Formerly, each of the family sat down on the log in turn, sang a Yule song, and drank to a merry Christmas and happy New Year: after which they had, as part of their feast, Yule dough, or Yule cakes, on which were impressed the figure of the infant Jesus, and sometimes they were made in the shape of a little image, studded with currants and baked, and the bakers gave them as presents to their customers. Bowls of frumenty, made from wheat cakes or creed wheat, boiled in milk, with sugar and nutmeg, &c., also made part of the feast. Nor was the wassail bowl, or the tankard of spiced ale, omitted, but formed a prominent part of the entertainment; Christmas ale being generally of superlative merit. Horace brings out his log and his best wine, as some of his winter comforts. “Dissolve frigus, ligna super foco Large reponens; atque benignius Deprome quadrimum Sabina, O Thaliarche merum diota,” and in the same ode, refers to pastimes similar to some of ours at Christmas,— “Nunc et latentis proditor intimo Gratus puellæ risus ab angulo, Pignusque dereptum lacertis, Aut digito male pertinaci.” Christmas candles of large size, frequently presents from the chandlers, were at the same time used in some places; and, when tired of the sports, the party gathered round the log, and sang carols, or told legendary tales. The Essex logs appear to have been in repute, “We shall have some Essex logs yet to keep Christmas with,” says a character in one of Middleton’s plays; and there were sometimes services reserved to furnish these Christmas logs; as the cellarist of St. Edmundsbury, for instance, held Hardwick under the Abbey, and was bound annually to provide four Christmas stocks, each of eight feet in length. The strangest log on record, however, is that mentioned by Froissart, at a great feast held by the Count de Foix. After dinner he went up into a gallery, to which there was an ascent of twenty-four steps; it being cold, he complained that the fire was not large enough, on which a person named Ernauton d’Espaign, having seen below several asses laden with wood, went down and brought up-stairs on his back one of the largest, with his load of wood, and threw him on the fire, feet upwards, to the delight of the count and the astonishment of all; and of the poor ass, no doubt, more than all. A small portion of the log was to be carefully preserved to light that of the following year; and on the last day of its being in use, which, in some places, was on Candlemas Day, a small piece having been kept on purpose, the custom was to— “Kindle the Christmas brand, and then Till sunne-set let it burne; Which quencht, then lay it up agen, Till Christmas next returne. Part must be kept, wherewith to teend The Christmas log next yeare; And where ’tis safely kept, the fiend Can do no mischiefe there.“