(a) A warm Christmas, a cold Easter.
(b) A green Christmas, a white Easter.
(c) Christmas in snow, Easter in wind.
(d) Christmas wet, empty granary and barrel.
(e) If there is wind on Christmas Day, there will be much fruit the
following year.
(f) Snow at Christmas brings a good hay crop next year.
(g) If Christmas falls on a Sunday, there is good luck in store for
all of us.
(h) A child that's born on Christmas Day, is fair, and wise, and good,
and gay.
(i) Carols out of season, sorrow without reason.
(j) If Christmas Day on Thursday be,
A windy winter ye shall see:
Windy weather in each week,
And hard tempest, strong and thick.
The summer shall be good and dry,
Corn and beasts will multiply.
(k) Light Christmas, light wheatsheaf. ("Light" here refers to the
full moon.)
(l) There is a firm belief that to leave Christmas decorations hanging
beyond Twelfth-Night is to bring ill-luck to everybody in the house.
_HOLY INNOCENTS' DAY._--December 28th was formerly reckoned as the most
unlucky day of the whole year, and few had the temerity to begin any
work or start any new undertaking then.
_HOGMANAY._--In Scotland, the night of December 31st is known as
Hogmanay. Then the fire is "rested," and on no account is it allowed
to go out on the hearth, nor is the house swept, nor ashes nor water
"thrown out," in case all the luck should be swept out. "Dirt bodes
luck." It is lucky to give away food or money, to break a drinking
glass accidentally, for a girl to see a man from her window on New
Year's morning, and the birth of a child brings good luck to the entire
family.