The Spanish show special kindness at this time to any ass or cow, believing that on Holy Night they breathed upon the Christchild to keep Him warm. Many other quaint old beliefs used to be common about how the animals act at Christmas time. From northern Canada comes the Indian saying that on the Holy Night the deer all kneel and look up to the Great Spirit, but that whoever spies upon them will have stiffness in his knees for all the year to come. In the German Alps it was believed that animals have the gift of speech on Christmas Eve, but that he who listens will surely hear them foretell some evil for the listener. Of a like belief Mr. Riis says that, when he was a boy:—
“All the animals knew perfectly well that the holiday had come, and kept it in their way. The watch-dog was unchained. In the midnight hour on the Holy Eve the cattle stood up in their stalls and bowed out of respect and reverence for Him who was laid in a manger when there was no room in the inn, and in that hour speech was given them, and they talked together. Claus, our neighbor’s man, had seen and heard it, and every Christmas Eve I meant fully to go and be there when it happened; but always long before that I had been led away to bed, a very sleepy boy, with all my toys hugged tight, and when I woke up the daylight shone through the frosted window-panes, and they were blowing good morning from the church tower; it would be a whole year before another Christmas. So I vowed, with a sigh at having neglected a really sacred observance, that I would be there sure on the next Christmas Eve. But it was always so, every year, and perhaps it was just as well, for Claus said that it might go ill with the one who listened, if the cows found him out.”
In the older parts of Montenegro, the head of the family and his shepherd boy still follow the quaint old custom of lighting the animals to their stalls on Christmas Eve. Each takes a lighted wax candle and they go together into every stall in turn, holding the candles for a moment in each of its corners. Then, at the stable door they take stand, one at each side of it, and hold their candles high while the little shepherdess drives the animals in. One by one, sheep, goats, and oxen, they pass between the flickering lights. After that, the shepherd boy and the little shepherdess kiss each other “that the cattle may live in peace and love,” they say.
Good King Wenceslas
Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about,
Deep, and crisp, and even.