Note 861 — Chapter XI · THE BEGINNING OF WINTER

In the south of France Christmas is Chalendes, in Provence Calendas or Calenos. The log is calignau, chalendau, chalendal, calignaon, or culenos, and the peasants sang round it ‘Calène vient’ (Tille, D. W. 286; Müller, 475, 478). Thiers, i. 264, speaks of ‘le pain de Calende.’ Christmas songs used to be known in Silesia as Kolendelieder (Tille, D. W. 287). The Lithuanian term for Christmas is Kalledos and the Czechic Koleda (Polish Kolenda, Russian Koljada). A verb colendisare appears as a Bohemian law term (Tille, Y. and C. 84); while in the fourteenth century the Christmas quête at Prague was known as the Koledasammeln (Tille, D. W. 112). The Bohemian Christmas procession described by Alsso (cf. ch. xii) was called Calendizatio, and according to tradition St. Adalbert (tenth century) transferred it from the Kalends to Christmas, and called it colendizatio ‘a colendo.’