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According to Fowler ¹ The observance, back during antiquity, began on December 17 (the only day officially recognised as part of the festival) with a sacrifice and a feast. As a matter of popular practice, the festivities continued, and from our point of view, perhaps, became more interesting, and in many ways, reminiscent of the modern celebration of Christmas and Twelfth Night in the Roman Catholic tradition. Friends were called on, games were played, presents exchanged. Among the variety of gifts, were the traditional ones of candles (which the author connects with the "returning power of the sun" after the winter solistice) and sigillaria, which were little ceramic figures sold all over Rome in the days before the feast. In countries with a Latin tradition, a common custom, surviving to the present day in some places, and close to it in others, at this time of year, is the selling of little images, but rendered in pastry, or confectionery, instead of earthenware.

Most pleasing to us, was the respite, however brief, that this festival offered from the displeasing institution of slavery. Master and slave dealt with each other on a basis of equality, with the masters, during the festivals, waiting on their slaves. In our far gentler times, this practice survives in the long established tradition that on twelfth night, the lady of the house may not work, but is waited on by her family. It is a time when the usual expectations are set aside, though not forgotten, as children play at being parents, and parents at being children, in a spirit of good humor.

In the case of an ancient Hellenic Pagan setting, this practice had mythic significance, as it was believed that the Golden Age (a time when Cronus/Saturnus/Saturn ruled over the earth) was a time of peaceful prosperity, when men and gods took their meals in common (much as the slaves and their masters took their meals in common during the festival). However cruelly Cronus may have dealt with his children, the Olympians, he was extremely kind to his human followers. Hidden in the myth, it seems to us, was a thought that would have been revolutionary for its time - the notion that in a world that worked as it should, as in the Golden Age, conditions of equality would prevail.

In more recent times, one might say that the waiting on the mother, by her husband and children, was a token of their appreciation, for all of her efforts on their behalf during the year, as it still is. But as always, there is a serious meaning behind all of the fun. In playing the role of the other, including those parts of that role that the other may find onerous (the disproportionate share of the housework being done by the mother, the subservient position of the children), and making it a matter of honor and tradition that one do so, one is put in the position of thinking about that which the other may find oppressive, and the role one is playing in making it more so. In the year to come, this understanding may incline one toward a more considerate attitude.

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