rings, brooches, head-bands, and other ornaments of gold and precious
stones.

Women wore their best tunics made either of woolen woven in many
colors or of silk embroidered in golden flowers. Their "abundant
tresses," curled by means of hot irons, were confined by the richest
_head-rails._ The more fashionable wore cuffs and bracelets, earrings
and necklaces, and painted their cheeks a more than hectic flush.

In the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries the magnificence of the
Yule-tide observance may be said to have reached its height. In the
old baronial halls where:

"The fire, with well-dried logs supplied,
Went roaring up the chimney wide,"

Christmas was kept with great jollity.

It was considered unlucky to have the holly brought into the house
before Christmas Eve, so throughout the week merry parties of young
people were out in the woods gathering green boughs, and on Christmas
Eve, with jest and song, they came in laden with branches to decorate
the hall.

"Lo, now is come our joyfull'st feast!
Let every man be jolly,
Eache room with yvie leaves be drest.
And every post with holly."

Later on, men rolled in the huge Yule-log, emblematic of warmth and