[The Yule log in the Vosges; the Yule log in Franche-Comte and Burgundy.]

On Christmas Eve the mountaineers of Rupt, in the Vosges, also never fail to put on the hearth the largest log which the hearth can hold; they call it la galeuche de Noe, that is, the Yule log.  Next morning they rake the ashes for any charred fragments and keep them as valuable talismans to guard them against the stroke of lightning.  At Vagney and other places near it in the Vosges it used to be customary on the same evening to grease the hinges and the latches of the doors, that no harsh grating sound should break the slumbers of the infant Christ.  In the Vosges Mountains, too, as indeed in many other places, cattle acquired the gift of speech on Christmas Eve and conversed with each other in the language of Christians.  Their conversation was, indeed, most instructive; for the future, it seems, had no secret worth mentioning for them.  Yet few people cared to be caught eavesdropping at the byre; wise folk contented themselves with setting a good store of fodder in the manger, then shut the door, and left the animals to their ruminations.  A farmer of Vecoux once hid in a corner of the byre to overhear the edifying talk of the beasts.  But it did him little good; for one ox said to another ox, “What shall we do to-morrow?” and the other replied, “We shall carry our master to the churchyard.”  Sure enough the farmer died that very night and was buried next morning.[653] In Franche-Comte, the province of France to the west of the Jura mountains, if the Yule log is really to protect a house against thunder and lightning, it is essential that it should burn during the midnight mass, and that the flame should not go out before the divine service is concluded.  Otherwise the log is quite useless for the purpose.[654] In Burgundy the log which is placed on the fire on Christmas Eve is called the suche.  While it is burning, the father of the family, assisted by his wife and children, sings Christmas carols; and when he has finished, he tells the smallest children to go into a corner of the room and pray God that the log may give them sweeties.  The prayer is invariably answered.[655]

[The Yule log and the Yule candle in England.]

In England the customs and beliefs concerning the Yule log, clog, or block, as it was variously called, used to be similar.  On the night of Christmas Eve, says the antiquary John Brand, “our ancestors were wont to light up candles of an uncommon size, called Christmas Candles, and lay a log of wood upon the fire, called a Yule-clog or Christmas-block, to illuminate the house, and, as it were, to turn night into day.  This custom is, in some measure, still kept up in the North of England.  In the buttery of St. John’s College, Oxford, an ancient candle-socket of stone still remains ornamented with the figure of the Holy Lamb.  It was formerly used to burn the Christmas Candle in, on the high table at supper,