"[656] "A tall mould
candle, called a Yule candle, is lighted and set on the table; these
candles are presented by the chandlers and grocers to their customers.
The Yule-log is bought of the carpenters' lads. It would be unlucky to
light either of them before the time, or to stir the fire or candle
during the supper; the candle must not be snuffed, neither must any one
stir from the table till supper is ended. In these suppers it is
considered unlucky to have an odd number at table. A fragment of the log
is occasionally saved, and put under a bed, to remain till next
Christmas: it secures the house from fire; a small piece of it thrown
into a fire occurring at the house of a neighbour, will quell the raging
flame. A piece of the candle should likewise be kept to ensure good
luck."[657] In the seventeenth century, as we learn from some verses of
Herrick, the English custom was to light the Yule log with a fragment of
its predecessor, which had been kept throughout the year for the
purpose; where it was so kept, the fiend could do no mischief.[658]
Indeed the practice of preserving a piece of the Yule-log of one year to
light that of the next was observed by at least one family at Cheadle in
Staffordshire down to the latter part of the nineteenth century.[659]
[The Yule-log in Yorkshire; the Yule log in Lincolnshire; the Yule log
in Warwickshire, Shropshire, and Herefordshire; the Yule log in Wales.
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