christmas story in luke in old english typeface

Hans Christian Andersen, ‘ The Fir-Tree’.Īndersen wrote a number of fairy tales with wintry settings – ‘ The Little Match Girl’ and ‘ The Snow Queen’ (the basis for the film Frozen) spring to mind – but ‘The Fir-Tree’ is the most Christmassy of all of Andersen’s fairy stories. This story is worth reading not least because it offers such an early example of all of these Christmas features in one story.Ĥ. Here were kept up the old games of hoodman blind, shoe the wild mare, hot cockles, steal the white loaf, bob apple, and snap dragon the Yule-clog and Christmas candle were regularly burnt, and the mistletoe with its white berries hung up, to the imminent peril of all the pretty housemaids…īefore Charles Dickens became the literary laureate of Christmas, Washington Irving was introducing American readers to a whole host of now ubiquitous Christmas traditions, including Christmas carols on people’s doorsteps, mistletoe, and the famous Yule log – traditions which Irving had to explain in footnotes, so unfamiliar were they to his original readers in 1820.

This, Bracebridge said, must proceed from the servants’ hall, where a great deal of revelry was permitted, and even encouraged, by the squire throughout the twelve days of Christmas, provided everything was done conformably to ancient usage. As we approached the house we heard the sound of music, and now and then a burst of laughter from one end of the building.

Christmas story in luke in old english typeface