Some of the New Year observances are but prophetic by second intention, having been originally elements of cult. An example is afforded by the all-night table for the leaders of the dead, which, as has been pointed out, was regarded by the Fathers who condemned it as merely a device, with the festal banquet itself, to ensure carnal well-being. Another is the habit of giving presents. This, though widespread, is apparently of Italian and not Germano-Keltic origin[969]. It has gone through three phases. The original _strena_ played a part in the cult of the wood-goddess. It was a twig from a sacred tree and the channel of the divine influence upon the personality of him who held or wore it. The later _strena_ had clearly become an omen, as is shown by the tradition which required it to be honeyed or light-bearing or golden[970]. To-day even this notion may be said to have disappeared, and the Christmas-box or _étrenne_ is merely a token of goodwill, an amusement for children, or a blackmail levied by satellites. The number of minor omens by which the curiosity, chiefly of women, strives on the winter nights to get a peep into futurity is legion[971]. Many of them arise out of the ordinary incidents of the festivities, the baking of the Christmas cakes[972], the roasting of the nuts in the Hallow-e’en fire[973]. Some of them preserve ideas of extreme antiquity, as when a girl takes off her shift and sits naked in the belief that the vision of her future husband will restore it to her. Others are based upon the most naïve symbolism, as when the same girl pulls a stick out of the wood-pile to see if her husband will be straight or crooked[974]. But however diversified the methods, the objects of the omens are few and unvarying. What will be the weather and what his crops? How shall he fare in love and the begetting of children? What are his chances of escaping for yet another year the summons of the lord of shadows? Such are the simple questions to which the rustic claims from his gods an answer.