Charles Dickens, as I mentioned before, popularized the telling of ghost stories at Christmas. In fact, M. R. James wrote most of his ghostly tales to be read to his students at Eton at Christmastime. The following tale is supposed to be true. I've paraphrased it from Terence Whitaker's 1987 book HAUNTED ENGLAND: ROYAL SPIRITS, CASTLE GHOSTS, PHANTOM COACHES & WAILING GHOULS.

In Staffordshire, in an area called Cannock Chase, stands Hatherton Hall. The lords of the Hall have held their baronetcy since the time of the Crusades, but the anti-hero of our story is the Lord Hatherton who held the title toward the end of the nineteenth century. One Christmas Eve, Lord Hatherton hosted a party for a number of his hunting and drinking cronies while their wives attended a ball some distance away.

After dinner, it was the custom to retire to a gentleman's lounge or study for port (a sort of fortified wine, I gather; I'm no oenologist) and cigars. Lord Hatherton and his guests were gathered there, getting companionably soused, when one guest idly picked up an odd object from Lord H.'s desk, and promptly put it back down, for it was a skull lined with thin silver plate. Lord Hatherton picked it up and told them the following story:

The skull had in life sat on the shoulders of an ancestor, Lord Hugh Hatherton. For some reason his tomb had been dug into at the site of a vanished private chapel; his skull had been separated from the rest of the skeleton, and lined with silver plate by some degenerate descendant for use as a brandy goblet. Naturally some of the guests were chilled but titillated by the story, while others declared it vile and wanted no part of drinking from it--but about then Lord H. called for brandy. His cellar contained nothing but the best, and his guests forgot their initial disgust, going so far as to pass the skull around and drink a toast to the late Sir Hugh, inviting him to come join their merriment. Lord H., drunker than the others, even swore to give the skull back to Sir Hugh should he come to visit.

Dead on midnight, the goblet was placed on the desk. And then. . .there were footsteps in the hall outside the study. Not the ladies returning from their ball; the steps were those of a large heavy man.

The skull, of its own accord, began to roll toward the edge of the desk, eventually falling off and seeming to roll beneath it. Of course this was frightening enough to the party, but then their attention was diverted by the study's door bursting open of ITS own accord, accompanied by a blast of polar air. And there, on the threshold, stood the figure of a headless knight in full armor. For a moment, all were still in a frozen tableau; then the knight sketched a stately and ironic bow, turned, and walked down the hall, his steps dying away into nothingness.

By the time the ladies returned at last, some quarter of an hour later, the husbands were all stone cold sober, and several who were staying the night had to have a light on in their rooms. In the morning an extensive search of the house and grounds located the silver plate lining from the skull goblet on the lawn outside the study window, but no trace of the skull was ever seen again.

Drinking from the skull of an enemy was apparently a common practice among pagans from the classical era, if the Romans and other chroniclers are to be believed, and it was if I remember what I've read aright reported as a scurrilous rumor that Lord Byron, the second generation British Romantic poet, once drank from the skull of a nameless young woman who died for love of him. But it's not a good idea. I wonder how many of Lord Hatherton's guests took the pledge after that.

And on that pious note, fair thee well.

Guys, I am about dead on my feet. It's a long and tedious story, and you would forget most of it before I could get it told. I happened, while trying to stay awake till a more--uh--appropriate bedtime, to come across Bella's blog on Morocco. Immediately swept away by memories of Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and "As Time Goes By," but also was sluggishly reminded of the music of Canadian Loreena McKennitt, who often performs music with a Middle Eastern/North African influence.

That influence is most notable on her 1994 CD, THE MASK AND MIRROR, songs on which were influenced by her travels to Marrakech (I figure most of us probably think of David Crosby and "Marrakesh Express" when we hear the name!) and to the Galician region of Spain, where in the late Middle Ages Jewish, Arab and Christian cultures blended in an intoxicating stew of learning, art, architecture and music. The song "Marrakech Night Market," inspired by a visit to that Moroccan city's marketplace in 1993, is a sensuous swirl of percussion and a lot of exotic stringed instruments I wouldn't even try to identify, anchored by Hugh Marsh's exquisite fiddle. In a diary entry LM describes watching people standing around in groups, "each involved in their own drama of music, storytelling, monkeys on men's shoulders, or cobras being coaxed to 'dance' on rugs."

The intermingling of Christian, Jewish and Moorish (the Islamic culture of southern Spain that flourished until the late 15th century) music is most boldly presented in "Santiago", a traditional instrumental piece adapted and arranged by LM, played on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela, St. James in the Field of Stars, for some 600 yrs. a rival to Jerusalem and Rome as a destination for the faithful pilgrim.

For belly dancing, I'd recommend "Marco Polo" from LM's 1997 CD "The Book of Secrets," which combines Middle Eastern rhythms with influences from the area along the ancient Silk Road in Central Asia. Stunningly sensual music, again led by Hugh Marsh on fiddle and with a silky ambling percussion that reminds me of nothing so much as images of camels strolling in stately caravan across broad golden sands.

Sorry I can't download the music for you. Surely one of these days I'll learn how, but for now I can only tell you how it moves me in my soul. So grab your bells and castanets and have a blast! And till next time fair thee well.

PS Down in the comments section below Bella and Dalpha have provided links to the above! Unfortunately I have dialup and it's too slow for me to watch them (I had a traumatic experience with that last night--just ask Willard, who had to talk me through it very late) but for those who can, enjoy and dance till you drop! Thanks ladies.

After many years of being unable to enjoy the holiday season, I find all at once I'm turning into a small kid again. I've mentioned before, I think, that from the time I was about ten until I was past thirty, someone in the family was either critically ill or newly dead at Christmas. I got paranoid, to be frank. I spent the next fifteen years or so waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Having finally reached an age at which I realize that these things will happen if they're meant to happen and there's nothing I can do about them, I can relax now and find I take a childish joy in the simplest things. Tonight it was ABC's broadcast back to back of SHREK THE HALLS and the animated version of HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS. (I think the Jim Carrey live action one is an abomination.) SHREK THE HALLS is new. I've only seen one of the feature films in the series, but I love Shrek, Donkey and Fiona. I once asked the Princess who her favorite character is, and she thought hard and then said, "Puss in Boots." She's right. I fell in love with Antonio Banderas's voice, so suave, so Spanish. Puss in Boots is like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST in a way; a children's favorite who turns adults on too. The story--of how Shrek, who has never celebrated Christmas because "ogres never celebrate anything," learns that Christmas is about fun, laughter and family (especially extended family) is awfully cute.

As for HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS, it's WONDERFUL! The first books and videos I ever got for Bubba and Miss A when they were babies were of it. It's essentially A CHRISTMAS CAROL with a Dr. Seuss spin on it. Also the animation is excellent, mainly because it was done by Dr. Seuss (Ted Geisel) and the great Chuck Jones, best known for his work for Warner Brothers in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series. The narration by the legendary Boris Karloff is brilliant, but my favorite part of all is the "Mr. Grinch" song, sung by the late Thurl Ravencroft. Too funny, poignant and cute.

It really is beginning to feel like Christmas now. I already caught A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS, and before the season's over I hope to see RUDOLPH THE REDNOSED REINDEER and FROSTY THE SNOWMAN, if nothing else. And on that cheery note, fair thee well.

As decorating for the holidays goes, I'm a sort of Scrooge myself. Never gonna be mistaken for Martha Stewart with all her handmade gewgaws and fancy ribbon and occasionally overdone stuff. Years ago, when Bubba was little, I used to set up a Dickensian village on a card table. Cheap stuff, mostly from Dollar General and Wal-Mart; I'd get it all set up and it would look--well, Dickensian. Then Bubba would come to visit, declare, "That don't look right" and rearrange it. By the time he got through it looked like the projects a block or two from his daycare. (I was reminded of those days during Halloween. I have a collection of tiny haunted houses that I set on the mantel. The first time the Princess was over after I set them out, she looked up from the game of Yahtzee we were playing at the time and said patronizingly, "When we're through with this, I'm gonna play with your village people." Thought I'd pee giggling.)

The main feature of my decorating of late years though is a primitive Nativity set I bought at a crafts fair around the time Dad died, fifteen years ago. It's all on pieces of two by four: a baby in a manger, a Virgin Mary kneeling, Joseph, the Three Wise Men, a shepherd, and two sheep. So primitive are the paintings that the characters do not even have facial features; just flesh-colored half-ovals. I can remember to this day that I passed it twice, and kept being drawn back to it until I decided "I have to have this" and paid thirty-five dollars for the set. I never learned the artist's name, or if it was an original idea or out of a book. Flat, one dimensional painting that in a way reminds me of early medieval art; but oh, there's power in those images!

And until next time, fair thee well.

I have at one time or another seen most of the great Christmas movies and cartoons. My favorite cartoons are of course A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS and the one where Bugs Bunny has fun teasing the Tasmanian Devil, who inadvertently ended up in a Santa suit.

Of the movies, though, my favorite of all time is the 1984 made-for-TV version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, with the late great George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge. I watched it last night and am happy to report I love it just as much now as I did the first time I saw it, twenty-three years ago.

The sets look so authentic, you can willingly believe that you're looking at nineteenth century London--except the snow was too pristine. The music is wonderful. All the performances--on the mark, especially Scott's as Scrooge.

As a ghost story nut, I always am impressed by the special effects: the hearse that drives past Scrooge and disappears in the mist; the knocker that turns into Marley's face; and the entire sequence with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, the shadows, the backlighting, the skeletal look of that hand, and that eerie, hair-raising silence.

I am also happy to note that my favorite line from the book is in there: Edward Woodward as the Ghost of Christmas Present bending from his august height to look into Scrooge's face and thundering, "It may be in the sight of Heaven that you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child" (referring to Tiny Tim Cratchit, for whom Scrooge finds himself worried in a way he has never known before).

Also love the late Frank Finlay in the sequence with Marley's ghost. Comic (untying and tying the bandage that holds his mouth closed) and frightening (that spectral makeup!) at the same time.

It's just one of those things like Linus reciting from the Gospel of Luke in A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS: it makes me feel good. Period. And I intend to watch it every Christmas I can manage. Till next time fair thee well.