[The Yule log in Germany; the Yule log in Switzerland.]
Among the Germans the custom of the Yule log is known to have been
observed in the eleventh century; for in the year 1184 the parish priest
of Ahlen, in Muensterland, spoke of "bringing a tree to kindle the festal
fire at the Lord's Nativity."[634] Down to about the middle of the
nineteenth century the old rite was kept up in some parts of central
Germany, as we learn from an account of it given by a contemporary
writer. After mentioning the custom of feeding the cattle and shaking
the fruit-trees on Christmas night, to make them bear fruit, he goes on
as follows: "Other customs pointing back to the far-off times of
heathendom may still be met with among the old-fashioned peasants of the
mountain regions. Such is in the valleys of the Sieg and Lahn the
practice of laying a new log as a foundation of the hearth. A heavy
block of oak-wood, generally a stump grubbed up from the ground, is
fitted either into the floor of the hearth, or into a niche made for the
purpose in the wall under the hook on which the kettle hangs. When the
fire on the hearth glows, this block of wood glows too, but it is so
placed that it is hardly reduced to ashes within a year. When the new
foundation is laid, the remains of the old block are carefully taken
out, ground to powder, and strewed over the fields during the Twelve
Nights. This, so people fancied, promotes the fruitfulness of the year's
crops.
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