so much that we do now that has so many historical connotations. And yeah, I look back at the leaflet now and I think, gosh, I could have included this, and this; there’s just so much there. So, it was quite a task actually knowing where to start and knowing where to stop.

[JB]
Well, firstly I think you do it a disservice by calling it a leaflet, because it’s a bit of a tome of a thing! And talking of starting, where did you start?

[JR]
I started looking back, because it was particular to Scotland, at the history of Christmas in Scotland and how that’s evolved, not realising myself that it had actually been banned for 400 years, which was quite a revelation. So, I started on just a timeline of Christmas.

[JB]
Did you start with the Pagan period? Because that’s about as far as my minimal historical knowledge would think that you might start.

[JR]
Yeah, I did. I went right back, and that opened up an awful lot of lines of research. There’s so much we do now that still relates to the Pagan festivals.

[JB]
What were those traditions?

[JR]
A lot of them revolved around the winter solstice, and the Pagans feeling that the sun was sickening. They celebrated the sun and then its re-strengthening, so it was all around the shortest day of the year. And they also had all the evergreens, because the evergreens at that time of year they saw as they would flourish despite the cold and despite the dark. So, they saw them as strong, as immortal. That evergreen association with Christmas that we have now goes right back to the Pagan times.

The fires, and later the Vikings came in with the Yule log. There’s a lot of celebrations around the sun and about strength and immortality, which then fed into a lot of the Christian celebrations.

[JB]
When you talk about the Pagans and the Vikings and how the traditions have stretched down the centuries and how we deck our halls with boughs of holly and the greenery, it’s absolutely logical, isn’t it? If you think the sun is waning and that Mother Nature needs a bit of help, then yes, you bring whatever greenery you have into the house.

[JR]
That’s right, yes. There was a lot of meaning and significance behind it all, which was brought in to bring luck and to bless the home and to make sure the home was prosperous for the next year. And things even like traditionally the foliage would have to be burnt before the Twelfth Night or else there would be bad luck on the house.

[JB]
And of course, it wasn’t even called Christmas. It was Yule, wasn’t it?

[JR]
It was Yule, yes. Well, originally it was the Winter Solstice and then the Vikings came over and it was called Yule, which came from the Viking word Jól, which meant feast – and obviously feasting also again went back to that Pagan time. People would feast on the shortest day, the Vikings would feast, and right the way through history Christmas has been associated with feasting and food.

[JB]
And that is one of the many traditions that we’ve certainly kept up! When did the Christian decorations make their presence felt?

[JR]
It came through right in the medieval years. There would be holly and ivy and evergreens brought into the homes, and a lot of them had significance in that they would be hung strategically. So, they would be hung to welcome people, like wreaths on the door was a welcome wreath. And a wreath would be a sign of immortality because it’s the never-ending circle. And so, you would welcome people through the door.

Mistletoe was often hung over the door to bring happiness into the home, which I thought was a lovely story. And then obviously, the evergreens were brought in. There were garlands placed where you would walk underneath them, with the idea that you would be blessed if you walked underneath them. And these positions had more importance then.

They had kissing balls. The medieval kissing balls would have originally had an effigy of Jesus in them.

[JB]
What is a kissing ball?

[JR]
A kissing ball was, in the medieval times, formed from two interlocking circles, which would be decorated with greens. So, two woven circles decorated with greenery, and they would have originally an effigy of Jesus in the middle. And walking underneath them, you would bring yourself luck and be blessed. And these then developed, and they became a more global feature with more foliage, and then mistletoe came in. Mistletoe was seen to bring prosperity and happiness. And that’s when the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe came about.
There’s lovely stories. In Regency time, if a single lady wasn’t kissed under the mistletoe, she would be thought to be single for the rest of the year, which was quite significant.

[JB]
Oh dear!

[JR]
And if you were kissed, you then took a berry from the mistletoe to prove that you’d been kissed under the mistletoe. So, these sort of things have developed over time, and then when the Puritans came in, kissing balls fell out of fashion because obviously Christmas was frowned upon. But then, they came back in the Victorian times, where they were much more elaborate and they included lots of herbs with significance, such as rosemary and herbs that related to fertility. And again, they were hung.

And that’s where actually installing these things in historic properties – because traditionally they would have been in places where you would have walked underneath them – that can pose problems because obviously, we can’t go hammering nails in castle walls.

[JB]
We’ll go on to that a little bit later because that’s another facet of your research that I had no idea about, but is absolutely crucial. But in the meantime, I’m finding just about everything you say really interesting because, for example, a wreath – we think a wreath, that’s a Christmas shape. But I had no idea that was all about the circle of life.

[JR]
Yes. It goes back to Greek and Roman times where wreaths were worn on the head. Different wreaths had connotations with different hierarchy, so the wreath has a very long history, but associated with everlasting life and a sign of immortality.

[JB]
Let’s talk about those years that Scotland effectively cancelled Christmas. That was the result of the Reformation, wasn’t it? So, we’re talking 1560 here.

[JR]
1560. Yes. And then the First Book of Discipline was drawn up and lots of saints’ days were banned. Again, it goes back to the Pagan times and this notion of idealism and admit any sort of Pagan festivities, and Christmas was one of those saints’ days that was banned.

[JB]
We often bandy about the word Reformation, but give us a quick historical recap.

[JR]
Well, it was when the Scottish Church veered away from Catholicism, and you had the Presbyterian church and the Church of Scotland came in. They didn’t want to be seen to have these Catholic festivities that Christmas was a big part of. And so they believed very much in a very pure … they thought Christmas should be all about fasting and humiliation, and they didn’t want any of these festivities that harked back to Pagan rituals.

[JB]
Oh, there’s no fun in that. You can even see the portents of Mary, Queen of Scots’ troubled reign through, I suppose, the microcosm of Christmas – because when she arrived in Protestant Scotland, she was determined to keep her Catholic Christmas traditions alive.

[JR]
That’s right. Yes, she came over from France, where obviously there was a lot of Catholic traditions. When I visited Holyrood Castle, a lovely guide there was telling me she spent many of her Christmases at Holyrood, bringing over musicians from France to play at Christmas. And they refused to play for her because at that time there was a fear not only of the Church but of eternal retribution – and that fear was greater than the queen. They wouldn’t play and this is where it’s remembering that at that time the Church was very much about heaven and hell, and there was that fear. That’s why I think there’s so much placement on the symbolism of plants and the meaning of plants, because superstition was woven in with religious belief.

[JB]
But even though it was banned in, I think, somewhere about 1640, parliament in Scotland, they went one better and rather than just getting cross about at all, they actually cancelled it in law. Were there festive celebrations going on underground?

[JR]
There were, yes, very much, but there was a shift of moving the festivities away to Hogmanay, which was not a religious day. And so, effectively, the Church could do nothing about it, which is why in Scotland Hogmanay has become so much more important, for years, than Christmas.

It just sort of shunted along a bit, but there was very much underground festivities going on. Christmas was all about family and feasting, and that still happened, but a bit later on, where Hogmanay came in.

[JB]
And what people may not even know is that Christmas Day itself wasn’t even a holiday in Scotland until, wait for it, 1958.

[JR]
No, and that shocked me. I’ve come across that in other research and it’s like, wow, there were children going to school on Christmas Day – and yeah, it was just a normal day until 1958, which is so recent.

[JB]
Crikey, but as you say, that then explains why Scotland is synonymous the world over with Hogmanay.

[JR]
Yeah, that’s it. And then, it was just one day. It wasn’t until 1974 that Boxing Day became a holiday. So, it was very much just carry on as normal, which seems quite depressing!

[JB]
Yes, it does! Let’s go back and talk about the relevance of the early decorative foliage, because I think that’s even more important these days as we’re moving away from plastic. We’re returning to nature and that sustainability. And what about this Yule log, because that played a central part in the celebrations?

[JR]
That was a Viking thing that came over with the Jól, but the idea was that a piece of oak would be cut. Oak was seen to be a very strong significance of strength and longevity. And also, in Pagan times, the oak was the keeper of the light months, and holly the keeper of the dark months. So again, it had that significance with the days lightening.

The oak would be cut and burnt over the 12 days. And the idea is that you would burn the Yule log for the 12 days of Christmas, and it was bad luck if it went out during those 12 days. And then at the end, a piece of the oak would hopefully be kept to light the fire the next year.

[JB]
Something I wasn’t too pleased though, about the Yule log, which sounds all very jolly until you get to the bit about the hag of winter.

[JR]
That’s right. Yes. Carved onto the Yule log, and again that’s to ward off bad spirits and witches and things.

[JB]
An old lady, didn’t they. Why do women always get it in the neck for these things?

[JR]
That’s it! Dearie me. They did, and yes it would be believed that the hag of winter was believed to be the cause of the long winter nights and the bitter cold. So, she would be carved onto this log and sort of destroyed in the fire.

[JB]
Hmm. Well, that’s a tradition which has thankfully gone. I mentioned the various historical periods in the introduction and we’re going to talk through a few of them. So, let’s take a break just now Jo, and we’ll be back with more Christmas cheer and even how to get the beasties out of your Yule log. We’ll be back in a moment.

[JR]
Yes, thank you, Jackie.

[Bells jingle in the background]

[MV]
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[JB]
Welcome back to the Love Scotland Christmas podcast, where I’m talking to Jo Riley from Castle Fraser about her research into the traditions of Christmas. Jo, even though Christmas as a holiday had been banned and religious laws were eventually rescinded, the powers that be, they must have chilled a bit because certainly the rich and the aristocracy – am I correct in thinking that they continued to dress their homes?

[JR]
They did, yes. Certainly, big houses dressed their homes for Christmas with the Christmas tree that came in later in the 1800s, and the evergreens were still important; they came in. In Georgian times, there was a whole month of festivities from St Nicholas’s Day on 6 December, right the way through to the Epiphany, the twelfth day of Christmas. So, that was a whole month.

[JB]
A month! What’s interesting is that how, over the centuries, traditions fall in and fall out of favour, as do decorations. From your research, how did the Georgians differ from the Victorians?

[JR]
Well, they had a month; and of course, during the Victorian era you had the Industrial Revolution and people started working in factories. So, from that point of view, the holiday period was shortened because people couldn’t spend a month celebrating. It was compressed down. The Georgian period was more pared back. So again, had more focus on family and food and festivities.

I think the big difference with the Victorian times was the fact that you have this Industrial Revolution that made mass production, so that everything was available more to the masses. In the Georgian times, you had very different Christmas practices in the big grand houses than you did with the poor. A lot of the traditions filtered down to more of the majority in the Victorian times, because it was more affordable to do so. And you also had things like – something I thought was quite interesting – obviously the introduction of the railways, which allowed people to travel and to get together. The railways actually had cheaper tickets over Christmas to allow families to come together.

[JB]
So, it really became a family holiday then. Something that I didn’t know … I always thought that the Christmas tree was introduced by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband. But not the case?

[JR]
No, Queen Charlotte came over in the late 18th century and brought with her her traditions from Germany. And one of them being that in the rooms of the houses, there would be yew branches, which would be decorated in the significant rooms. And then in 1800, she had a children’s party for all the children of notable families. And she went one better than the branch, and she brought a whole yew tree into the house, which was decorated with gifts for the children – and that really was the first Christmas tree in the home.

Christmas trees had been decorated outside but not inside, and that really was the first Christmas tree. It stayed really with the aristocracy; it didn’t go down to the masses. But it came from Queen Charlotte, and it originally was a yew tree rather than the pine we know today.

[JB]
So what effect did Albert have because he seems to have sort of patented Christmas almost!

[JR]
He did. In 1848, Victoria and Albert were depicted in The Illustrated London News around their Christmas tree with their children, and this popular image inspired the masses to then bring Christmas trees into their own homes. Sort of like, ‘oh well, that’s what … we’ll have a Christmas tree too’. And again, it was viable because of the industrial mass production and it became popular with the masses.

[JB]
So, the Hello magazine of the day perhaps popularised: ‘here are what Victoria and Albert are doing this Christmas at home. You too can have one on a slightly smaller scale!’
What I didn’t know was that electric fairy lights were used as early as 1882.

[JR]
Yes, electric fairy lights were there in 1882. And they were obviously a safer alternative to the earlier candles that would have been lit on the trees.

[JB]
What about the introduction of tinsel? When did that happen?

[JR]
That surprised me because I thought of tinsel as quite a modern phenomenon, but no, tinsel was around very early on. Originally it was made of silver. It was for the obviously very wealthy, and it was very fine strands of silver on the trees. But then the candlelight obviously turned the silver black. Then they started producing tinsel with lead and tin to try and resolve this, but then there was obviously the risk of lead poisoning, but it wasn’t until 1960 that it was then banned to produce the tinsel out of lead.

[JB]
Good grief! 1960!

[JR]
And then you’ve got now the sparkly tinsel we have today. It was said originally that tinsel was to represent the sparkly skies over the Nativity, but I think it was also – just like we love today – sparkly things at Christmas.

[JB]
Yes! I love how, because obviously your research is to inform lots of Trust properties, I suppose you have to be very careful when you’re dressing a property because if someone wants to put tinsel up in the drawing room and your drawing room is pre-1846, then you can’t have it because it’s not authentic.

[JR]
No, that’s it. And that’s what this book that’s gone out to the properties hopefully will help with. It’s actually trying to get the right dates for the right things that would have been in the rooms.

[JB]
And there’s almost an entire podcast to be done on festive food. Sadly, we can’t do that but there’s one great fact that caught my eye. Tell us about the origins of mince pies.

[JR]
Mince pies have a really interesting religious significance, which I hadn’t realised. They traditionally contain 13 ingredients, which represented Jesus and the Twelve Apostles. And in that there was cloves and cinnamon and nutmeg, which was meant to represent the three gifts given by the three wise men, and also shreds of mutton to represent the shepherds.

So, they had this very religious context. And of course, during the Reformation years, they were banned. They were once bigger pies and they were actually shaped as a rectangle to represent Jesus in the crib, but during the Reformation, when they were banned, they started making mince pies in small sizes so that they could be hidden in pockets, which is why we have the small mince pies today.

It was in the Victorian times when the sweet filling came in and the meat was lost. So again, that was a Victorian change in the recipe.

[JB]
During the centuries post-Reformation, when the authorities were really clamping down on what they saw as the Catholicism of Christmas, there was a bit, as we said, of Yuletide underground insurgency going on and some of it was musical?

[JR]
Yes. Delving into some of the carols … Obviously, during that time, you couldn’t be seen to be practising Catholicism. And so one interesting carol was the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’, which was originally sung as a memory game and if you made a mistake, you had to do a forfeit. But also in the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’, each verse has a Catholic meaning behind it. It was used to teach the teachings of Catholicism. For example, the six geese a-laying were the six eggs represented the six days of creation, and the partridge represented Jesus Christ because the partridge is a bird that will die to protect its young. There were all these Catholic teachings in the song, and it was sung as well as to celebrate Christmas, to teach Catholicism but not outwardly showing that.

[JB]
There’s also a suggestion that some Christmas carols could be Jacobite in origin?

[JR]
There was and that was really interesting. ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’, which is one of the really popular carols of today, was actually written in the 18th century by John Francis Wade. And interestingly Bonnie Prince Charlie was born on 20 December. So, ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ is actually a rousing song to invigorate the Jacobites to come and invade England. Often the carol was illustrated with Jacobite symbolism of the white rose.

When you have lines like ‘come and behold him’, it’s like ‘come Catholics, come to England’ and ‘born the king of angels’ was actually ‘born the king of England’. It was propaganda for the Jacobites.

[JB]
And is that an uncontested view then, that’s actually what it was?

[JR]
Yeah, John Francis Wade was a known Jacobite supporter.

[JB]
That’s really fascinating. Now, another aspect of your research that I hadn’t considered at all wasn’t just about the authenticity of the decorations, but how to put them into property safely. You touched on this – problems with the types of foliage and the residue they can leave; problems with any sort of glitter on specialist furniture. There is so much to think about.

[JR]
There is. We have very strict guidelines on bringing foliage into properties, so it all has to be prepared and thought about quite a long time in advance. And it has to be cut, sprayed, restrictions on where you can put it. Obviously, we have to protect collections. So, for example, we couldn’t put holly on top of a painting because obviously the debris might go between the canvas and the frame. You have to protect surfaces because a lot of the foliage might have acids and things in them.

[JB]
And what about the Yule log itself? That has to be frozen?

[JR]
This year in Castle Fraser we have a big Yule log in the fire. In order to do that, it was either soaking it in Cuprinol, which is not very environmentally friendly and not very nice, or freezing it because you have to make sure all the pests are out of it and also the eggs of the pests. So actually, by freezing it, you then kill these pests. We had to organise putting it in a freezer for a couple of months to actually kill all the pests that were in it before it could be brought into the castle.

[JB]
On a nicer note, at Castle Fraser, for example, the estate provides the foliage. I suppose the horticulture goes full circle: it comes from the garden, and then it goes to the house.

[JR]
It does. The experience we’ve had this year, it’s been so lovely working with the gardeners. Ruth, the head gardener, has done so much there and it’s been lovely. She was saying, it’s lovely, you’ve grown the plants from seeds, they flowered over the summer and visitors have enjoyed them. You’ve then cut them, and then they’re getting a second life by being brought into the castle. So, it’s been a lovely whole process.

[JB]
But the horrifying thing is, Jo, you have to take it all down before Christmas!

[JR]
Yes, we do because after the last visitors have been, the property is then closed over the Christmas period, and we can’t have foliage in the castle that’s going to degenerate and attract bugs. Everything has to be cleaned out and removed before Christmas time. That’s going to be a heartbreaking part of this process.

[JB]
Ah! So, the message there is to get yourself to Castle Fraser and our other properties that are all in their Christmas finest as soon as you can.

[JR]
You can do that, and take ideas because that’s been the lovely thing – is that the whole experience has been so creative, but a lot of it is what we can do in our own homes.

[JB]
Well, Jo, thank you for sharing your research into so many aspects of Christmas with us. Do head to Castle Fraser as soon as you can, to have a look at the team’s work; and Jo, I hope you have a lovely Christmas.

[JR]
Thank you so much. Thank you.

[JB]
Well, as you can imagine, there are lots of things going on at Trust properties this month. I’m afraid many are booked up, so please check before you go. But a quick mention though for the Christmas season at Gladstone’s Land in Edinburgh, where Santa himself will be spreading the Christmas cheer. For tickets and times, head to that website.

You can also visit Santa’s Mail Trail at Robert Burns Birthplace Museum right up until Christmas Eve. And if you’re stuck for a Christmas gift idea, how about a gift membership to the National Trust for Scotland: history, heritage and conservation. And of course great scones too! And looking ahead, a reminder that more Trust places are open this winter than ever – check online for opening hours across the holidays. But that’s all from this edition of Love Scotland and for this series. We’ll return in 2023; until then, happy Christmas and a good New Year to you all.

[‘Deck the halls’ plays in the background]

[MV]
Love Scotland is brought to you by Think and Demus Productions on behalf of the National Trust for Scotland; presented by Jackie Bird. For show notes and more information, go to nts.org.uk and don’t forget to like, subscribe, review and share.