_Cock-crow._
Why was it formerly supposed that cocks crowed all Christmas-eve?
Because the weather is then usually cloudy and dark (whence "the dark
days before Christmas,") and cocks, during such weather, often crow
nearly all day and all night. Shakspeare alludes to this superstition
in Hamlet--
Some say that even 'gainst that hallow'd season,
At which our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The Bird of Dawning croweth all night long.
The nights are wholesome, and no mildew falls;
No planet strikes, nor spirits walk abroad:
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So gracious and so hallowed is the time.
The ancient Christians divided the night into four watches, called the
evening, midnight, and two morning cock-crowings. Their connexion with
the belief in walking spirits will be remembered--
The cock crows, and the morn prows on,
When 'tis decreed I must be gone."--_Butler._
--The tale
Of horrid apparition, tall and ghastly,
That walks at dead of night, or takes his stand
O'er some new-open'd grave; and, strange to tell,
Evanishes at crowing of the cock--_Blair._
Who can ever forget the night-watches proclaimed by the cock in that
scene in Comus, where the two brothers, in search of their sister, are
benighted in a forest?--
--Might we but hear
The folded flocks, penned in their wattled cotes,
Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops,
Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock
Count the night-watches to his feathery dames,
'Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering,
In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs.
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