ison de Noel_ is burnt every evening
during the Thirteen Nights. If put under the bed its charcoal protects
the house all the year round from lightning; contact with it preserves
people from chilblains and animals from various diseases; mixed with
fodder it makes cows calve; its brands thrown into the soil keep the corn
healthy. In Perigord the portion which has not been burnt is used to form
part of a plough, and is believed to make the seed prosper; women also
keep some fragments until Epiphany that their poultry may thrive.{13} In
|256| Brittany the _tison_ is a protection against lightning and its
ashes are put in wells to keep the water good.{14}

In northern Italy also the _ceppo_ or log is (or was) known--the
Piedmontese call it _suc_--and in Tuscany Christmas is called after it
_Festa di Ceppo_. In the Val di Chiana on Christmas Eve the family
gathers, a great log is set on the fire, the children are blindfolded and
have to beat it with tongs, and an _Ave Maria del Ceppo_ is sung.{15}
Under the name in Lombardy of _zocco_, in Tuscany of _ciocco_, _di
Natale_, the Yule log was in olden times common in Italian cities; the
custom can there be traced back to the eleventh century. A little book
probably printed in Milan at the end of the fifteenth century gives
minute particulars of the ritual observed, and we learn that on Christmas
Eve the father, or the head of the household, used to call all the family
together and with great devotion, in the name of the Holy Trinity, take
the log and place it on the fire. Juniper was put under it, and on the
top money was placed, afterwards to be given to the servants. Wine in
abundance was poured three times on the fire when the head of the house
had drunk and given drink to all present. It was an old Italian custom to
preserve the ashes of the _zocco_ as a protection against hail. A modern
superstition is to keep some splinters of the wood and burn them in the
fires made for the benefit of silkworms; so burnt, they are supposed to
keep ills away from the creatures.{16}

In many parts of Germany Yule log customs can be traced. In Hesse and
Westphalia, for instance, it was the custom on Christmas Eve or Day to
lay a large block of wood on the fire and, as soon as it was charred a
little, to take it off and preserve it. When a storm threatened, it was
kindled again as a protection against lightning. It was called the
_Christbrand_.{17} In Thuringia a _Christklotz_ (Christ log) is