Harp and horn bedecked Christms tree at Lincoln Center

"There was a typical Christmas game known as Hotcockles. One person

kneels or lies face downward in the center of the room, and is blindfolded.

The others take turns tapping him on the shoulder, while he guesses their names.

When he has guessed correctly, that person takes his place and the game continues.

Quoted from the Spectator for December 28, 1711 is this amusing letter: "Mr. Spectator,

I am a Footman in a great Family and am in Love with the House-maid. We were all at

Hot-cockles last Night in the Hall these Holidays; when I lay down and was blinded,

she pull'd off her Shoe, and hit me with the Heel such a Rap, as almost broke

my Head to Pieces. Pray, Sir, was this Love or Spite?"

-- from 1001 Christmas Facts and Fancies by Alfred Carl Hottes

'Rorate coeli desuper!

Heavens, distil your balmy showers;

For now is risen the bright Daystar,

From the rose Mary, flower of flowers:

The clear Sun, whom no cloud devours,

Surmounting Phoebus in the east,

Is comen of his heavenly towers,

Et nobis puer natus est.

Sinners be glad, and penance do,

And thank your Maker heartfully;

For he that ye might not come to,

To you is comen full humbly,

Your souls with his blood to buy,

And loose you of the fiend's arrest,

And only of his own mercy;

Pro nobis puer natus est.

Celestial fowles in the air,

Sing with your motes upon hight,

In firthes and in forests fair

Be mirthul now at all your might;

For passed is your dully night;

Aurora has the cloudes pierced

The sun is risen with gladsome light,

Et nobis puer natus est.

Sing heaven imperial, most of height,

Regions of air make harmony,

All fish in flood and fowl of flight

Be mirthful and make melody:

All Gloria in excelsis cry,

Heaven, earth, sea, man, bird, and beast;

He that is crowned above the sky

Pro nobis uer natus est.

Rorate, by William Dunbar (c. 1465-1530)

('On the eve of the Reformation,' the Carols editor notes, 'Dunbar, the Scottish diplomat,

ex-Franciscan, and poet, still uses the sounded 'e' when he thinks it fit; he is, as Palgrave says,

'the fine flower of expiring medievalism.' The verses are here set to a little-known Scottish melody.')

The Oxford Book of Carols, 1928

  Days 'til Christmas