not without its folk-lore, and there is
a Norwich rhyme to the following effect:[168]

"When three daws are seen on St. Peter's vane together,
Then we're sure to have bad weather."

In the north of England,[169] too, the flight of jackdaws down the
chimney is held to presage death.

[168] Swainson's "Weather-Lore," 1873, p. 240.

[169] Henderson's "Folk-Lore of Northern Counties," 1879, p. 48.

_Cock._ The beautiful notion which represents the cock as crowing all
night long on Christmas Eve, and by its vigilance dispelling every kind
of malignant spirit[170] and evil influence is graphically mentioned in
"Hamlet" (i. 1), where Marcellus, speaking of the ghost, says:

"It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long.
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time."

[170] See Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," p. 438.

In short, there is a complete prostration of the powers of darkness; and
thus, for the time being, mankind is said to be released from the
influence of all those evil forces which otherwise exert such sway. The
notion that spirits fly at cock-crow is very ancient, and is mentioned
by the Christian poet Prudentius, who flourished in the beginning of the
fourth century. There is also a hymn, said to have been composed by St.
Ambrose, and formerly used in the Salisbury Service, which so much
resembles the following speech of Horatio (i. 1), that one might almost
suppose Shakespeare had seen it:[171]

"The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine."

[171] See Ibid.

This disappearance of spirits at cock-crow is further alluded to (i.
2):[172]

"the morning cock crew loud,
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanished from our sight."

[172] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. ii. pp. 51-57;
Hampson's "Medii OEvi Kalendarium," vol. i. p. 84.

Blair, too, in his "Grave," has these graphic words: