Yule

“ This feature of Yule observance, which is usually attributed to Rowena, daughter of Vortigern, dates back to the grace-cup of the Greeks and Romans which is also the supposed source of the bumper. According to good authority the word bumper came from the grace-cup which Roman Catholics drank to the Pope, au bon Père. The wassail bowl of spiced ale has continued in favor ever since the Princess Rowena bade her father's guests Wassheil.
The offering of gifts at Yule has been [45] observed since offerings were first made to the god Frey for a fruitful year. ”

“ The holly, laurel, mistletoe, and other greens used by the Druids still served as decorations of the season, not as a shelter for fairies, as in former days, but as emblems of resurrection and of immortal hope.
The glorious luminary of day, whether known as Balder, Baal, Sol, or any other of the innumerable names by which it was called by the primitive peoples, still gladdens the hearts of mortals at Yule-tide by "turning-back" as of old; only to-day it yields its place to a Superior [23] Power, in whose honor Yule-tide is observed. ”

“ All household fires were extinguished, and any one wishing to rekindle the flame at any time during the twelve days preceding Yule-tide must buy the consecrated fire. The Druids also had a rather unique custom of sending their young men around with Yule-tide greetings and branches of mistletoe (quiviscum) . Each family receiving this gift was expected in return to contribute generously to the temples.
With the coming of the Saxons, higher [32] revelry reigned, and a Saxon observance of Yule-tide must have been a jolly sight to see. ”

“ YULE, Sir HENRY (1830–1889) , geographer, born 1 May 1820 at Inveresk, near Edinburgh, was youngest son of Major William Yule (1761–1839) of the East India Company's service and of his wife Eliza, daughter of Paterson of Braehead in Ayrshire. The family was settled for several generations as tenant-farmers at Dirleton in East Lothian. The name is Scandinavian. Major Yule, Sir Henry's father, was versed in oriental literature. He retired from India in 1806 with a valuable collection of Persian and Arabic MSS. which was presented by his sons to the British Museum. ”

“ Yule was one of those women who never did anything that other people expected her to. Within three years of her son's marriage she had filled up the place which he had vacated, both in her house and in her heart. ”

“ If he have the hardihood let him light his Yule log in the winter twilight of the snowy woods. He will do well to pick a spot where a dense growth of pines shelters him from the wind and a steep ledge makes for him fireplace and chimney at once. Then it does not matter if the snow is deep on the ground and the air filled with flying flakes; his hearth may soon glow with comfort. Even from a materialistic point of view the ancients did well to worship fire. Out of it was to come more or less directly all the material progress of the race toward civilization. ”

“ Professor Burnet tells us the word yule comes from Hu, the Bacchus of the Druids; others derive it from Baal, Bal, or Yiaoul, the Celtic god of fire, and who was sometimes identified with the sun and worshipped under the form of an oak. Baal was considered the same as the Roman Saturn, and his festival (that of Yule) was kept at Christmas, which was the time of the Saturnalia. The Druids professed to maintain perpetual fire; and once every year all the fires belonging to the people were extinguished, and relighted from the sacred fire of the Druids. ”

“ As the Yule log was frequently of oak, it seems possible that this belief may be a relic of the old Aryan creed which associated the oak-tree with the god of thunder. Whether the curative and fertilising virtues ascribed to the ashes of the Yule log, which are supposed to heal cattle as well as men, to enable cows to calve, and to promote the fruitfulness of the earth, may not be derived from the same ancient source, is a question which deserves to be considered. ”

“ In some families where the Yule-log is lighted, it is the custom to have it brought into the room by the oldest and youngest members of the family. The oldest member is expected to pour three libations of wine upon the log while voicing an invocation in behalf of wealth, health, and general good-fortune for the household, after which the youngest member, be he a few days or a few months old, drinks to the newly lighted fire,—the emblem of the new light of another year. ”

“ The festival of Yule is a reunion, a coming together in amity of the All, and as in Welsh y meant the, the words whole, and Yule were perhaps originally ye all or the all. An alloy is a mixture or medley, anything allowed is according to law, and hallow is the same word as holy.
The word Alban is pronounced Olbun, and in Welsh Ol, meant not only all, but also the Supreme Being. The Dictionaries translate the Semitic El as having meant God or Power, and it is so rendered when found amid names such as Bethel, Uriel, Eleazar, [147] etc. ”

“ Frazer conjectures that the Swedish Yule straw comes in part at least from the last sheaf at harvest, to which, as embodying the corn-spirit, a peculiar significance is attached. The Swedish, like the Polish, Yule straw has sundry virtues; scattered on the ground it will make a barren field productive; and it is used to bind trees and make them fruitful.{61} Again the peasant at Christmas will sit on a log and throw up Yule straws one by one to the roof ”

“ Immediately after Yule (1028) the king began his journey to the Uplands; for he had a great many people about him, but had received no income that autumn from the North country, for there had been an armament in summer, and the king had laid out all the revenues he could command; and also he had no vessels with which he and his people could go to the North. At the same time he had news from the North, from which he could see that there would be no safety for him in that quarter, unless he went with a great force. ”

“ Baron F. von Richthofen, a scientific traveller and geographer of the first rank, and endowed with wide philosophic observation, speaks of Yule's unique position as an historical geographer, and attributes to his mode of treating his subject (viz. by combining 'wissenschaftliche Grundichkeit mit anmutender Form') a wide influence, not only on English but on continental scholars. He was a many-sided man. ”

“ If any one was banished the country, and all heritage fell to him, the king took his inheritance. At Yule every man should pay the king a meal of malt from every harvest steading, and a leg of a three-year old ox, which was called a friendly gift, together with a spand of butter ”

“ Germans purchase liberally of the toys and confectionery [61] offered at the bazaars, and nowhere are prettier toys and confectionery found than in Germany—the country which furnishes the most beautiful toys in the world.
From the palace to the hut, Yule-tide is a season of peace, rest, joy, and devotion. For three days, that is the day before Christmas, Christmas, and the day after—known as Boxing-day—all business not absolutely necessary to the welfare of the community is suspended. Stores, markets, and bazaars present a festive appearance ”

“ When Lucknow had been relieved, besieged, reduced, and finally remodelled by the grand Roads and Demolitions Scheme of his friend Napier, the latter came down to Allahabad, and he and Yule sought diversion in playing quoits and skittles, the only occasion on which either of them is known to have evinced any liking for games.
Before this time Yule had succeeded his friend Baker as de facto Secretary to Government for Public Works, and on Baker’s retirement in 1858, Yule was formally appointed his successor. ”

“ A vacancy on the Council had unfortunately occurred through the resignation from ill-health of Sir Henry Yule, whose presence on the Council had been of enormous advantage to the natives of the country. A man of more kindly disposition, thorough intelligence, high-minded, upright, honourable character, he believed did not exist ”

“ The epitaph subsequently inscribed on the tomb was penned by Yule himself, but is by no means representative of his powers in a kind of composition in which he had so often excelled in the service of others. As a composer of epitaphs and other monumental inscriptions few of our time have surpassed, if any have equalled him, in his best efforts.
lxxiii SIR GEORGE UDNY YULE, C.B., K.C.S.I. [80]
George Udny Yule, born at Inveresk in 1813, passed through Haileybury into the Bengal Civil Service, which he entered at the age of 18 years. For twenty-five years his work lay in Eastern Bengal. ”

“ Sir Henry Yule’s edition, which in its final shape, as revised and augmented by Henri Cordier (. . . Marco Polo . . . London, 1903) , is the most complete storehouse of Polo learning in existence, embodying the labours of all the best students of the subject, and giving the essence of such works as those of Major P. Molesworth Sykes (Ten Thousand Miles in Persia, &c.) so far as these touch Marco Polo; the Archimandrite Palladius Katharov’s “Elucidations of Marco Polo” (from vol. x. of the Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (1836) , pp. 1–54 ”

“ John, Alfred, and Edmund Yule were the sons of a Wattleborough stationer. Each was well educated, up to the age of seventeen, at the town's grammar school. The eldest, who was a hot-headed lad, but showed capacities for business, worked at first with his father, endeavouring to add a bookselling department to the trade in stationery ”

“ Journal, December 23, and note. The reader will observe the tone of exaggeration in the letter as compared with the Journal.
268-2 Marco Polo reported that in the kingdom of Lambri in Sumatra “there are men who have tails like dogs, larger than a palm, and who are covered with hair.” Marco Polo, pt. III., ch. XIV. See Yule’s note on the legend of men with tails, Yule’s Marco Polo, II. 284. The name Avan (Anan in the Latin letter) does not occur in the Journal. Bernaldez, Historia de las Reyes Catolicos, II. 19, gives Albao as one of the provinces of Española. ”

“ Cristoforo Negri, the large-hearted Founder and First President of the Geographical Society of Italy, from whom Yule received his first public recognition as a geographer, Commendatore Guglielmo Berchet (affectionately nicknamed il Bello e Buono) , ever generous in learned help, who became a most dear and honoured friend, and the Hon. George P. Marsh, U.S. Envoy to the Court of Italy, a man, both as scholar and friend, unequalled in his nation, perhaps almost unique anywhere. ”

“ As if to increase the solemnity of our condition, the wind at this time began to rise, and a heavy ground swell rolled in from the south-west, so that it needed no ordinary faith to prepare with calmness for the approaching crisis. But our only course was to face the danger, and trust to God for deliverance. I sent the small boat ahead, to examine the coast, if possible to find a creek for convenient landing, it being lighter than our boat, and having thafts for easy rowing, which we had not. I then sought to rally the spirits of my crew by a little exertion ”

“ BHEESTY, s. The universal word in the Anglo-Indian households of N. India for the domestic (corresponding to the saḳḳā of Egypt) who supplies the family with water, carrying it in a mussuck, (q.v.) , or goatskin, slung on his back. The word is P. bihishtī, a person of bihisht or paradise, though the application appears to be peculiar to Hindustan. We have not been able to trace the history of this term, which does not apparently occur in the Āīn, even in the curious account of the way in which water was cooled and supplied in the Court of Akbar (Blochmann, tr. i. 55 seqq.) ”

“ CAZEE, KAJEE, &c., s. Arab. ḳāḍi, 'a judge,' the letter ẓwād with which it is spelt being always pronounced in India like a z. The form Cadi, familiar from its use in the old version of the Arabian Nights, comes to us from the Levant. The word with the article, al-ḳāḍi, becomes in Spanish alcalde; [6] not alcaide, which is from ḳā'īd, 'a chief'; nor alguacil, which is from wazīr. So Dozy and Engelmann, no doubt correctly. But in Pinto, cap. 8, we find "ao guazil da justica q̃ em elles he como corregedor entre nos"; where guazil seems to stand for ḳāẓī. ”

“ Yulee bravely kept back her tears and tried to comfort Bo, who soon began to take an interest in the unrobing of Miss Phely, who was put to bed on a very uncomfortable rock—the very one in fact at which she had sat for her tea; but it made no difference to her; she went to sleep with her eyes as wide open as ever.
When this was over, Yulee, never at a loss, began to sing for Bo's amusement and her own comfort. She sang all the songs she knew just as they came into her head. "There is a happy land," "Three little kittens." ”

“ He states that uchcha and nicha (Hind. uṅcha-nīcha, in reality for 'high' and 'low') are used in Canarese speaking districts to denote superior and inferior descriptions of an article, and supposes that wootz may have been a misunderstanding of uchcha, 'of superior quality.' The former suggestion seems to us preferable. [The Madras Gloss. gives as local names of steel, Can. ukku, Tel. ukku, Tam. and Malayāl. urukku, and derives wootz from Skt. ućća, whence comes H. uṅchā.] ”

“ The Moor, not to lose such a profitable business, ... finally arranged with the Governor that the Isles should not be taken from him, and that he in return would furnish for the king 1000 bahars (barés) of coarse coir, and 1000 more of fine coir, each bahar weighing 41⁄2 quintals; and this every year, and laid down at his own charges in Cananor and Cochym, gratis and free of all charge to the King (not being able to endure that the Portuguese should frequent the Isles at their pleasure) ."—Correa, ii. 129–30. ”