The elm is a kind and goodly tree,
With its branches bending low:
The heart is glad when its form we see,
And we list to the river's flow.
Ay, the heart is glad and the pulses bound,
And joy illumes the face,
Whenever a goodly elm is found
Because of its beauty and grace.
But kinder, I ween, more goodly in mien,
With branches more drooping and free,
The tint of whose leaves fidelity weaves,
Is the beautiful Christmas tree.

--_Hattie S. Russell._

CHAPTER IV.

[Illustration]

YULE-TIDE IN SCANDINAVIA

The horn was blown for silence, come was the votive hour;
To Frey's high feast devoted they carry in the boar.

--_Frithof's "Saga," Trans. Bayard Taylor._

"To Norroway, to Norroway," the most northern limit of Scandinavia,
one turns for the first observance of Christmas in Scandinavia, for
the keeping of Yule-tide in the land of Odin, of the Vikings, Sagas,
midnight sun, and the gorgeous Aurora Borealis. This one of the twin
countries stretching far to the north with habitations within nineteen
degrees of the North Pole, and the several countries which formed
ancient Scandinavia, are one in spirit regarding Christmas although
not in many other respects.

In the far north among the vast tribe of Lapps, in their cold,
benighted country, as Christmas approaches each wandering tribe heads
its reindeer toward the nearest settlement containing a church, that
it may listen to the story of the first Christmas morn which is told
year after year by the pastor, and yet is ever new and interesting to
the people who come from great distances, drawn over the fields of
crisp snow by their fleet-footed reindeer.

The Lapp is apparently a joyless individual. Men, women, and children
seem bereft of all power of amusement beyond what tends to keep them
alive, such as fishing, hunting, and traveling about to feed their
herds of reindeer. They have no games, no gift for music, they never
dance nor play cards, but year after year drag out an existence,
living within low earth-covered huts or in tents. Even the best homes
are low and poorly ventilated. For windows are not needed where
darkness reigns for months together, where the sun is not seen at all
during six or seven weeks of the year, and where people live
out-of-doors during the long summer day of sunlight that follows.

In their low, stuffy homes which at Christmas are filled with guests
from the wa