[10] EDITOR’S NOTE.--In _Contes Populaires, Préjugés, Patois, Proverbes, etc., de l’arrondissement de Bayeux_, par M. Pluquet; seconde édition, 1834, it is said: “During the eight days before Christmas (Les Avents de Noël) apparitions are most frequent, and sorcerers have most power.”
[11] EDITOR’S NOTE.--This belief also prevails in Normandy, for M. Du Bois says:--“Les paysans sont persuadés que, la veille de Noël, à l’heure du sacrement de la messe de minuit, tous les bestiaux, et surtout les bœufs et les vaches, mettent un genou en terre pour rendre hommage à Jésus naissant. Il serait imprudent, disent-ils, de chercher à s’assurer de ce fait par soi-même; on courrait le risque d’être battu.”--_Recherches sur la Normandie_, Du Bois, 1843, p. 343. And in the centre of France and Berry:--“On assure qu’au moment où le prêtre élève l’hostie, pendant la messe de minuit, tous les animaux de la paroisse s’agenouillent et prient devant leurs crèches.”--_Croyances et Légendes du Centre de la France_, par Laisnel de la Salle, Tome 1er, p. 17.
[12] EDITOR’S NOTE.--In Sark the superstition is that the water in the streams and wells turns into blood at midnight on Christmas Eve, and they also tell you that if you go and look you die within the year. One Sark man said that he was determined to go to the well and draw water at midnight, come what might. So on Christmas Eve he sallied forth to reach the well in his back yard; as he crossed the threshold he tripped and hit his head against the lintel of the door, and was picked up unconscious the next morning. Most people would have taken this as a warning and desisted, but he was obstinate, and the following Christmas Eve he left the house at midnight as before, but as he approached the well he heard a voice saying:--
Then at last he was frightened, and rushed back into the house, and never again did he attempt to pry into forbidden mysteries.--From Mrs. Le Messurier, of Sark.
[13] EDITOR’S NOTE.--Hence the country people’s term for the effigy of Guy Fawkes on the 5th of November “le vieux bout de l’an.”
“Oguinâni! Oguinâno! Ope thy purse, and shut it then.”
There has been much discussion as to the derivation of “oguinâne,” from which the Scottish “hogmanay” also comes. Mr. Métivier, in his dictionary, says that it means the annual present of a master to his servants, of a seigneur to his vassals, of a father to his children, and derives it from “_agenhine feoh_” or “_hogenehyne fee_” the present made, or money given, to those who belong to you--a word composed of “agen” one’s own--as the English _own_, and “hind” servant, one of the family. And he laughs at the theory propounded by various French and English folklorists that it is derived from the rites of the Druids, and comes from their ancient cry “Au guy l’an neuf”--“the mistletoe (gui) of the New Year”--New Year’s Day being the day the pagans went into the forests to seek the mistletoe on the oaks. (See _Notes and Queries_. Series III. Vol. IV. p. 486.) In the _Star_ of March 14th, 1831, Mr. Métivier tells us that “as late as the reign of Louis XIV. it was usual for the populace round Morlaix to chant a variety of bacchanalian songs on the last eve of the year, and the chorus or _refrain_ of every stanza was precisely what I should never have fancied it to be--our