There was a superstition in Scotland against spinning or ploughing on
Christmas; but the Calvinistic clergy, in contempt for all such
superstitions, compelled their wives and daughters to spin, and their
tenants to plough, on that day.
It is a popular notion to the present time in Devonshire that if the sun
shines bright at noon on Christmas day, there will be a plentiful crop of
apples the following year.
Bees were thought to sing in their hives on Christmas eve, and it was
believed that bread baked then would never mould.
So prevalent was the idea that all nature unites in celebrating the great
event of Christ's birth, that it was a well received opinion in some
sections of the old world that the cattle fell on their knees at midnight
on Christmas eve.