For Christmas comes but once a year.”
So said good Thomas Tusser, many generations ago, and his words have echoed in the hearts of old and young, rich and poor, from his day up to this blessed Year of Our Lord, 1898. Let us thank God and take courage when we remember that the Power of Evil has no one Book to set off against the Bible, and no one day to match Christmas. It is one of the gladdest and fairest signs of the times that this merry holiday, so full of good-will to men, is drawing closer and closer to the heart of the nation. For this one season in the year, everybody is thinking of everybody else, instead of himself, and we join the wise men in their march across the desert, following the Star, until we, too, find ourselves upon our knees before the manger in which the young Child was.
It is among the nations of the North, the Germans, the Swedes, the Norwegians and the English, that the finest and deepest significance has been attached to this holy day. Among the German peasantry, especially, are found numerous home legends, beliefs and superstitions which even the nineteenth century, with its growth of science and liberal thought, has been unable to reach. Many of these customs and beliefs have never been told in any language save that of the country in which they took their rise; the folk-lore of the Teutonic nations is still a rich storehouse of treasures for the antiquarian, and for those who love Christmas for its own truest meaning, the day when Christ was born.
The concurrence of the winter solstice with Christmas gave rise in the earliest times to many of the tales of Norse mythology. In the summer the good gods, Woden and Freia, with thousands of friendly elves, brought flowers and fruits to cheer the heart of man. But as winter came on, and the days grew ever shorter and the dark nights longer, the evil spirits held the good gods, enchanted by their power, far up among the snowy mountains, and prevented the passage of pious souls to their rest. Then came storms, and awful things upon the earth. A many-headed monster roamed the village, seizing the children, throwing them into a sack, and devouring them at its leisure. Giants descended from the hills and robbed the lonely traveler. In Denmark a frightful creature covered with a hairy robe was wont to creep into houses after dark to steal the products of the harvest, and, if it found nothing, would utter maledictions and threats, showing at the same time from beneath its covering a black face and mouth full of fire.
As Christmas time draws near, and the sun turns northward once more, Woden issues forth upon a white horse, and, followed by howling packs of dogs, drives the evil spirits to their hiding-places in the mountains. Sometimes in his wild hunt he sweeps through a house and leaves behind him a dog, who crouches upon the hearth and stays there for one year, whining, moaning, feeding on ashes, and snapping at all who approach. On the next Christmas, Woden comes for him again, and the dog leaps through the chimney to rejoin the howling pack in the tree-tops.
To this day the Germans associate the coming of Christ with the return of the sun, and the approach of spring. One of their poets sings:
“The sun in winter is God in grief,
Is Christ who cometh to bring relief.
Beneath its blessed radiance, man