Whilst reading about the history of Christmas pudding, aka figgy pudding or plum pudding, I have just discovered the old game of snapdragon. This was a popular drinking game originating around the 16th century - Shakespeare refers to it as flap-dragon - that lasted until well into the 19th century. Brandy or other distilled liquor was heated and placed in a wide shallow bowl, then raisins, almonds, currants, figs or candied peal were placed in the brandy which was then set alight, and the aim of the game was to snatch the burning treats from the dish and then extinguish them in the mouth.


"S is for Snap-dragon":
and so the Snap-dragon himself plays the snapdragon game.
From Robert Chambers' 'Book of Days' (1879).

Samuel Johnson's 'Dictionary of the English Language' (1755) defined it as: "Snapdragon - a play [ie game] in which they catch raisins out of burning brandy and, extinguishing them by closing the mouth, eat them", while in the 1709 magazine 'Tatler', Richard Steele says: "The wantonness of the thing was to see each other look like a demon, as we burnt ourselves, and snatched out the fruit."

The game originally consisted of just a bowl of burning brandy with raisins/currants in it, but it seems that in the mid 19th century, and especially when plum pudding became particularly associated with Christmas, the dish and game morphed together. Thereafter serving the Christmas pudding doused with burning brandy or with a flaming brandy moat around it, from which one tried to pluck the flaming currants, became the 'traditional' practice and the associated snapdragon game had become firmly entrenched as an innocent Christmas parlour amusement, suitable even for children (along with the traditional choking hazard of putting small coins or teeth-cracking ceramic novelties in pudding mix! Oh, such larks we had then). In this sense snapdragon is mentioned in 1836 in Charles Dickens' 'The Pickwick Papers' (chapter 28) and in 1861 in Anthony Trollope's novel 'Orley Farm' (p.227). Lewis Carroll, in 'Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There' (1871) describes "A snap-dragon-fly. Its body is made of plum pudding, its wings of holly-leaves, and its head is a raisin burning in brandy."


John Tenniel's illustration of a 'snap-dragon-fly' from Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1871).

In his famous Royal Institution Christmas Lecture on 'The Chemical History of a Candle' (1860) Michael Faraday, explained that the raisins in snapdragon act like miniature wicks and so it is the brandy on the Christmas pudding that is burning, not the pudding or raisins, hence the raisins extinguish and cool almost immediately they are plucked from the brandy (nevertheless there was still the risk of singeing the eyebrows and fringes of incautious players). In this regard a snapdragon could be used to allude to something that appears to be fearsome but is not actually that dangerous at all: all show and no real substance as it were, such as in John Dryden's play 'The Duke of Guise' (1683):

I'll swear him guilty.
I swallow oaths as easy as snap-dragon,
Mock-fire that never burns.

So that's snapdragon ... unless, as is likely, there is indeed more to the story.

But are there any other traditional games, amusements and pastimes that are particular to Christmas and Yuletide?
I'm sure there are plenty.

Last year on Christmas morning with its 'lockdown' and with no visitors coming, Mrs V and I were twiddling our thumbs after breakfast and so decided to head down to the nearest beach to us which was just within the 'permitted travel radius'. Expecting to have the place to ourselves for a leisurely walk - we discovered it was quite the reverse. The beach was actually packed and even more so than it would ever be on a summer's day. It seems that everyone else had had the same idea. Not only that but there were not one, but several (mainly ladies') swimming clubs which had converged and were singing 'Jingle Bells' and similar such songs out in the water. Other people had lit barbecues and were grilling sausages etc. The customary greeting (and there were plenty of walkers to greet) was not so much "Good morning" but rather was "Merry Christmas!". All in all it was a wonderful atmosphere.

I was wondering, however, how early did the tradition of the Christmas morning swim, or the New Year's Day swim begin. I'm guessing the 1950s but it's probably a lot earlier than that.

The Brighton Swimming Club is thought to be the oldest swimming club in the UK having been in continuous and active existence since its formation in 1860 (the Maidstone Swimming Club was formed a decade earlier and though a club with that name still exists today, it lacks the same continuity of active membership from their earliest days).  

The Brighton Swimming Club was formed by a group of local tradesmen who decided to meet daily throughout the year, for a convivial early morning dip in the sea at Albion Beach. Albion Beach was then just outside of Brighton Corporation's control and so it was free from all their regulations about bathing only within strict hours and only from authorised bathing 'machines' (where one changed and was charged). As a consequence Albion Beach was also largely free from all injunctions about bathing completely naked (which apparently appealed to some of the club's members). The foreshore has changed quite a lot since the 19th century but what was then called Albion Beach is usually thought to be roughly where the Palace Pier would later be built and directly opposite what is now the Brighton Aquarium.

Anyway, some of the stalwart early members of the Brighton Swimmers Club are recorded as going into the sea everyday throughout the year - sea conditions permitting - and so their first Christmas Day swim was almost certainly in the early 1860s, not as a special event but just part of their usual daily activities. The club still regularly organizes a well-attended Christmas Day swim in the sea, although it was cancelled this year because of covid.

Here are some of the Brighton "Winter Bathers" photographed at 8:00am on 21st March 1891 - not Christmas Day but I doubt the sea was very much warmer close to the Spring Equinox than at around the Winter Solstice.