s of gay students must have sat
around that kindly light when Christmas came to Oxford!

Snap-dragon was a favourite Christmas sport at this time. Several
raisins were put into a large shallow bowl and thoroughly saturated
with brandy. All other lights were extinguished and the brandy
ignited. By turns each one of the company tried to snatch a raisin
out of the flames, singing meanwhile.

In Devonshire, they burn great bundles of ash sticks, while master and
servants sit together, for once on terms of perfect equality, and
drink spiced ale, and the season is one of great rejoicing.

Another custom in Devonshire is for the farmer, his family, and
friends, to partake of hot cake and cider, and afterward go to the
orchard and place a cake ceremoniously in the fork of a big tree, when
cider is poured over it while the men fire off pistols and the women
sing.

A similar libation, but of spiced ale, used to be sprinkled through
the orchards and meadows of Norfolk. Midnight of Christmas was the
time usually chosen for the ceremony.

In Devon and Cornwall, a belief is current that, at midnight on
Christmas Eve, the cattle kneel in their stalls in honour of the
Saviour, as legend claims they did in Bethlehem.

In Wales, they carry about at Christmas time a horse's skull gaily
adorned with ribbons, and supported on a pole by a man who is wholly
concealed by a white cloth. There is a clever contrivance for opening
and shutting the jaws, and this strange creature pursues and bites all
who come near it.

The figure is usually accompanied by a party of men and boys
grotesquely dressed, who, on reaching a house, sing some verses, often
extemporaneous, demanding admittance, and are answered in the same
fashion by those within until rhymes have given out on one side or
the other.

In Scotland, he who first opens the door on Christmas Day expects more
good luck than will fall to the lot of other members of the family
during the year, because, as the saying goes, he lets in Yule.

In Germany, Christmas Eve is the children's night, and there is a tree
and presents. England and America appear to have borrowed the
Christmas tree from Germany, where the custom is ancient and very
generally followed.

In the smaller towns and villages in northern Germany, the presents
are sent by all the parents to some one fellow who, in high buskins,
white robe, mask, and flaxen wig, personates the servant, Rupert. On
Christmas night he goes ar