A Yule... Clog?

"Wassail drink were allus best, when o'er a yule-clog boiled"

Illustration of people collecting a Yule log from Chambers Book of Days (1864), p.734. 

I think I can safely assume that any Brit, at least, reading this blog will be familiar with the concept of a Yule log at Christmas. These days, it probably takes the form of a delicious swiss roll coated in milk chocolate. However historically, in Yorkshire and further north into Scotland, the Yule log was more usually termed a Yule clog. Nothing to do with footwear - a clog was originally any substantial or roughly shaped piece of wood. This definition pre-dates the shoes by hundreds of years and in fact it’s probable that our modern day clogs take their name from the historic term for a piece of wood.

Father Christmas with a Yule log,
Illustrated London News, 23 Dec 1848

The Yule clog was burnt on the fire at Christmas and was the subject of lots of traditions and superstitions. In the East Riding, it would be brought into the house on Christmas Eve and set on the hearthrug in front of the fire. In some areas the clog was sprinkled with corn and cider, or a girl would sit on top as it was dragged inside. Each person in the house would then sit silently upon it and wish three wishes (which were sure to come true if only they were kept secret). In Swaledale, it was deemed unlucky to have to light it again after it had been begun and it shouldn’t be allowed to go out until the whole clog had burned away. However, a fragment of it must be rescued and kept as kindling to light the next year’s clog. In Ripon, the chandlers sent large mold-candles and the coopers yule clogs, which had to be large enough that it didn’t all burn away in one night. On some farms, the servants were entitled to ale with their meals as long as the Yule clog lasted.

Unsurprisingly, candles were closely associated with the yule clog. Mrs Day, a native of Swaledale, related in 1914 that

‘just before supper on Christmas Eve (where furmety is eaten), while the Yule log is burning, all other lights are put out, and the candles lit from the Yule log by the youngest person present. While they are lit, all are silent and wish. It is common practice that the wish be kept a secret. Once the candles are on the table, silence may be broken. They must be allowed to burn themselves out, and no other lights may be lit that night’.

The similarity in spelling between the Yule log and the Yule clog is interesting. You could easily be forgiven for assuming that they are closely related terms. Possibly they are, but the etymology (that is, the roots of the words, back into Old English or Norse) for both words are so obscure that it’s impossible to say with any certainty.

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Yule clog: the heavy piece of wood burnt on the fire at Christmas, in Scotland in particular.

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Alexandra Medcalf

Project Archivist, Yorkshire Historic Dictionary (@YorksDictionary)

Edit 25/01/2019 The Yorkshire Historical Dictionary is now available online at yorkshiredictionary.york.ac.uk

Bibliography

• Brand, John, Observations on popular Antiquities, Vol. 1, 1813.
• Crowther, Jan, ‘Christmas Facts and Fancies (with particular reference to East Yorkshire), www.skeals.co.uk/Articles/Christmas%20Facts%20and%20Fancies.html, accessed 6th December 2017.
• Partridge, J. B., ‘ Folklore from Yorkshire (North Riding)’, Folklore, Vol. 25, no. 3, 1914, pp. 375-377.
• Rose, H. J., ‘Folklore Scraps’, Folklore, Vol. 34, no. 2, 1923, pp. 154-158.
• Turner, J Horsfall, Yorkshire Anthology: Ballads and Songs - Ancient and Modern, 1901.  

Yule and Yule's Wife

Today is December 21^st, Midwinter day and also the traditional date of the feast of St Thomas, which sees winter traditions continuing  all over Britain, Europe and further afield.

In York, the longest night and shortest day heralded the ancient custom of the Yule Riding and the beginning of Christmas festivities. During the reign of Elizabeth I, in around 1570, an anonymous balladeer wrote Yule in Yorke, a broadside ballad describing the Riding. [1] The custom included a disguised couple carrying a leg or shoulder of lamb and  a cake of ‘purest meale’, the playing of music and the throwing of nuts by the following crowds. The full text of this ballad and many others like it has been made available through the Bodleian Libraries Ballads Online project, which brings together a rich collection of often unique printed songs, satires, news and moral advice.

The ballad of Yule in Yorke, shared under Creative Commons licence.

This pious representation of the celebration links (sometimes rather tenuously) each part of the festivities to the birth of Jesus. A rather different view of St Thomas’ Day and ‘the very old, gray bearded Gentleman called Christmas’ is shown in a satirical passage printed in London in 1645, which describes a Bacchanalian Father Christmas enjoying, food, drink and gambling amongst other activities!

Printed by the festively named Simon Minc'd-Pye and Cissely Plum Porridge.
Thewhole document can be read at Early English Books Online

One can imagine that it was celebrations more like these that prompted the 1572 letter written to the Mayor and Aldermen of York decrying the city’s ‘verie rude and barbarouse’ Yule Riding. Recorded in the Act Book of the High Commission, the letter bemoans the profaning of the holy day and despairs at the crowds of people drawn from otherwise divine services to watch (and presumably participate in!) the spectacle.

HC.AB.7 f42v

HC.AB.7 f41r

Transcribed, the letter reads as follows:

13 November 1572

After our hartie commendacions, whereas there hath bene heretofore a verie rude and barbarouse custome mainteyned in this citie, and in no other citie or towne of this realme to our knowledge,

that yerelie upon St Thomas Daie before Christmas two disguised persons called Yule and Yules Wief should ryde thorow the citie verey undecentlie and uncomelie, drawinge great concurses of people after them to gaise, often times committinge other enormities, forasmuche as the said disguysed rydinge and concourse afforesaid besydes other enconvenientes tendeth also to the prophanynge of that daie appointed to holie uses and also withdrawethe great multitudes of people frome devyne service and sermons, we have thought good by thes presents to will and require yow & nevertheles in the Quenes Majesties name and by vertew of hir highnes commission for causeis ecclesiasticall within the Province of Yorke to us & others directed, straitlie to charge and commaunde yow that ye take order that no such ryding of Yule and Yules Wief be frome hencefurth attempted or used, and that yow cause this our preceipte and order to be registred of recorde and to be duelie observed not onelie for this yere but also for all other yeres ensueng, requiringe you hereof not to fale as our truste is you will not and as ye will answere for the contrarie.   Fare you hartelie well atYorke this XIII^th of November 1572

                                                   Your lovinge frendes

  Edm. Ebor

           Matth. Hutton[2]
John Rokbye

       Thomas Eymis

Will. Stryckland 

Chrisofer Asheburne

[To the]  

Maior and aldermen

of Yorke

The letter was signed by Edmund Grindal, Archbishop of York (previously Bishop of London and later Archbishop of Canterbury). Upon his appointment  two years earlier, he had already found that “many superstitious practices remained” amongst the people of York and he recommended that the boisterous Yule festival be banned ‘for all other yeres ensuing’. When read to the council, it was agreed that “no disguysed persons called Yule and Yule’s wif … shall ryde this yere nor any yere hensforth, on Saynt Thomas Day before Christmas”.

But do not despair! Although the Yule Riding was banned in 1572, to this day the York Waits process from Micklegate Bar around the city on Midwinter night, accompanied by traditional Tudor instruments and a crowd of followers. Maybe if you're out after dark, you'll be able to hear the sounds of Elizabethan York in the ancient streets once more.

Sources:
R. Davies, Municipal Records of the City of York, 1843.
F. Drake, Eboracum, 1736
A. F. Johnston, Records of Early English Drama, Vol.1, No.1. 1976

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[1] Broadside ballads were printed on large sheets of paper and sold from street-corners, or stuck up in pubs, by travelling ballad singers.

[2] Then Dean of the Minster and later Archbishop himself.