Christmas Day (_La Nollaige mòire_) was said to lengthen _fad coisichean coilich_, a cock’s stride or walk, and the expression was explained to mean that the bird had time to walk to a neighbour’s dunghill, crow three times, and come back again. The same sayings are current in the Highlands as in the south. “A green Yule makes a fat kirkyard” has its literal counterpart in _’S i Nollaig uaine ni an cladh miagh_ (_i.e._ _reamhar_) and in _’S blianach Nollaig gun sneachda_ (_i.e._ Lean is Yule without snow). There is no reason to suppose that any Pagan rites connected with the period of the winter solstice were incorporated with the Yule or _Nollaig_ ceremonies. The various names connected with the season are of Christian origin; the superstitions, as that of refusing fire and allowing nothing out of the house, can be traced to Rome; the custom of a man dressing himself in a cow’s hide, as suggested by Brand (i. 8), with every probability, is a vestige of the Festival of Fools, long held in Paris on New-Year’s Day, and of which it was part that men clothed themselves in cow-hide (_vestiuntur pellibus pecudum_). The holding of a singed piece of skin to the noses of the wassailers is more likely to have originated in the frolics of the same festival than in any Pagan observance. The meaning of the custom is obscure, but its character is too whimsical to be associated with any Pagan rite. THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS. (_Da latha dheug na Nollaig._) These were the twelve days commencing from the Nativity or Big _Nollaig_, and were deemed to represent, in respect of weather, the twelve months of the year. Some say the days should be calculated from New-Year’s Day. “Whatever weather there is on the twelve days beginning with the last of December, the same will agree with the weather in the corresponding month” (Pennant). In Ireland the twelve days were held to stand for the twelve Apostles, and “on Twelve Eve in Christmas they used to set up as high as they can a sieve of oats, and in it a dozen of candles all round, and in the centre one larger, all lighted. This in memory of our Saviour and his Apostles, lights of the world” (Brand, i. 25). The same, no doubt, was the origin of the Highland notation. They are also looked upon as the twelve days between old and new style. There is evidence in the saying, that “an hour and a half is added to Candle Day” (_uair gu leth ri Latha Coinnle_), that some such custom was known of old in Scotland as in Ireland; and though Candle Night (_Oidhche Choinnle_) is now a name given to Christmas night, there is a probability it originally denoted Twelve Eve, or the Feast of the Epiphany. WINTER SEASON.