Christmas Eve is here, a time for house cleaning, food prepping and gift wrapping. A time for singing carols: carols such as The Twelve Days Of Christmas. We’re onto day 11 of our 12 day Bronte countdown, so what twist can we put on the 11 pipers piping as featured in the original song?
Pipers are commonly associated with the military, or with Scotland – especially with their great New Year feast of Hogmanay. The Brontes were lovers of all things Scottish, having been influenced from a young age by the writings of Walter Scott.
Charlotte Bronte eventually visited Scotland along with her publisher George Smith and his family, and fell deeply in love with Edinburgh. She wrote of the city in a letter dated July 30th 1850 to her friend Laetitia Wheelwright:
“My stay in Scotland was short, and what I saw was chiefly comprised in Edinburgh and the neighbourhood, in Abbotsford and in Melrose; for I was obliged to relinquish my first intention of going from Glasgow to Oban and thence through a portion of the Highlands — but — though the time was brief, and the view of objects limited, I found such a charm of situation, association and circumstance that I think the enjoyment experienced in that little space equalled in degree and excelled in kind all which London yielded during a month’s sojourn. Edinburgh compared to London is like a vivid page of history compared to a huge dull treatise on Political Economy – and as to Melrose and Abbotsford the very names possess music and magic.”
Could Charlotte have heard pipes piping during this Scottish visit? Quite possibly, and we can safely say, given her love of all things Scottish, she would have been enchanted by them. Pipes of a different kind could be heard in Haworth every Christmas – in the form of the brass and woodwind instruments played by local brass bands who visited leading houses in the district, such as Haworth Parsonage. We get a glimpse of what this would have been like in the Christmas scene in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights:
“In the evening we had a dance. Cathy begged that he might be liberated then, as Isabella Linton had no partner: her entreaties were vain, and I was appointed to supply the deficiency. We got rid of all gloom in the excitement of the exercise, and our pleasure was increased by the arrival of the Gimmerton band, mustering fifteen strong: a trumpet, a trombone, clarionets, bassoons, French horns, and a bass viol, besides singers. They go the rounds of all the respectable houses, and receive contributions every Christmas, and we esteemed it a first-rate treat to hear them. After the usual carols had been sung, we set them to songs and glees. Mrs. Earnshaw loved the music, and so they gave us plenty.”
Let us then update our Christmas song to: “On the eleventh day of Christmas the Brontes gave to me eleven trumpets playing, ten Lords a changing, nine sisters dancing, eight maids a loving, seven books a reading, six geese a straying, five Brontë rings, four coloured dogs, three French letters, two captive doves, and a merlin in a bare tree.”
Hearing festive bands, then or today, is a joyous experience, but I know that Christmas isn’t always a happy time for many. There are many who will be dealing with loss, myself included, at this Christmas time. I can very much recommend the e-books on “Coping With Grief” and “Dealing With Loneliness” authored by my wonderful wife Yvette, a specialist in bereavement therapy. She has been immensely helpful to me in so many ways, and you cand find out more about her books at this Restorative Creativity link.
Please, if you can, join me tomorrow for the twelfth instalment of our 12 Days Of Bronte Christmas countdown, which will also feature a certain Bronte poem that I always post on Christmas Day itself! Until then, may all your preparations go smoothly.