told by a Wessex peasant. The idea is widespread
in England and on the Continent,{15} and has reached even the North
American Indians. Howison, in his "Sketches of Upper Canada," relates
that an Indian told him that "on Christmas night all deer kneel and look
up to Great Spirit."{16} A somewhat similar belief about bees was held
in the north of England: they were said to assemble on Christmas Eve and
hum a Christmas hymn.{17} Bees seem in folk-lore in general to be
specially near to humanity in their feelings.

It is a widespread idea that at midnight on Christmas Eve all water turns
to wine. A Guernsey woman once determined to test this; at midnight she
drew a bucket from the well. Then came a voice:--

"Toute l'eau se tourne en vin,
Et tu es proche de ta fin."

She fell down with a mortal disease, and died before the end of the year.
In Sark the superstition is that the water in streams and wells turns
into blood, and if you go to look you will die within the year.{18}

There is also a French belief that on Christmas Eve, while the genealogy
of Christ is being chanted at the Midnight Mass, hidden treasures are
revealed.{19} In Russia all sorts of buried treasures are supposed to be
revealed on the evenings between Christmas and the Epiphany, and on the
eves of these festivals the heavens are opened, and the waters of springs
and rivers turn into wine.{20}

Another instance of the supernatural character of the night is found in a
Breton story of a blacksmith who went on working after the sacring bell
had rung at the Midnight Mass. To him |235| came a tall, stooping man
with a scythe, who begged him to put in a nail. He did so; and the
visitor in return bade him send for a priest, for this work would be his
last. The figure disappeared, the blacksmith felt his limbs fail him, and
at cock-crow he died. He had mended the scythe of the _Ankou_--Death the
reaper.{21}

In the Scandinavian countries simple folk have a vivid sense of the
nearness of the supernatural on Christmas Eve. On Yule night no one
should go out, for he may meet uncanny beings of all kinds. In Sweden the
Trolls are believed to celebrate Christmas Eve with dancing and revelry.
"On the heaths witches and little Trolls ride, one on a wolf, another on
a broom or a shovel, to their assemblies, where they dance under their
stones.... In the mount are then to be heard mirth and music, dancing and
drinking. On Christmas morn, during the time between