The celebration of St. Andrew’s day, also, has features similar to that of St. Nicholas’ day. On St. Andrew’s eve (November thirtieth), in the neighborhood of Reichenberg, children are said to hang up their stockings at the windows and in the evening find them filled with apples and nuts.[29] The explanation of the origin of these customs is to be found in practices long antedating the time of St. Martin or St. Nicholas or even of St. Andrew. They seem to be practices rooted in pre-Christian agricultural rites which have been superseded, or better expressed, have survived with new meanings read into them. With the introduction of Christianity, following the usual course of things, the older modes of celebration were changed not so much in form as in name. To St. Martin were devoted customs which coincided in time with the celebration in honor of St. Martin, customs originally associated with the first drinking of the new wine or with the autumn slaughter, a connection not entirely lost in our own times, as indicated by the “Martlemas beef” in Great Britain, the “St. Martin’s geese” and “St. Martin’s swine” in Germany. With the shifting of the agricultural practices to a later date, the customs came to be associated with the celebration of saints’ days later in the calendar. With St. Nicholas, on December sixth, became associated customs and practices earlier associated with St. Martin, on November eleventh, or with St. Andrew on November thirtieth, but in their true nature as little appropriate to one as to the other. There have been attempts to show points of connection between the Christian worship of St. Nicholas and the earlier worship of the Teutonic divinities. It has been attempted to connect the children’s bugaboo variously called Hansruhbart, Ruprecht, and Knecht Ruprecht, with Odin, largely through a connection between the name Ruprecht and one of the variety of names given Odin.[30] There has been pointed out also the parallelism between the “beste tabbaerd” of St. Nicholas sung about by children, and the magic robe which enabled Odin to pass from place to place; between the gray horse of St. Nicholas on which he rode over the roofs of houses, and Odin’s horse, Sleipnir, on which he took an autumn ride through the world; between the sheaf of grain in pagan days left in the field for Odin’s horse and the wisp of hay left by children in their shoes for their friend St. Nicholas. But too much stress must not be laid on these parallelisms. The customs associated with St. Nicholas in their origin doubtless antedate Christianity but also antedate the worship of Odin. Possibly the pre-Christian practices were influenced by their temporary association with the Teutonic gods as they afterwards were by the association with the Christian saints. But in both cases this influence was only superficial.