There is a very old tradition that all creation, and in particular the cattle, would kneel to pray or even talk on Christmas Eve. This European tradition was kept alive in the older parts of Canada such as Nova Scotia, where it was recorded as late as the 1960s:
“Cattle talk on Christmas Eve and if you listen you'll die right off. Nobody at Beech Hill would go and listen. Some who listened somewhere got sick and died.”
“Cattle kneel on their front feet at midnight on Christmas Eve. Somebody went to watch them one night and something happened and he died. You weren't supposed to watch them.”
“The oxen talk on Old Christmas [sixth of January] at twelve o'clock at night or say their prayers. If you listen you won't come back.”
“The oxen and all creeturs talk on Christmas Eve. One man got a pair of oxen from Western Shore but it belonged to a Dutchman and talked Dutch, so when he went out he heard them talking but they were talking Dutch [Deutsch] and he didn't know what they were saying.”
“Oxen kneel at Christmas. One time some men were coming home from town and down went the horse with his knees on the road. It was ten or eleven o'clock. Cattle and horses kneel.”
“It is known that oxen kneel at Christmas Eve at midnight, but not generally. It is thought the idea [legend] might have been brought here from Cape Breton.”
~Source: “Bluenose Magic,” by folklorist Helen Creighton, 1968.