Page 24 - Dec 2022

A Rich Tradit ion of Seasonal Poet ry brings us a Poem about a Christ mas Cake

Helen Maria Williams, a British poet born in 1761, was no early verse writer for greeting cards. In her
day she was well- known for her support of radical causes, including abolitionism and the French
Revolution. While her poems often talked about (and inveighed against) war, slavery, religion, and
Spanish colonial practices, this one, centered on a Christmas cake, is actually about home, longing, and
memory--- things that remain common to all of us at the holiday season.

What crowding thoughts around me wake,

What marvels in a Christmas-cake!

Ah say, what strange enchantment dwells

Enclosed within its odorous cells?
Is there no small magician bound

Encrusted in its snowy round?

For magic surely lurks in this,

A cake that tells of vanished bliss;

A cake that conjures up to view
The early scenes, when life was new;

When memory knew no sorrows past,

And hope believed in joys that last! ?

Mysterious cake, whose folds contain
Life?s calendar of bliss and pain; Th e Vik in g s a n d t h e Sa x o n s Br o u g h t
t h e Yu l e Lo g t o wh at wo u l d b ec o me En g l a n d
That speaks of friends for ever fled,
Historians are divided on whether it was the Germans ( known as the Saxons when they invaded
And wakes the tears I love to shed. the home isle) or the Vikings, since they invaded, too, who brought the tradition of the yule log to
what became the British Isles. The word Yul or Jul is a Norse word. All agree, however, that the
Oft shall I breathe her cherished name
Yule log began its life as a pagan endeavor, beginning as an early winter solstice ritual.
From whose fair hand the offering came:
According to scholars, the original celebrations of what the pagans called Yule were connected to
For she recalls the artless smile the Wild Hunt and the god Odin for the Vikings and to M?draniht ( Mother's Night) for the

Of nymphs that deck my native isle; pagan Anglo- Saxons. The ceremonial log was burned to welcome back the sun on the shortetst
day of the year and stayed burning during the arrival of the return of longer days. Cut from an
Of beauty that we love to trace,
oak tree and carved with runes to ask for protection of the gods. the log burned for the duration
Allied with tender, modest grace; of the feasting. It was a dark omen if you let the log go out before the end of the celebration, a

Of those who, while abroad they roam, sign of back luck to come. In the Viking tradition a piece of the old log was saved to start the log
for the following year's fire. Today the ashes of the log are considered to be good luck for growing
Retain each charm that gladdens home,
plants.
And whose dear friendships can impart
As the years passed, adopted as part of what we know now as Olde Christmas, families would
A Christmas banquet for the heart! haul their chosen Yule Log into the house and put the big end into the fireplace where it would
feed the fire for the 12 Days of Christmas.
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