Ah, 24 December — and you know what that means, don’t you? Yes, of course: at midnight, cattle across the land will kneel down in their stalls and groan in memory of Jesus.
Apparently, this used to be a widely believed bit of folklore, and John Brand’s Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain says someone in Cornwall once tested it (even if Brand had to suppress his mirth).
This is quoted in Steve Roud’s The English Year, a round-up of customs, festivals and folklore “from May Day to Mischief Night”, and he writes that Brand suggested the idea came from popular prints of the Nativity.
Perhaps the best bit about this story, though, is that Bentley’s magazine in 1847 suggested that cattle could not only contemplate the eternal, they were also aware of the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.
The kneeling of cattle is not the only Christmas tale Roud debunks, although I must say I found the dismissal of this one a little disappointing:
