Relics of the same thoughts crop out from a thousand Christmas songs and carols in every country of Europe, and in myriads of folk-songs and sayings in every language of the Continent.
And in those southern lands, where, even more than with us, religion and love are inseparable, the environment of the Christ-birth is transferred to the beloved of the human heart, and, as the Tuscans sing in their stornelli (415. 104):—
"Quando nascesti tu, nacque un bel flore;
La luna si fermò di camminare,
Le stelle si cambiaron di colore,"
in Mrs. Busk's translation:—
"Thy birth, Love, was the birth of a fair flower;
The moon her course arrested at that hour,
The stars were then arrayed in a new colour,"
so, in other lands, has the similitude of the Golden Age of Love and the Golden Time of Christmas been elaborated and adorned by all the genius of the nameless folk-poets of centuries past.
Folk-Lore of Christmas Tide.
Scottish folk-lore has it that Christ was born "at the hour of midnight on Christmas Eve," and that the miracle of turning water into wine was performed by Him at the same hour (246. 160). There is a belief current in some parts of Germany that "between eleven and twelve the night before Christmas water turns to wine"; in other districts, as at Bielefeld, it is on Christmas night that this change is thought to take place (462. IV. 1779).
This hour is also auspicious for many actions, and in some sections of Germany it was thought that if one would go to the cross-roads between eleven and twelve on Christmas Day, and listen, he "would hear what most concerns him in the coming year." Another belief is that "if one walks into the winter-corn on Holy Christmas Eve, he will hear all that will happen in the village that year."
Christmas Eve or Christmas is the time when the oracles of the folk are in the best working-order, especially the many processes by which maidens are wont to discover the colour of their lover's hair, the beauty of his face and form, his trade and occupation,—whether they shall marry or not, and the like. The same season is most auspicious for certain ceremonies and practices (transferred to it from the heathen antiquity) of the peasantry of Europe in relation to agriculture and allied industries. Among those noted by Grimm are the following:—