Only stripy stockings for faery Christmas Eve hearths ....

    The very eve of Christmas - all faere-folk who have to do with mortals cannot help but get caught up in the excitement, although Yule is just past, and even the Ogham 'Mistletoe Day' was yesterday!

    Modern-day faeries - that is those hatched any time from the beginning of the 19th century show a definite penchant for stockings striped in off-beat colours. I know I do. What I wonder is - where did this habit originate?  In what literature was it first mentioned? Hmm - a little study for the new year I think. 

      Meanwhile, especially for this night,  here's a small 'stocking rhyme' and three favourite 'stocking' illustrations  ........

Illustration by William Heath Robinson
From  'Christmas Thieves'   c1910

 

 

 

Stocking Song on Christmas Eve

 

Welcome, Christmas! heel and toe,

Here we wait thee in a row.

Come, good Santa Claus we beg,

Fill us tightly foot and leg.

 

Fill us quickly ere you go, -

Fill us 'til we overflow.

That's the way! And leave us more

Heaped in piles upon the floor.

 

Little feet that ran all day

Twitch in dreams of merry play.

Little feet that jumped at will,

Lie all pink, and warm, and still.

 

See us, how we lightly swing;

Hear us, how we try to sing -

Welcome, Christmas! heel and toe,

Come and fill us ere you go.

 

Here we hang, 'til someone nimbly

Jumps with treasure down the chimney.

Bless us! How he'll tickle us

Funny old St. Nicholas!

 

       Mary Mapes Dodge

From 'Rhymes and Jingles'  1904

 

 

 

'For years, he had been quietly filling his stocking'

By Arthur Rackham from 'Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens' 1912

 

 

From 'The Boo-Boos and Santa Claus'

by Mabel Lucie Attwell  1923

 

 

Here's hoping that you have a cosy and magical celebration, despite the recent storms.

May your stockings be filled with Mid-Winter goodness and may they all be stripy!