The Brothers Grimm, Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859) were indefatigable students of the German language and mythology, producing monumental works on linguistics and folklore. Among the numberless myths, stories, and sayings they collected were dozens of folk beliefs about Christmas and the Twelve Days. Here are some, mostly involving predictions of one kind or another.
When a maid wants to know if she shall keep her place, let her on Christmas Eve turn her back to the door, and fling the shoe off her foot over her head: if the tip of the shoe is towards the door, she’ll have to go; if the heel, she will stay.
He that is born at sermon-time on a Christmas morning, can see spirits.
To find out if she’ll get husband during the year, let the damsel knock at the hen-house on Christmas-eve or at midnight: if the cock cackles, she’ll get one; if the hen, she won’t.
On Christmas-eve the girls of Saalfeld sit up from 11 to 12. To find out if they shall get married the next year, they strip themselves naked, stick their heads into the copper, and watch the water hissing. If that does not answer, they take a broom and sweep the room backwards, and see the future lover sitting in a corner: if they hear the crack of a whip, he is a waggoner, if the sound of a pipe, a shepherd. Some rush out of doors naked, and call the lover; others go to a cross-road, and call out his name.
Tying wet strawbands round the orchard-trees on Christmas Eve makes them fruitful.
In the Twelve-nights neither master nor man may bring fresh blackened shoes into the stable; else the cattle get bewitched.
A hoop coming off a cask on Christmas Eve shows that some one in the house will die that year.
If from the fires of the three holy eves (before Christmas, New Year and High New Year [Epiphany]) glowing embers be left the next morning, you’ll want for nothing all that year.
He who walks into the winter corn on Holy Christmas-eve, hears all that will happen in the village that year.