“Come, buy my nice fresh Ivy and my Holly sprigs so green, I have the finest branches that ever yet were seen.
Come, buy from me, good Christians, And let me home, I pray, And I’ll wish you ‘Merry Christmas Times And a Happy New Year’s Day’.”
A few lines of a poem by 19th century Laois hedge school poet, John Keegan (not Keegan-Casey) about a poor peasant girl standing in the streets of Dublin selling Holly and Ivy at Christmas time.
There is an old saying that Halloween is but a witch’s leap to Christmas. And Christmas is the time when we go to the market or down to the wood for Holly and Ivy to decorate our homes, a custom that goes back to pagan times.
Holly, ilex aquifolium… Cuilean: was used by the Druids to decorate the halls when they held their feasts. Its bright waxy red berries and newly varnished-looking evergreen leaves, so fresh looking, made then, as now, a suitable and emblematic symbol of life during the season of the winter sleep. The Romans celebrated Saturnalia, the feast of the turning sun, by decking their homes with holly.
Later, when the Romans conquered Britain, they brought with them the use of holly, and the Celts continued the practice at their mid–winter festivals. And slowly unfolding through the process of time Saturnalia’s holly associated with late December became a decoration for the Christian feast of Christmas.
Ivy, hedera helix… .Eidhnean: one of the few Irish evergreen plants that flowers during November and December. Ivy was used by the Romans to advertise drinking taverns by growing it on a pole outside the inn – later called an ale-pole.
In the Middle Ages, ivy leaves were used in the treatment of wounds, ulcers, burns and scalds, they were also tied around the feet to cure corns. While a young girl could identify her future partner by doing exactly as this old verse suggests: “Nine ivy leaves I place under my head; To dream of the living and not of the dead; To dream of the man I am going to wed; and to see him tonight at the foot of my bed.”
The Christmas tree adorned with decorations and twinkling coloured lights has become very much a part of Christmas in the homes, as well as the towns and cities of Ireland over the past century or so.
There are many legends as to its origins. However, the tree as we know it originated in Germany where an evergreen tree was regarded as a symbol of immortality and the Christmas spirit since the Middle Ages. The tree came to Ireland, via England, where Queen Victoria first introduced it, after her marriage to the German Prince Albert in the mid nineteenth century.
Long before the Christian era primitive people worshipped trees. In the Nordic regions the people paid tribute to their god Odin by tying fruit and cakes in the shape of animals to the boughs of sacred oak trees. When St Boniface, an English missionary, arrived in Germany in the 8th century, he converted many of the natives to Christianity.
He is believed to have substituted an evergreen tree for the sacred oak and dedicated it to the feast of Christmas.
Another legend states that when St Ansgar, Apostle of the North, was preaching Christ to the Vikings, God commissioned three messengers – Faith, Hope and Love – to find, and then light a tree one as wide as love, as high as hope and bearing the sign of the cross on every branch. Their choice was the fir, still the most popular Christmas tree.
However, according to ancient records the very first Christmas tree in recorded history was erected on a bleak mountainside in Alsace, by some Irish monks who were travelling during the Christmas season in the year 900AD wishing to be celebrating Christmas back home in Ireland, they erected and decorated a tree, beneath which they prayed and sang songs of peace and goodwill just like the shepherds in Bethlehem, 900 years before. Maybe the Christmas tree is not so foreign after all.
Although there are several varieties of Christmas tree the more traditional one is generally regarded as the Norway Spruce, Next, in order of popularity are; the Scots Pine, Douglas Fir, Noble Fir, Caucasian Fir, and the Silver Fir. I am sure with that many varieties available every home will have a green tree, lit and decorated with garlands, bulbs and baubles this Christmas, and for many years to come.