There was a superstition in Scotland against spinning or ploughing on Christmas; but the Calvinistic clergy, in contempt for all such superstitions, compelled their wives and daughters to spin, and their tenants to plough, on that day. It is a popular notion to the present time in Devonshire that if the sun shines bright at noon on Christmas day, there will be a plentiful crop of apples the following year. Bees were thought to sing in their hives on Christmas eve, and it was believed that bread baked then would never mould. So prevalent was the idea that all nature unites in celebrating the great event of Christ's birth, that it was a well received opinion in some sections of the old world that the cattle fell on their knees at midnight on Christmas eve. RIDICULOUS SUPERSTITIONS. "Merlin! Merlin! turn again; Leave the oak-branch where it grew. Seek no more the cress to gain, Nor the herb of golden hue." Merlin, the reputed great enchanter, flourished in Britain about the fifth century. He is said to have resided in great pomp at the court of "Good King Arthur." You all know the beautiful rhyme about the latter, if not about "Merlin! Merlin!" etc. "When good King Arthur ruled the land,-- He was a goodly king,-- He stole three pecks of barley-meal To make a bag pudding." Sublime poetry! Easy mode of obtaining the barley-meal (or Scotch territory). Merlin attached many superstitious beliefs to some of our medicinal plants. The "cress" is supposed to be the mistletoe. "The herb of gold"--golden herb--was a rare plant, held in great esteem by the peasant women of Brittany, who affirmed that it shone like gold at a distance. It must be gathered by or before daybreak. The most ridiculous part of the affair was in the searching for the "herb of golden hue." None but devout females, blessed by the priests for the occasion, were permitted the great privilege of gathering it. In order to be successful in the search, the privileged person started before daylight, barefooted, bareheaded, and _en chemise_. (Of course the priest knew the individual, and when she was going.) The root must not be cut or broken, but pulled up entire. If any one trod upon the plant, he or she would fall into a trance, when they could understand the language of fowls and animals--a belief not half as ridiculous as that of the present day, that a person may fall into a trance, and understand the language of the dead; yes, dead and decayed, the organs of speech gone! Yet thousands believe such stuff to-day. _The Mandrake._--Great superstition was formerly attached to this root, and even now is, in some rural districts. The root often resembles the lower half of a human being, and it was credulously believed it would shriek and groan when pulled from its mother earth. This notion is expressed in Romeo and Juliet:-- "Mandrakes, torn out of the earth, That mortals, hearing them, run mad." Again, in Henry VI.:--