Festoon

“ It was a delightful evening, and we thought we were pleasing ourselves sufficiently by the airing, so we came home thinking of nothing at all, when, as we drove round, our ears were suddenly struck with the sound of music, and as if by enchantment, a fairy festival appeared upon the green. In the midst of an amphitheatre of verdant festoons suspended from white staffs, on which the scarlet streamers of the yeomen were flying, appeared a company of youths and maidens in white, their heads adorned with flowers, dancing ”

“ The steep, narrow Eyre Street Hill, with its shops full of southern wares, is dingy enough by day, but after dark on Christmas Eve it looks like a bit of Naples. The windows are gay with lights and coloured festoons, there are lantern-decked sweetmeat stalls, one old man has a presepio in his room, other people have little altars or shrines with candles burning, and bright pictures of saints adorn the walls. It is a strangely pathetic sight, this festa of the children of the South, this attempt to keep an Italian Christmas amid the cold damp dreariness of a London slum. ”

“ Of folks-festivals, with processions, illuminations, and fireworks, always the same, now in honor of one saint, now of another, and frequently of the Madonna, we have generally two every week. The brilliant parts of the festival, are often very brilliant and tasteful; but the horrible explosions of powder-men, which are set up, like a kind of mustard-pot, in rings and rows on the square, which tumble about everywhere, after they have exploded; the smoke which they occasion, and the incessant jingling of bells, disturb our hearing, our eye-sight and all our other senses. ”

“ Even the few unimpassional spectators who remain maskless and motionless form so strange a contrast that they seem like watchers in a haunted palace silently gazing upon a shadowy festival which occurs only once a year in the great hall exactly between the hours of twelve and three. While the most beautiful class of costumes seem ghostly only in that they really do belong to past ages, the more grotesque and outlandish sort seem strangely suggestive of a goblin festival. ”

“ The Hallowe'en Fires FROM THE FOREGOING survey we may infer that among the heathen forefathers of the European peoples the most popular and widespread fire-festival of the year was the great celebration of Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day. The coincidence of the festival with the summer solstice can hardly be accidental. Rather we must suppose that our pagan ancestors purposely timed the ceremony of fire on earth to coincide with the arrival of the sun at the highest point of his course in the sky. ”

“ The festival goes on till very late. The moon is so bright that you forget how late it is, and only remember how beautiful it is all around. You are very loath to leave it, and so it is not till the moon itself is falling low down in the same path whither the sun went before her, it is not till the lamps are dying one by one and the children are yawning very sleepily, that the crowd disperses and the pagoda is at rest. ”

“ All day the festival goes on—the praying, the offering of gifts, the burning of little candles before the shrines—until the sun sets across the open country far beyond in gold and crimson glory. But even then there is no pause, no darkness, for hardly has the sun's last bright shaft faded from the pagoda spire far above, while his streamers are still bright across the west, than there comes in the east a new radiance, so soft, so wonderful, it seems more beautiful than the dying day. Across the misty fields the moon is rising ”

“ When all is ready, High Mass is celebrated, and precisely at noon, when the first words of the Gloria are being chanted, the sacred fire is applied to the pillar, which like the car is wreathed with fireworks. A moment more and a fiery dove comes flying down the nave, with a hissing sound and a sputter of sparks, between the two hedges of eager spectators. If all goes well, the bird pursues its course along the wire and out at the door, and in another moment a prolonged series of fizzes, pops and bangs announces to the excited crowd in the cathedral that the fireworks on the car are going off. ”

“ Throughout the entire fortnight, the houses, both of bride and bridegroom, are flung open to all corners;—feasting and song occupy the day—feasting and song occupy the hours of the night, and this continued revel is only broken by the ceremonies of which we have endeavoured to convey a faint idea. In these festivals the sages or ulemma take a distinguished part, doing their utmost to ruin the contracted parties, by the wonderful despatch which they make of the fowls and viands, sweetmeats, and strong waters provided for the occasion. ”

“ Another aspect of the domestic character of the winter festival is to be found in the prominent part which children take in it. As quêteurs, they have no doubt gradually replaced the elder folk, during the process through which, even within the historical purview, ritual has been transformed into play. But St. Nicholas, the chief mythical figure of the festival, is their patron saint; for their benefit especially, the strenae or Christmas and New Year’s gifts are maintained ”

“ John's Day, bonfires were kindled, and round them the people danced with frantic mirth, and men and boys leaped through the flames. Leaping through the flames is a common practice at these survivals of sun festivals, and although done now, partly for luck and partly for sport, there can be little doubt but that originally human sacrifices were then offered to the sun god.
There was quite a host of curious superstitions connected with this midsummer feast, especially in Ireland and Germany, and many of these were similar to those connected with the feast of Hallowe'en in Scotland. ”

“ During the continuance of the festival the priests were employed in collecting the taxes, which were paid by the chiefs in proportion to the extent of their territories; these taxes consisted of mats, feathers, and the produce of the country. The people celebrated the festival by dancing, wrestling, and other amusements. [123] The victor in the boxing matches and martial evolutions was crowned and treated as king of the festival, which was held in honour of the god Rono. [124]
No one might go to war during the New Year festival; all the people had to repair to the temples (morais) . ”

“ I have known instances before now of men who had been crucified when this festival and holiday was at hand, being taken down and given up to their relations, in order to receive the honours of sepulture, and to enjoy such observances as are due to the dead; for it used to be considered, that even the dead ought to derive some enjoyment from the natal festival of a good emperor, and also that the sacred character of the festival ought to be regarded. ”

“ There is no more dangerous or disgusting habit than that of celebrating Christmas before it comes, as I am doing in this article. It is the very essence of a festival that it breaks upon one brilliantly and abruptly, that at one moment the great day is not and the next moment the great day is. ”

“ What has happened is what happens in other forms of festival play. The instinct of play, in this case finding vent in a dramatic representation of the succession of summer to [Pg 185] winter, has taken hold of and adapted to its own purposes elements in the celebrations which, once significant, have gradually come to be mere traditional survivals. Such are the ceremonial burial in the ground, the ceremonial burning, the ceremonial plunging into water, of the representative of the fertilization spirit. ”

“ One festival is for their weapons of war, which they regard as sacred, or as being possessed of an innate divine power. At all these festivals they have dancing and the beating of drums, as well as singing and many ceremonies. ”

“ The festival, which lasted all day and concluded with dancing and fireworks, was a great success, and a young man who had been carousing all night, travelling all day, and had danced all the evening with pretty girls till his senses were in a whirl, could not help regarding the scene of the festival in a romantic light, as he stood there alone, late at night, surrounded by flaring torches, the fireworks sputtering and glittering about him. Some few of the students sat in the fields round flaming rings of pitch, an old Angel peasant keeping the fires alight and singing Danish songs. ”

“ In the list of festivals, dating from the Ptolemaic period and inscribed in the temple at Edfu, there are mentioned: “the festival of the end or point of the triangle,” simultaneous with that of “the serpent Nai or Na,” immediately followed by “the festivals of the ‘tena’= [aten?] , and of the great serpent Na,” and “of the Ken=the festival of darkness, and of the red serpent Na” (Brugsch op. cit. i, p. 51) . ”

“ Wide prevalence of festivals like the Saturnalia in antiquity. Such festivals seem to have been held by agricultural communities for the good of the crops, and at them the king or his substitute appears to have personated the god of fertility, and to have been put to death in that character in order to ensure that the god should rise from the dead with renewed youth and vigour. ”

“ Every one wears his best clothes, a special kind of cake is served,194 and the temples are thronged. Gambling laws are set aside, and in every house may be seen some game of chance. On the evening of the second day, for the festival continues through a period of three, all the guns along the palace walls are fired thirty-six times.
The Astronomical New Year soon follows, when the images of Buddha are sprinkled with water, while the priests hold a festival at the royal palace. Priests and aged people are presented with gifts. ”

“ Leap-frog and divers other sports of a similar nature succeeded, as well as fencing with the feet, an accomplishment in which the French excel every other nation as much as they do in making ragouts, millinery, false jewellery, and artificial flowers.
The traditions of the ancient bourgs as well as the illuminated missals are all unanimous in saying that no festival was more delightful, because of its buffooneries, than Christmas. ”

“ They form an organic whole, constituted in accordance with one definite idea, consisting of the three great festivals Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, each in itself the centre of a special season. The foundations and heart of the whole festal system of the Church were given by a higher Hand, and only the development—the much less important part of the whole—is to be attributed to the thoughts and contrivances of men.
It now remains for us to consider the second division of the Christian festival system—the Saints’ Days. ”

“ A festive dance strikes a tuneful trip,—a menuet it surely is, with all the ancient festal charm, vibrant with tune and spring, though still we do not escape the source of the first pervading theme. Out of the midst of the dance sings slyly an enchanting phrase, much like a secret love-romance. Now to the light continuing dance is joined a strange companion,—the heroic melody in its earlier majestic pace. Is it the poet in serious meditation at the feast apart from the joyous abandon, or do we see him laurel-crowned, a centre of the festival, while the gay dancers flit about him in homage? ”

“ Only fowls are killed, and dancing and gong-beating go on day and night. When the festival is over the people are free to get in their crops.348 The pounding of the new paddy is the occasion of a harvest festival which is celebrated all over Celebes. The religious ceremonies which accompany the feast were witnessed by Dr. B. F. Matthes in July 1857. Two mats were spread on the ground, each with a pillow on it. On one of the pillows were placed a man's clothes and a sword, on the other a woman's clothes. These were seemingly intended to represent the deceased ancestors. ”

“ Perhaps some antiquarian will have discovered a papyrus on [83] which he has deciphered a hymn in praise of Artemis, coupled with an ode to the City, to be sung by the Epheboi, the youths of the place, and the girls destined to be Temple priestesses, at the great festival of springtide when nature’s self celebrates the glory of resurrection after its winter sleep, and decks the world with flowers. ”

“ FEASTS AND FESTIVALS. A festival or feast [1] is a day or series of days specially and publicly set apart for religious observances. Whether its occurrence be casual or periodic, whether its ritual be grave or gay, carnal as the orgies of Baal and Astarte, or spiritual as the worship of a Puritan Sabbath, it is to be regarded as a festival or “holy day” as long as it is professedly held in the name of religion.
To trace the festivals of the world through all their variations would be to trace the entire history of human religion and human civilization. ”

“ The Origin and Purpose of Festivals—Ideas suggested by Christmas—Pagan and Christian Elements—The Names of the Festival—Foundation of the Feast of the Nativity—Its Relation to the Epiphany—December 25 and the Natalis Invicti—The Kalends of January—Yule and Teutonic Festivals—The Church and Pagan Survivals—Two Conflicting Types of Festival—Their Interaction—Plan of the Book.
It has been an instinct in nearly all peoples, savage or civilized, to set aside certain days for special ceremonial observances, attended by outward rejoicing. ”

“ What shall be the degree of license at the festival? At the limit fixed by custom the mores extend their sanction over the function and make it "right." Another source of barbaric festivals may be noticed. Men won victories over the elements and over beasts before they won victories over each other. This is true of remote antiquity and of primitive society. It is also true of the Middle Ages. The destruction of great beasts, demons, and other monsters led to dramatic and religious festivals. ”