Stephen's Day is often the date for the
"hunting of the wren" in the British Isles; it was also in England
generally devoted to hunting and shooting, it being held that the game
laws were not in force on that day.{13} This may be only an instance of
Christmas licence, but it is just possible that there is here a survival
of some tradition of sacrificial slaughter.

ST. JOHN'S DAY.

An ecclesiastical adaptation of a pagan practice may be seen in the
_Johannissegen_ customary on St. John's Day in many parts of Catholic
Germany and Austria. A quantity of wine is brought to church to be
blessed by the priest after Mass, and is taken away by the people to be
drunk at home. There are many popular beliefs about the magical powers of
this wine, beliefs which can be traced back through at least four
centuries. In Tyrol and Bavaria it is supposed to protect its drinker
from being struck by lightning, in the Rhenish Palatinate it is drunk in
order that the other wine a man possesses may be kept from injury, or
that next year's harvest may be good. In Nassau, Carinthia, and other
regions some is poured into the wine-casks to preserve the precious drink
from harm, while in Bavaria some is kept for use as medicine in sickness.
|315| In Syria St. John's wine is said to keep the body sound and
healthy, and on his day even babes in the cradle are made to join in the
family drinking.{14}

It appears that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there was a
great drinking on St. John's Day of ordinary, as well as consecrated,
wine, often to excess, and scholars of that time seriously believed that
_Weihnacht_, the German name for Christmas, should properly be spelt
_Weinnacht_.{15} The _Johannissegen_, or _Johannisminne_ as it was
sometimes called, seems, all things considered, to be a survival of an
old wine sacrifice like the _Martinsminne_. That it does not owe its
origin to the legend about the cup of poison drunk by St. John is shown
by the fact that a similar custom was in old times practised in Germany
and Sweden on St. Stephen's Day.{16}

HOLY INNOCENTS' DAY.

Holy Innocents' Day or Childermas, whether or not because of Herod's
massacre, was formerly peculiarly unlucky; it was a day upon which no
one, if he could possibly avoid it, should begin any piece of work. It is
said of that superstitious monarch, Louis XI. of France, that he would
never do any business on that day, and of our own Edward IV. that his
coronation