The Folklore of Discworld

talks about the ‘real meaning’ of Hogswatch:
    ‘What, you mean that the pigs and cattle have all been slaughtered and with any luck everyone’s got enough food for the winter?’
    W ELL, WHEN I SAY THE REAL MEANING —
    ‘Some wretched devil’s had his head chopped off in a wood somewhere ’cos he found a bean in his dinner and now the summer’s going to come back?’
    N OT EXACTLY THAT, BUT —
    ‘Oh, you mean that they’ve chased down some poor beast and shot arrows up into their apple trees and now the shadows are going to go away?’
    T HAT IS DEFINITELY A MEANING, BUT I—
    ‘Ah, then you’re talking about the one where they light a bloody big bonfire to give the sun a hint and tell it to stoplurking under the horizon and do a proper day’s work?’
    Y OU’RE NOT HELPING , A LBERT .
    ‘Well, they’re all the real meanings that I know.’
    It is amazing how much of all this used to happen in our world too, in the days when farming was farming, and no one had invented Health and Safety Regulations and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Bonfires blazed; burning barrels and cartwheels were rolled down steep hills into watching crowds; men ran through the streets carrying barrels of flaming tar on their heads. In regions where cider apples were grown, villagers would come at midwinter to ‘wassail’ the trees. This meant they would beat the trunks with sticks, fire guns up into the branches, pour ale over the roots, yell, howl, and blow horns. And they told the trees what was expected of them:
    Here stands a jolly good old apple tree.
    Stand fast, root; bear well, top.
    Every little bough, bear an apple now;
    Every little twig,
    Bear an apple big!
    Hats full, caps full,
    Three-bushel-sacks full!
    Whoop, whoop, holloa!
    Blow, blow the horns!
    The trees had better take notice, or else …
    Apple-tree, apple-tree,
    Bear good fruit,
    Or down with your top
    And up with your root!
    As for ‘chasing down some poor beast’, there was plenty of that too. In the nineteenth century, bricklayers from Sussex towns wouldget a day off at the end of November, and go in gangs to the nearest woods armed with short, heavy sticks which they would hurl at squirrels and any other small animals they saw. If they did manage to hit a squirrel, they took it home to eat. Foxes, on the other hand, are quite inedible. Which has never discouraged generations of English from going fox-hunting on 26 December, a date called Boxing Day or St Stephen’s Day.
    Then there was the very curious custom of hunting the wren, which was once widespread in England, France, the Isle of Man, Wales, and especially in Ireland; it happened on St Stephen’s Day, or Christmas Day, or Twelfth Day. One would hardly think this tiny bird worth hunting, even though it is nicknamed ‘king of the birds’. What makes it odder still is that on any other date it would be extremely wicked to kill one, a crime which only the lowest coward would stoop to, and which would bring terrible bad luck.
    But on the right day, a dead wren was the luckiest thing in the world. The young men who had hunted and killed it would make a big display of it. Some fastened it to a long pole, with its wings extended; others hung it by the legs between two crossed hoops garlanded with greenery; others carried it on a little bier decorated with ribbons. Then they formed a procession and solemnly carried it from house to house, chanting:
    We hunted the wren for Robin the Bobbin,
    We hunted the wren for Jack the Can,
    We hunted the wren for Robin the Bobbin,
    We hunted the wren for everyone.
    and:
    The wren, the wren, the king of the birds,
    On Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze.
    Although he is little, his family’s great,
    I pray you, good lady, give us a treat.
    Those who did give the ‘wren-boys’ money or a drink would get one of the wren’s feathers to keep for luck, and as a charm against shipwreck.
    What can all this mean? Was it just a way of getting beer and money? Or a joke (for the humans, if not for the bird), making fun of upper-class huntsmen who are so proud of trophies? Or was it a survival of some incredibly ancient magic ritual involving the sacrifice of a sacred animal at midwinter? On the Discworld, there’s no doubt at all, as Quoth the Raven explains:
    ‘Blood on the snow, making the sun come up. Starts off with animal sacrifice, y’know, hunt some big hairy animal to death, that kind of stuff. You know there’s some people up on the Ramtops who