Night were put in the corn-bin to keep the mice from devouring the corn.[636] At Weidenhausen and Girkshausen, in Westphalia, the practice was to withdraw the Yule log (_Christbrand_) from the fire so soon as it was slightly charred; it was then kept carefully to be replaced on the fire whenever a thunder-storm broke, because the people believed that lightning would not strike a house in which the Yule log was smouldering.[637] In some villages near Berleburg in Westphalia the old custom was to tie up the Yule log in the last sheaf cut at harvest.[638] On Christmas Eve the peasantry of the Oberland, in Meiningen, a province of Central Germany, used to put a great block of wood called the _Christklots_ on the fire before they went to bed; it should burn all night, and the charred remains were believed to guard the house for the whole year against the risk of fire, burglary, and other misfortunes.[639] The Yule log seems to be known only in the French-speaking parts of Switzerland, where it goes by the usual French name of _Bûche de Noël_. In the Jura mountains of the canton of Bern, while the log is burning on the hearth the people sing a blessing over it as follows:-- "_May the log burn! May all good come in! May the women have children And the sheep lambs! White bread for every one And the vat full of wine_!" The embers of the Yule log were kept carefully, for they were believed to be a protection against lightning.[640] [The Yule log in Belgium.] "The Christmas fires, which were formerly lit everywhere in the Low Countries, have fallen into disuse. But in Flanders a great log of wood, called the _kersavondblok_ and usually cut from the roots of a fir or a beech, is still put on the fire; all the lights in the house are extinguished, and the whole family gathers round the log to spend part of the night in singing, in telling stories, especially about ghosts, were-wolves, and so on, and also in drinking gin. At Grammont and in the neighbourhood of that town, where the Yule log is called _Kersmismot_, it is customary to set fire to the remainder of the gin at the moment when the log is reduced to ashes. Elsewhere a piece of the log is kept and put under the bed to protect the house against thunder and lightning. The charcoal of the log which burned during Christmas Night, if pounded up and mixed with water, is a cure for consumption. In the country of Limburg the log burns several nights, and the pounded charcoal is kept as a preventive (so they say), of toothache."[641] [The Yule log in France.] In several provinces of France, and particularly in Provence, the custom of the Yule log or _tréfoir_, as it was called in many places, was long observed. A French writer of the seventeenth century tells us that on Christmas Eve the log was prepared, and when the whole family had assembled in the kitchen or parlour of the house, they went and brought it in, walking in procession and singing Provençal verses to the following effect:--