With the coming of the Saxons, higher revelry reigned, and a Saxon observance of Yule-tide must have been a jolly sight to see. In the center of the hall, upon the open hearth, blazed a huge fire with its column of smoke pouring out through an opening in the thatched roof, or, if beaten by the wind, wandering among the beams above. The usually large family belonging to the house gathered in this big living-room. The table stretched along one side of the room, and up and down its great length the guests were seated in couples. Between them was a half-biscuit of bread to serve as a plate. Later on this would be thrown into the alms-basket for distribution among the poor. Soon the servers entered carrying long iron spits on which they brought pieces of the meats, fish, and fowls that had been roasted in _isen pannas_ (iron pans) suspended from tripods out in the yard. Fingers were used instead of forks to handle the food, and the half-biscuit plates received the grease and juices and protected the handsome _bord-cloth._ There was an abundance of food, for the Saxons were great eaters. Besides flesh, fish, and fowls their gardens furnished plenty of beans and other vegetables, and their _ort-geards_ produced raspberries, strawberries, plums, sweet and sour apples, and _cod-apples_, or quinces. The cider and stronger drinks were quaffed from quaint round-bottomed tumblers which, as they could not stand up, had to be emptied at a draught. The Saxons dined at about eleven o'clock and, as business was not pressing in those days, could well afford to spend hours at the feast, eating, drinking, and making merry. After every one had eaten, games were played, and these games are the same as our children play to-day--handed down to us from the old Saxon times. When night came and the _ear-thyrls_ (eyeholes, or windows) no longer admitted the light of the sun, long candlesticks dipped in wax were lighted and fastened into sockets along the sides of the hall. Then the _makers_, or bards as they came to be called in later days, sang of the gods and goddesses or of marvelous deeds done by the men of old. Out-of-doors huge bonfires burned in honor of _Mother-Night_, and to her, also, peace offerings of Yule cakes were made. It was the Saxon who gave to the _heal-all_ of the Celts the pretty name of mistletoe, or mistletan,--meaning a shoot or tine of a tree. There was jollity beneath the mistletoe then as now, only then everybody believed in its magic powers. It was the sovereign remedy for all diseases, but it seems to have lost its curative power, for the scientific men of the present time fail to find that it possesses any medical qualities.