as alleged, processions went through the streets of Rome, with impious
songs and heathen cries; tables of fortune were set up, and at that time
no one would lend fire or iron or any other article to his neighbour. The
Pope replied that these things were odious to him, and should be so to
all Christians; and next year all such practices at the January Kalends
were formally forbidden by the Council of Rome.{25}

* * * * *

So much for Roman customs; if indeed such practices as beast-masking are
Roman, and not derived from the religion of peoples conquered by the
imperial legions. We must now turn to the winter festivals of the
barbarians with whom the Church began to come into contact soon after the
establishment of Christmas.

Much attention has been bestowed upon a supposed midwinter festival of
the ancient Germans. In the mid-nineteenth century it was customary to
speak of Christmas and the Twelve Nights as a continuation of the holy
season kept by our forefathers at the winter solstice. The festive fires
of Christmas were regarded as symbols of the sun, who then began his
upward journey in the heavens, while the name Yule was traced back to the
Anglo-Saxon word _hweol_ (wheel), and connected with the circular |172|
course of the sun through the wheeling-points of the solstices and
equinoxes. More recent research, however, has thrown the gravest doubts
upon the existence of any Teutonic festival at the winter solstice.[82]
It appears from philology and the study of surviving customs that the
Teutonic peoples had no knowledge of the solstices and equinoxes, and
until the introduction of the Roman Calendar divided their year not into
four parts but into two, three, and six, holding their New Year's Day
with its attendant festivities not at the end of December or beginning of
January, but towards the middle of November. At that time in Central
Europe the first snowfall usually occurred and the pastures were closed
to the flocks. A great slaughter of cattle would then take place, it
being impossible to keep the beasts in stall throughout the winter, and
this time of slaughter would naturally be a season of feasting and
sacrifice and religious observances.[83]{26}

The Celtic year, like the Teutonic, appears to have begun in November
with the feast of _Samhain_--a name that may mean either "summer-end" or
"assembly." It appears to have been in origin a "pastoral and
agricultural festival, w