Twelfth night, or what they ate at Christmas

With Christmas just over a week away, I'm going to write about a custom most of my UK ancestors were familiar with – but which has died out here in Britain.

It's not about a Christmas Day custom, though, but one which occurred during the festive season. Janet Few's already written a lovely post on Worldwide Genealogy about her own family Christmas tree tradition, so I thought I'd branch (sorry!) out a bit.

Dividing the Twelfth Night Cake

These days, the Christmas season seems to start in November (and in September in the shops). But go back in time and it really started on Christmas Day, or the night before, and continued for 12 days until Epiphany, also known as Twelfth Night. For many people this day was an even bigger one for parties, feasting and present-giving.

So today I'm looking at something which started out as part of the celebrations of Epiphany, when the three Magi, or Wise Men, or Kings, arrived in Bethlehem. Twelfth Cake, also known as Twelfth Night Cake, Bean Cake or King Cake.

It was a rich fruit cake in which a dried bean and pea were baked. When the family, friends and neighbours were gathered round the table, the cake would be divided up and whoever found the bean in their slice would be king for the night, while the person who got the pea would be queen.

Misrule: The King Drinks, David Teniers the Younger

Most accounts skip over what happened if a woman got the bean, or a man the pea, but it seems that whoever got a 'wrong' legume would then choose a king or queen, as appropriate.

The monarchs for the night then ruled over all the others until midnight and were in charge of the feasting.

This seems to be a distant echo of the Roman Saturnalia, a midwinter festival which was partly assimilated by Christmas festivities, when a Lord of Misrule oversaw the upturning of social norms and a wild time was had by all.

By the end of the 18th century the King and Queen were joined by others, such as Sir Tunbelly Clumsy and Miss Fanny Fanciful, caricature characters picked out of a hat or bag. They acted as the merry monarchs' courtiers.

Plain Twelfth Cake (plum cake)

Twelfth Cake probably started out as a delicious fruit, nut and spice cake, but, as sugar became more available, would be dusted with icing sugar or covered in white icing. A paper crown, or one or two made of sugar paste, was often put on top.

During the 18th century decorations increased until the cake ended up covered in paste mouldings as elaborate as a Robert Adam ceiling, while usually keeping the crown or crowns. Sometimes the other Twelfth Night characters were also added to the decorations.

And with the cake, and the feasting, and the fun, and present-giving, Twelfth Night was 'probably the most popular day throughout the [sic] Christmas' when William Sandys published his book Christmastide in 1852.

So why don't we eat Twelfth Cake these days? What happened to it?

The Victorians did. In particular, Victoria herself. As Christmas Day became more of a family celebration, thanks to Dickens, Prince Albert and all the rest - because many of our 'traditional' Christmas customs are fairly recent in historical terms - it began to rival Twelfth Night.

Then in the 1870s Victoria banned Twelfth Night. Boo! Hiss!

To be more specific, she thought it was too pagan, too un-Christian, with its boozy celebrations and dangerous misrule, and too disruptive to hard work, so she had it removed as an official holiday. No day off work; no feasting or upsetting the social order.

The cake, with its decorations modified, and without its pea and bean, moved to Christmas Day.

Well, my ancestors weren't going to lose a delicious treat as well as a holiday, were they?

Black Bun

And it seems that Twelfth Cake was also the ancestor of a Scottish cake/pie called Black Bun, which I've eaten on Hogmanay.

Another Twelfth Night tradition was drinking a wassail - spiced cider, or wine or ale. With the flesh of baked apples floating in it, it was known as Lamb's Wool. It would go very well with a slice of cake or Black Bun.
The inspiration for this post came from my friend Lesley, who asked me if I knew anything about Twelfth Cake. I said I did, a bit, and dashed off to do some research. Any excuse! It was so interesting I wanted to share it with you.

So thanks to her, and to you for being a wonderful Worldwide Genealogy community. I'll end by wishing you a very Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it, and a happy holiday season to all. In the words of a favourite of mine, the Wassail Song:

Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail too!

Twelfth Night Feast by Jan Steen

All illustrations are in the public domain

Halloween Traditions Past and Present.

This post is totally a personal post and relating to the United States. It is nearing Halloween. My children have always loved the fun of this day.  I wanted to write my parents story, learn a bit more, and share how it has changed for my children. It was not surprising when my children asked my dad how he dressed up when he was young.  This is his answer.

His most memorable Halloween was when he and about 6 other teenage boys got together and decided to trick one of their "grumpy" neighbors.  His neighbors were not next door like what you think of today, more like miles apart.  I digress, back to the story. 

According to him they would begin thinking up mischievous things to do weeks ahead of Halloween.  They had to have a plan in order to carry out their trick and make a clean get away.  He did not remember any treats associated with Halloween. This is his story.

“We waited until dark and met in the field to carry out our plan (how they did these things I don't know). We carefully lifted up his team of mules up on the top of his shed, quickly dispersed to our homes quietly.  The next day we heard our parents talking about what had happened to Farmer ___.

We didn’t own up to anything, because we’d get a whipping.” (If it were my boys, there would have been serious consequences). He said no one ever  told.

“The other farmer we just moved the outhouse behind the pit. We heard that his son went out in the night and fell in the hole where the outhouse had been.” (I don’t know about you, but I when I was little we had an outhouse. Yuck! ) 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outhouse 

My dad still thought at 60 years of age that the face of the farmer would have been funny to see when he saw his mules on top of the barn. My dad was born in 1915, so he fell in the years of the expensive prank time period.  The Historyof Halloween  sheds some light on this time period.

It was not a relatable story for my children, because it would be another 8 years before they would even see an outhouse.  I thought it was a neat story, but was glad my sons were not old enough to understand. J

My mom on the other hand did not have a Halloween story at all.  She was too scared to even think about ghosts and such.  Her brother would wait until she was in the outhouse (there is that word aging) and then make ghost sounds, which would almost make her fall in the hole. 

He loved telling her the murder story of a couple in town (only 5 houses down) and how they laid in the store overnight that scared her so badly, she never forgot the story. She ended up researching it and writing about it when she became an adult. Scary things were never something she relished, but she did love having a big bowl of candy for the kids to chose from Halloween. She also loved decorating her class room at school and seeing the kids come dressed up to school on that day...another thing of the past. 

For myself, I fell in the post World War II group which also appears to relate to lack of sugar rationing and the beginning again of treats.

I only remember one time of going out trick or treating.  I was dressed up like a princess and went with a group of kids. What I remember most, was one house had really gone all out to have a scary haunted looking house.  I went up with a couple of kids to knock on the door, and a really scary looking witch opened the door.  I was so scared, I ran down the steps to run across a vacant lot.  I did not see the wire some surveyors had stretched along the property line and did a flip and ended face down in the moist cold ground.  That was it. I was up and down the road to return home as fast as I could go.  This is my only personal trick or treating Halloween childhood memory. The rest of the time it was handing out treats to those that came to our house. Something occurred to me, when I say treats, it was not always candy.  It could be popcorn balls, cookies, or many different homemade treats. J 

­­­­Just before my first child was born there were a series of murders in Houston that took trust of your neighbors down a huge notch.  Then a man covered up his murdering his son with putting poison in candy.  That really changed the thought on Halloween trick or treating for me.  Funny I never really thought about the trick part.  That brings us to my children and grandchildren and how trick or treat happens for them at this time period.  It appears to me it is all about costumes, well there still is candy or “alternative treats” like sugar free gum.   The treats must be in undisturbed company packaging.

They were just starting community Halloween activities in our area when my first daughter turned 5.  That was still in the 1970s.  When we moved to the country it was in full swing. Our first Halloween there was celebrated at a local maintenance barn for the “city”.  My daughter was Bianca of “The Rescuers”.   She was not into scary. 

The Hero and my mom in the background, daughters and son in foreground. I made the costumes. J

We had several years of our church creating their own Halloween activity night to keep the children off the streets.  They had games, class rooms became “homes” for the kids to drop by and trick or treat for candy.  It was a fun event that my children loved.  Then some became anti Halloween and called it Fall Festivals, it quickly died as an event, which brings me to what I see today.

In my area, the number of house to house trick or treating or church festivals the night of Halloween has gone down to almost none existent.  We have what is called trunk or treat.  I don’t think I have seen anything this elaborate, but I can understand the thought behind it. There are also Malls or department stores that have "Halloween Trick or Treat Night".  The most fun was the Assisted Living at my mother in law's. 

My mother in law at 91 in her assisted living waiting on trick or treaters.

My grandchildren, in a small town, still have house to house trick or treating and it is very important to them. This is an example of their letters to me:

my grandson

My granddaughter that decided to make her own mermaid costume. J

I really have had fun making costumes through the years.  Still do occasionally when there is special request.  I hope the fun of dressing up never goes away.  From ghosts, to pirates, to princesses, it is a fun thing to see the imaginations and creativity of youth fly to come up with the best costume ever. 

I wrote a blog on this here.  I think it is a good thing. J

Do you have a Halloween tradition or story from your area?  

See you next month.