Twelfth Night Tickets

Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night is an evening before the twelfth day of Christmas, which is considered to be the eve or coming of Epiphany, hence concluding the 12 day festivities of Christmas. Its holiday usually celebrate on the evening of 5th of January, which is followed by the Twelfth Day, the last day of Christmas Festivities. Although due to unawareness of people of modern times regarding that old custom, it is also celebrate on the even of Twelfth Day itself, assuming that the twelfth night is the night of twelfth day itself.

The Epiphany celebrations are usually celebrated by exchanging gifts, and are also known as the adoration of the Magi. And the twelfth night is considered to as significant as Christmas itself and is also called the eve or vigil of Epiphany.

Twelfth night in England was considered to be the end of Christmas and winter festivities that start on Halloween eve. On the beginning of the twelfth night, the twelfth cake containing a bean was eaten and who ever ate that bean would become the king of the feast till midnight and his rule would end, as the clock struck midnight. All in all, the main concept of all this is that the normal world would go upside down and by the end of the night every thing would come back to normal again.

Nowadays, celebrations of traditional events are mostly centered on the big feasts. A punch known as wassail is also a specialty of the twelfth night. In UK on twelfth night, special pastries and cakes are baked on twelfth night, which are eaten on the twelfth. On the twelfth night special cakes are baked with one bean and pea in them, and who ever eats that bean and pea becomes the queen and king of the feast for that night.

According to some believers Twelfth night is the night when all the Christmas decorations should be removed in order to protect the home from bad luck. During 1800's and 1900's the Christmas trees were decorated with fruits, since back then fresh fruits were hard to come by, hence then tree, wreaths and homes were decorated with them. And by the end of the celebrations that was the twelfth night; all those fruits along with other things were taken down and were eaten.

The tradition of twelfth night had a strong impact on literature as well. Shakespeare's play Twelfth night or What You Will, was performed for the first time in London at Middle Temple hall in 1602, during the celebrations of the twelfth night. The play also depicted few elements like woman voila dressing as a man and servant Malvolio becoming a noble man, which is reversed in the normal tradition of twelfth night.

The traditional Celebrations of Twelfth night were also seen in the sixth chapter of Harrison Ainsworth's novel Mervyn. In which the celebrations of twelfth night held at Tom Shakeshaft's barn, in which a hero is elected as the king as he consumed the bean in the cake and accompanied by Cissy who becomes the queen after consuming the Pea in the cake. Both the king and queen are then place on the high end of the corner where they can keep a look at all what's happening down there.

The novel also introduces a Fool Plough that is brought into the barn by mummers along with Old Bessie and fool dressed in animal skin and a hat, carrying wooden swords. Later that evening a fight breaks out due to the silly antics of the fool and the order is restored by the king Mervyn. And as soon as the clock struck 11 the boys kept an eye on girls as the went across the field on to the way to their homes.