History for the Holidays IV

(Hosts: Christine, Josh, Kristin) 

As the year comes to a close, holidays abound! Join us for our newest episode in our series about history that ties to these festive times.

For further reading suggestions and more, please visit: https://www.footnotinghistory.com

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
[Christine:] Hey everyone, Christine here, to welcome you to our 2024 edition of History for the
Holidays! This tradition is one of my favorites because I love that there are so many different
holidays around the end of the calendar year and that they all have such fascinating histories.
As always, I turned to newspapers for my selection so that we can see what people
in the past were seeing when they opened the pages of their favorite paper. I ended up,

(00:25):
this time, selecting the December 24, 1887 edition of the Atchison Globe, out of Kansas,
USA. It contains a whole spread of Christmas-y content, some better than others. One feature was
a story about a little girl who wanted ice skates until her uncle, who happened to lose his leg
in an ice skating incident, tells her she should never want skates because the trauma would upset

(00:47):
her mother too much. Another, which I’ve given the minisode treatment for our Patrons, was about
educating the people of Kansas about how folks in New York do their Christmas shopping. For you,
dear listeners, I picked something else entirely. Written by one Bill Arp, this feature was called
CHRISTMAS LEGENDS with two subtitles, the one which concerns us being “A Curious Tradition

(01:10):
Concerning the Mistletoe.” So let’s take a look at what the Atchison Globe was teaching the people of
Kansas about Christmas Legends in the late 1880s…Bill Arp tells us that the strangest story of
Christmas traditions is that of mistletoe because it’s not a bush and it’s not a tree and it “feeds
and grows upon other trees”, implying it’s not the coolest plant in the world (though he appears to

(01:34):
love and revere evergreens). He traces the story of mistletoe to Scandinavia and calls the Norse
gods “imaginary” which I guess tells us Arp didn’t have ambitions to see Valhalla one day. And I want
to be very clear that while I know this story doesn’t get everything right about Norse lore,
I am going to tell it how Arp did because that’s what people were reading and that’s the

(01:55):
experience I’m trying to recreate. I definitely suggest looking into real Norse lore though,
by actual scholars, because it’s fascinating. Anyway, Arp tells us that the Scandinavians
had a god who was “all powerful and was good to good people and terrible to bad people”,
whose name was Woden (you may be more familiar with him being called Odin). Woden had a wife name

(02:18):
Friza (more standardly called Frigg) and children named Thor and Baldur. Baldur is the important
one here. He was “very beautiful and very eloquent and was his mother’s favorite child.”
One day, Baldur told his mother that he’d had a bad dream that he was going to die.
His mother was understandably immediately on edge and determined to do something about it.

(02:39):
She calls everything that exists together, “all the gods and goddesses, and all the animals,
and the seas and the rivers, and the mountains and hills, and rocks and trees, and bushes,
and all plants that grew upon the ground, and made them swear a solemn oath that they would not hurt
Baldur nor in any way cause his death.”Except, much like how Sleeping Beauty’s

(03:02):
parents neglected to invite Maleficent to their party, Frigg neglected mistletoe.
Obviously this is a mistake.Now, Arp tells us, it also turns
out that the goddess of malice, a “powerful old hag whose name was Laki” lived inside the
earth. You will likely be more familiar with the name Loki. His description of her is the reason
why I chose this story. He says, “She hated every thing and every body. She had ate for breakfast

(03:30):
and hate for dinner, and hate for supper.” I can’t explain why that made me laugh,
but it did. Such fearsome hate. Things escalate quickly when Laki learns that Frigg forgot to
include mistletoe in her warnings. She “licked out her long, fiery tongue with satisfaction”
and then recruited someone who is insensitively called “a blind idiot who was tremendously strong”

(03:54):
and has him throw a fat-old mistletoe at Baldur. The mistletoe of doom hits Baldur in the chest,
killing him on the spot, and sending his soul down to Hela who, we are told,
is a goddess in charge of the souls of the dead.Everyone wanted to make a point and get Baldur
back. Frigg told Thor to get it done. He clapped mountains together to scare Hela into giving

(04:14):
Baldur’s soul back but she wasn’t moved to just hand the soul back. She did however,
make a bargain. She said that “if he could make every thing weep and shed tears of sorrow for
Baldur she would give back his soul.” Well, this meant Woden used his all-powerfulness to call upon
everything in creation to weep. Even the mistletoe wept, as it turned out. It was an innocent

(04:37):
weaponized piece in all of this, after all. The mistletoe “shed floods of tears that were so full
of pity they turned into white, pearly berries.” It is, says Arp, the reason why it is associated
with love and pity and why when people make a promise under the mistletoe it is a sacred one.
Again, as I said, this isn’t going to be the version of the story you find in the

(04:58):
texts of those who deeply study Norse mythology. Baldur will indeed get killed by mistletoe, but
the hows and other details will be different. For example, the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm
has pages dedicated to different figures in Norse mythology. That said, if you were in 1887 Kansas,

(05:24):
this could very well have been the only version of the story you ever heard, which
is why it’s the way I shared it here. The spread of information is a fascinating thing. Thank you
for joining me for my portion of this episode. However you choose to mark the end of the year,
I hope you have a wonderful time and don’t try to kill anybody with mistletoe. Happy holidays!
[Josh:] On a winter night, you’re sitting in your living room in Wales

(05:49):
and you hear a traditional song being sung outside your door. You pause and
ready yourself. You practice a few lines in your head as you walk to the door,
ready to meet the merry band of men who have now knocked. When you open the door, you see
her – the Mari Lywd – a horse skull bejeweled and wrapped in a sheet. The battle begins.

(06:12):
Hey Footnoters, Josh here with a good winter tale for you.
Before I tell you all about the Mari Lywd, I want to give my friends Jess and Carlos Phoenix a shout
out for telling me about this Welsh tradition back in August. We were driving through Ventura County,
CA and they were like, “HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THIS?!” And when I hadn’t, they told me all

about it. My immediate reaction (06:36):
This must be a  part of the Footnoting History Holiday episode.
The Mari Lywd tradition has some murky origins. In fact, we don’t have much in the way of a record
for it until 1800, when J. Evans published an account of it in his A Tour Through Part of

(06:56):
North Wales, in the Year 1798. Despite Evans encountering it in the North Wales, the Mari
Lywd has a stronger tradition in the South Wales.Consensus seems to fall on Mari Lywd translating
to roughly “grey mare,” though there were some early debates over whether or not the

(07:22):
“Mari” referred to the Virgin Mary. Scholars debated this for some time, some arguing that
Mari Lywd was a pre-Christian tradition. More recent folklorists date the tradition to the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, however.At its core, Mari Lywd is a hobby horse and
wassailing tradition. “Hobby horses” could be an episode all on its own,

(07:45):
but at their core they are a costumed character connected to some sort of traditional seasonal
celebration. We see them in places all over Europe. Wassailing is going door-to-door and
asking for some sort of treat. Trick-or-treating in the US, for example, is a kind of wassailing.

(08:08):
In Wales, the Mari Lwyd was celebrated during wintertime usually. Sometimes it could appear
as early as Halloween, but it was typically connected with Christmas and New Years Day.
So what exactly is Mari Lywd and what does she do? Well, she’s a horse skull
that’s been decorated with baubles for eyes, streamers for a mane, and cloaked in a white

(08:32):
bedsheet. Often there’s a person under the sheet manipulating the jaw so it makes a snapping sound.
A small party of merry-makers, traditionally men (often very drunk),
escort the Mari Lwyd throughout the village and approach houses. They sing traditional songs at
peoples’ doors and wait for them to answer.When the people of the house open the door,

(08:57):
the Mari Lwyd challenges them to a rap battle. OK, not like Eminem in 8 Mile – but flyting,
in Welsh called pwnco. That’s spelled p-w-n-c-o. Thank goodness for internet pronunciation guides,
but many apologies if I still got it wrong.The battle consists of the Mari Lwyd and its

(09:18):
party asking to be let in the house, to which the people of the house must answer
with reasons why the party cannot come in. Once the inhabitants of the house could no
longer give reasons why the Mari Lywd and her party could not come into the home, they
would be required to allow the party admittance.And of course, they would have to supply beer and

(09:40):
food. Now if the Mari Lwyd party failed to outwit the people of the home, they would sing one last,
mournful verse, which would always sway the hearts of those in the house.
I could see this being an absolute blast of a time, but I’m afraid I would lose to the Mari Lwyd
every single time. So as the New Year approaches next month, Footnoters, you might want to brush up

(10:06):
on your rhyming abilities. You may need may need them if Mari Lywd comes knocking at your door!
Good thing that Kendrick Lamar album just dropped – take some notes!
[Kristin:] Hello Footnoting History friends, it’s Kristin here to finish our holiday
. episode off with – of course – some Jewish and culinary history for you.

(10:28):
I know I’ve said before that medieval and spooky are probably my two favorite topics,
but Jewish history and food are my other two favorites. It adds up, trust me. Traditionally, we
Jews like to eat – and at Hanukkah, the festival of lights that commemorates the re-dedication of
the Temple in Jerusalem by the Hasmonean Jews on the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev – well,

(10:51):
there’s a lot of oil involved. In the story, then in the menorahs, and at the table. And
there are lots of ways you can go. Donuts are a particular favorite but if you’re like me, fried
potatoes are where it’s at. Friends, I speak to you of the latke. The delicious, delicious latke,

(11:12):
which is (now, usually) a potato pancake that comes in many varieties – some people put yeast
or baking soda in them, some people add a little or a lot of flour, depending on the country,
there might be sesame seeds. There’s a huge debate in Ashkenazi – or Eastern European – households

(11:33):
about whether you should top them with sour cream or applesauce (I’m a sour cream woman,
myself, I basically put that stuff on anything I can but the applesauce community is loud and
resolute). Polish and Russian Jewish immigrants to America in the later 19th and early 20th century
went the potato route because that’s what they were used to back home – and potatoes were pretty

(11:57):
cheap. Lithuanians ate buckwheat pancakes – but the Polish and Russian communities were
the largest and they all fried them in fat. And for Eastern European Jews, that fat was schmaltz,
or rendered chicken fat – which yes, is delicious, but is also really laborious
to make enough to fry stuff in. In the immigrant communities in the American cities, food producers

(12:23):
figured this out fast and Crisco and Mazola Oil started marketing to people in Yiddish,
promising them that their products would make their holiday cooking much easier. And they did.

Point being (12:34):
latkes are delicious. And latkes  have been a part of the Hanukkah celebrations
for a very long time. The idea of a vegetable pancake fried in oil to celebrate Hanukkah has
been around since before there were even potatoes in Europe. There’s even a 14th century poem about
them! Look at me bringing in medieval stuff, too. The poem was written in 1322 by Kalonymus

(12:59):
ben Kalonymos, a French rabbi who lived in Italy for awhile, which is possibly where he wrote
this poem. It goes (in English translation with a few sidebar explanations from me):
“In the night month, in Kislev, in order to honor Mattiyah ben Yohanan the renowned [this is the

(13:19):
original leader of the Maccabean rebellion against the Syrian Greeks in the second century BCE,
who were the ones who desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem in the first place;
Mattiyah had five sons and one of them is Judah Maccabee, who you may have heard of],
and the Hasmoneans [those were his sons and their followers], the important women should gather

(13:40):
knowledgeable about making food and cooking levivot [that’s the latkes], large and round,
the whole size of the frying pan, and their appearance good and ruddy, like the appearance
of the rainbows. They bake the dough and make different kinds of tasty food from the mixture;
havitz [this is actually a Greek dish made with a kind of grain meal and dairy like milk

(14:03):
and butter] in the pot, and porridge; and above all they should take fine wheat flour and make
sufganin [those are the donuts now but could be a kind of fried dough here] and isqaritin [this
is also possibly a Greek dish that’s a kind of cake that you dip in honey after it’s baked] from
it. And the drinking should be what is proper to festivals, with joy over every single cup

(14:29):
to convey evil to Niquanor and Bagris [the evil Selucid generals; Bagris was also a governor] and
suffering to Antiokhus [that’s the evil king who defiled the Temple].” And like: yeah, Kalonymus!
Also I love that these latkes are giant – kind of reminds me of a Spanish tortilla. Also delicious.

(14:53):
Hannah Goodman’s famous book “Jewish Cooking Around the World” includes recipes for fruit
latkes with orange juice and pineapple chunks … I’m going to pass on that … and cottage cheese
latkes, also a hard pass – but the potato latkes are as follows (and I can confirm are delicious):
“4 large potatoes, grated; 3 tablespoons of matzah meal; 3 eggs, beaten; 1 teaspoon of salt;

(15:19):
¼ teaspoon of pepper and 1 teaspoon of onion powder” and then the obligatory
“oil for frying.” There is some good advice in the directions to have all your stuff ready to
go before you grate the potatoes [because they will turn brown on you if you just let them sit],
squeezing all the water out of said potatoes [because you’re frying and frying wet stuff is

(15:42):
dangerous and also it will not crisp up enough if it’s wet it’ll just steam and probably burn
you while it’s in the oil] as well as using two pans to bust out a lot of those bad boys
at once. That’s my paraphrase but it’s a good idea if you can manage it. I personally can’t
handle it. When they’re done, you drain them on paper towels or regular towels – also good

(16:06):
advice – and she doesn’t say this but I’m going to say it here: salt them while they’re still
warm. You’re welcome. Goodman recommends applesauce for serving. I’m going to die
on the sour cream hill. But you do you. I wish you a happy, bright, and delicious Hanukkah.
And from all of us at Footnoting History, Happy Holidays no matter what you celebrate.