ve, calling them Chrysanthemums; and every year,
as the time came round, they put aside a portion of their feast and gave
it to some poor little child, according to the words of the Christ:
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren,
ye have done it unto me."

THE LEGEND OF THE CHRISTMAS ROSE

SELMA LAGERLOeF

Robber Mother, who lived in Robbers' Cave up in Goeinge forest, went down
to the village one day on a begging tour. Robber Father, who was an
outlawed man, did not dare to leave the forest, but had to content himself
with lying in wait for the wayfarers who ventured within its borders. But
at that time travellers were not very plentiful in Southern Skane. If it
so happened that the man had had a few weeks of ill luck with his hunt,
his wife would take to the road. She took with her five youngsters, and
each youngster wore a ragged leathern suit and birch-bark shoes and bore a
sack on his back as long as himself. When Robber Mother stepped inside the
door of a cabin, no one dared refuse to give her whatever she demanded;
for she was not above coming back the following night and setting fire to
the house if she had not been well received. Robber Mother and her brood
were worse than a pack of wolves, and many a man felt like running a spear
through them; but it was never done, because they all knew that the man
stayed up in the forest, and he would have known how to wreak vengeance if
anything had happened to the children or the old woman.

Now that Robber Mother went from house to house and begged, she came one
day to Oevid, which at that time was a cloister. She rang the bell of the
cloister gate and asked for food. The watchman let down a small wicket in
the gate and handed her six round bread cakes--one for herself and one for
each of the five children.

While the mother was standing quietly at the gate, her youngsters were
running about. And now one of them came and pulled at her skirt, as a
signal that he had discovered something which she ought to come and see,
and Robber Mother followed him promptly.

The entire cloister was surrounded by a high and strong wall, but the
youngster had managed to find a little back gate which stood ajar. When
Robber Mother got there, she pushed the gate open and walked inside
without asking leave, as it was her custom to do.

Oevid Cloister was managed at that time by Abbot Hans, who knew all about
herbs. Just within the cloister wall h