Christmas Tree
—Various suggestions have been made as to the origin of the Christmas tree. Mr. Timbs, in his Something for Everybody (1861, p. 127), suggests its being traceable to the ancient Egyptians and their palm-tree, which produces a branch every month, and therefore held to be emblematical of the year. The Germans may be said to claim it as peculiar to themselves, as being indicative of their attachment to Christianity; they identify it with the apostolic labours of St. Maternus, one of the earliest, if not the very first, of the preachers of the Gospel among them. They have a legend of his sleeping under a fir-tree, and of a miracle that occurred on that occasion. Mr. MacCabe (N. & Q. 3rd S. vol. viii. p. 489), however, thinks the Christmas tree is traceable to the Roman Saturnalia, and was not improbably first imported into Germany with the conquering legions of Drusus. The Christmas tree, such as we now see it, with its pendent toys and mannikins, is distinctly portrayed in a single line of Virgil (Georg. ii. 389):
“Oscilla ex alta suspendunt mollia pinu.”
Consult Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1849, 2nd ed. p. 846, in verb. “oscillum”), where there is given an engraving “from an ancient gem (Maffei, Gem. Ant. iii. 64) representing a tree with four oscilla hung upon its branches.” Any one looking into that valuable work will see at once that it is an exact picture of a Christmas tree.
A correspondent of Book of Days (vol. ii. p. 787) says, within the last twenty years, and apparently since the marriage of Queen Victoria with Prince Albert, previous to which time it was almost unknown in this country, the Christmas tree has been introduced into England with the greatest success.