30fi OF METEOROLOGICAL CHAP. 10. 1. 



mas, the celebration of which festival, by feasting 

 and joy, the Wassail Bowl, the Yule Clog, and the 

 merry Carrol, have many meteorological allu- 

 sions ; and though now used at the Anniversary 

 of the Nativity, were derived from the Pagan 

 rites of the Bacchanalia, to which origin the Ivy, 

 Holly, Mistletoe, and other evergreen decorations 

 of Churches and Houses afford an easy clue. 



Cocks were said, at this season, to crow all 

 night long, instead of keeping their wanted 

 nightwatches. This notion had its origin in the 

 popular belief, that the sound of the cock- 

 crowing had the power of driving away ghosts, 

 daemons, and other hideous creatures of the 

 imagination, usually believed to walk about by 

 night. Then these birds, by their perpetual 

 vigilance on Christmas Eve, freed the country 

 of evil spirits against the Feast of the Nativity. 

 Prudentius, in a poem written early in the 

 fourth century, observes : 



" Ferunt vagantes daemonus, 

 Laetos tenebris noctium, 

 Gallo canente exterritos, 

 Sparsim timere et credere. 



Invisa nam vicinitas 

 Lucis salutis numinis, 

 Rupto tenebrarum situ, 

 Noctis fugat satellites. 



