Such fancies are but the natural echoes in the popular mind of ancient songs and customs; and so strongly is that mind impressed with the feeling of a triumph pervading the entire natural economy on "the happy night That to the cottage as the crown, Brought tidings of salvation down," that even the torpid bees are figured in its superstitions to utter a voice of gladness, the music of sweet chimes to issue from the bosom of the earth, and rich harmonies to echo and high ceremonies to be gorgeously performed, amid the hush and mystery of buried cells. We must not omit to mention that these supposed natural testimonies to the triumph of the time have been in some places used as means of divination on a very curious question. The change of style introduced into our calendars nearly a century ago, and by which Christmas Day was displaced from its ancient position therein, gave great dissatisfaction on many accounts, and on none more than that of its interference with this ancient festival. The fifth and sixth of January continued long to be observed as the true anniversary of the Nativity and its vigil; and the kneeling of the cattle, the humming of the bees, and the ringing of subterranean bells, were anxiously watched for authentications on this subject. The singular fact of the budding about the period of old Christmas Day of the Cadenham oak, in the New Forest of Hampshire, and the same remarkable feature of the Glastonbury thorn (explained in various ways, but probably nowhere more satisfactorily than in the number for the 31st December, 1833, of the Saturday Magazine), were of course used by the vulgar as confirmation of their own tradition; and the putting forth of their leaves was earnestly waited for as an unquestionable homage to the joyous spirit of the true period. We have already alluded to the high ceremonies with which the great day is ushered in amongst the Catholics, and to the beautiful music of the midnight mass:-- "That only night of all the year Saw the stoled priest his chalice rear." The reader who would have a very graphic and striking account of the Christmas Eve mass, as performed by torchlight amid the hills in certain districts of Ireland, will find one in Mr. Carleton's "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry."