The Bean King, Jacob Jordaens, 1635-55

In medieval and Tudor England, “Twelfth Night, the evening before Epiphany (January 6 – when the biblical kings reached the newborn Christ Child), was a final frenzy of Christmas feasting, drinking and raucous merry making before the community returned to its daily working grind for the rest of the winter.

…. At the beginning of the Twelfth Night festival, a cake that contained a bean and perhaps a pea was eaten. The male who found the bean would rule the feast as a king. Midnight signaled the end of his rule, and the world would return to normal. The common theme was that the normal order of things was reversed. This Lord of Misrule tradition dates back to pre-Christian European festivals such as the Celtic festival of Samhain & the Ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia.”

Read more at It’s About Time.

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