FOR most of us, Twelfth Night is the day we tear down tinsel and wrestle a desiccated tree out of the front door, but, up until the late 19th century, it was a time of feasting and merriment, second in importance only to Christmas Day. Fires were lit in the fields and revellers would go from door to door playing practical jokes on their neighbours. Also known as the Feast of Fools, Twelfth Night marked the end of the festive period and, in echoes of the ancient Roman midwinter festival of Saturnalia, in which social order was reversed, it gave everyone the chance to dispense with normal conventions. Today, as have festivals such as Shrovetide and Whitsun, it has lost its meaning and dissolved into a lacklustre end of Christmas.
The Twelfth Night celebrations reached their
