biscuits,
&c. In Berlin a great pile of biscuits heaped up on your plate is an
important part of the Christmas Eve supper. These of course are nowadays
mere luxuries, but they may well have had some sort of sacrificial
origin. An admirable and exhaustive study of Teutonic Christmas cakes and
biscuits has been made, with infinite pains, by an Austrian professor,
Dr. Hoefler, who reproduces some curious old biscuits, stamped with highly
artistic patterns, preserved in museums.{29}

Among unsophisticated German peasants there is a belief in magical powers
possessed by bread baked at Christmas, particularly when moistened by
Christmas dew. (This dew is held to be peculiarly sacred, perhaps on
account of the words "Rorate, coeli, |289| desuper" used at the Advent
Masses.) In Franconia such bread, thrown into a dangerous fire, stills
the flames; in the north of Germany, if put during the Twelve Days into
the fodder of the cattle, it makes them prolific and healthy throughout
the year.{30}

It is pleasant to note that animals are often specially cared for at
Christmas. Up till the early nineteenth century the cattle in Shropshire
were always better fed at Christmas than at other times, and Miss Burne
tells of an old gentleman in Cheshire who used then to give his poultry a
double portion of grain, for, he said, "all creation should rejoice at
Christmas, and the dumb creatures had no other manner of doing so."{31}
The saying reminds one of that lover of Christmas and the animals, St.
Francis of Assisi. It will be remembered how he wished that oxen and
asses should have extra corn and hay at Christmas, "for reverence of the
Son of God, whom on such a night the most Blessed Virgin Mary did lay
down in the stall betwixt the ox and the ass."{32} It was a gracious
thought, and no doubt with St. Francis, as with the old Cheshireman, it
was a purely Christian one; very possibly, however, the original object
of such attention to the dumb creatures was to bring to the animals, by
means of the corn, the influence of the spirit of fertility.

In Silesia on Christmas night all the beasts are given wheat to make them
thrive, and it is believed that if wheat be kept in the pocket during the
Christmas service and then given to fowls, it will make them grow fat and
lay many eggs.{33} In Sweden on Christmas Eve the cattle are given the
best forage the house can afford, and afterwards a mess of all the viands
of which their masters have partak