Cows Kneeling on Christmas Morn.
In the upland parishes of Wales, particularly those in Montgomeryshire, it was said, and that not so long ago, that cows knelt at midnight on Christmas eve, to adore the infant Saviour. This has been affirmed by those who have witnessed the strange occurrence.
Cows bringing forth two calves are believed to bring luck to a farmer; but in some parts of Wales a contrary view is taken of this matter.
If the new born calf is seen by the mistress of the house with its head towards her, as she enters the cowhouse to view her new charge and property, it is a lucky omen, but should any other part of the calf present itself to the mistress’s view, it is a sign of bad luck.
Witches were thought to have great power over cows, and it was not unusual for farmers to think that their cows, if they did not thrive, had been bewitched.
Crickets.
It is lucky to have crickets in a house, and to kill one is sure to bring bad luck after it. If they are very numerous
in a house, it is a sign that peace and plenty reign there. The bakehouse in which their merry chirp is heard is the place to bake your bread, for it is a certain sign that the bread baked there will turn out well.
An aged female Welsh friend in Porthywaen told me that it is a sign of death for crickets to leave a house, and she proved her case by an apt illustration. She named all the parties concerned in the following tale:—“There were hundreds of crickets in . . . house; they were ‘sniving,’ swarming, all about the house, and were often to be seen outside the house, or at least heard, and some of them perched on the wicket to the garden; but all at once they left the place, and very soon afterwards the son died. The crickets, she said, knew that a death was about to take place, and they all left that house, going no one knew where.”
It was not thought right to look at the cricket, much less to hurt it. The warm fireplace, with its misplaced or displaced stones, was not to be repaired, lest the crickets should be disturbed, and forsake the place, and take with them good luck. They had, therefore, many snug, warm holes in and about the chimneys. Crickets are not so plentiful in Wales as they once were.