on and
each bringing his fagot for the lighting of the Yule log, which
burns on Christmas Eve.

Nor does it matter to us now from what tree that log is cut,
though once it did. The ancient Aryans who were forefathers of us
all lived very near to nature and all their thought was built upon
her moods. Our Christmas tree with its lighted candles and its
glow of tinsel ornaments is but a tiny image of their sun tree,
which began to grow with the first lengthening of the days. They
imaged in this dawning light a pillar of fire like a tree trunk
that grew and spread over the heavens, bringing through spring all
the beneficient gifts of summer. The rays were twigs, the glowing
clouds foliage, and the sun, moon and stars golden fruit that hung
from these celestial branches. Out of this as the race grew came
also many another romantic symbolism of cherished belief. Among
the glowing sunset clouds was hung the golden fleece of the
Cholchis. The golden apples of the Hesperides grew there. The very
lightning flash was but a celestial mistletoe growing mysteriously
upon the limbs of this flame tree as it grows on the oaks in the
forests beneath which they hunted. Secure in our better beliefs,
we call their worship superstition, but it is well that they had
it. It was the groping expression of imagination without which we
are no better than the beasts and would never find the really
spiritual for which we still seek.

The most perfect descendant of this sun tree was the world-ash of
the Scandinavian mythology, the "Yggsdrasil" of the Edda, in which
it is described, with the many mystic rites which grew up about
its worship. Hence in Western Europe the proper Yule log was the
trunk of an ash tree bound with as many green hazel withes as
possible, the hazel being also a sacred tree with these people. As
late as thirty years ago, and I doubt not still, the Yule log was
thus put to burn on Christmas Eve in many an English fireplace.
There some part of it was to be kept smouldering, however low the
fire might get, and the blaze of the next day was to be relighted
from it for the twelve days of Christmas. Moreover, from a portion
of this log should be relighted the Yule fire of the next year,
that its magic might be perpetual and thus all evil spirits be
warded from the house. Not a bad superstition this, the brand
standing as a constant reminder of the spirit of peace and good
will lighted in the Christmas fire, not to be forgotten ti