ness upon the snow. Then the
travellers passed a larger group of dwellings, all silent and
unlighted; and beyond, they saw a great house, with many
outbuildings and enclosed courtyards, from which the hounds bayed
furiously, and a noise of stamping horses came from the stalls.
But there was no other sound of life. The fields around lay bare
to the moon. They saw no man, except that once, on a path that
skirted the farther edge of a meadow, three dark figures passed
by, running very swiftly.

Then the road plunged again into a dense thicket, traversed it,
and climbing to the left, emerged suddenly upon a glade, round and
level except at the northern side, where a swelling hillock was
crowned with a huge oak-tree. It towered above the heath, a giant
with contorted arms, beckoning to the host of lesser trees.
"Here," cried Winfried, as his eyes flashed and his hand lifted
his heavy staff, "here is the Thunder-oak; and here the cross of
Christ shall break the hammer of the false god Thor."

[Illustration--The sacred hammer of the god Thor]

III

THE SHADOW OF THE THUNDER-OAK

III

Withered leaves still clung to the branches of the oak: torn and
faded banners of the departed summer. The bright crimson of autumn
had long since disappeared, bleached away by the storms and the
cold. But to-night these tattered remnants of glory were red
again: ancient bloodstains against the dark-blue sky. For an
immense fire had been kindled in front of the tree. Tongues of
ruddy flame, fountains of ruby sparks, ascended through the
spreading limbs and flung a fierce illumination upward and around.
ward and around. The pale, pure moonlight that bathed the
surrounding forests was quenched and eclipsed here. Not a beam of
it sifted down-ward through the branches of the oak. It stood like
a pillar of cloud between the still light of heaven and the
crackling, flashing fire of earth.

But the fire itself was invisible to Winfried and his companions.
A great throng of people were gathered around it in a half-circle,
their backs to the open glade, their faces towards the oak. Seen
against that glowing background, it was but the silhouette of a
crowd, vague, black, formless, mysterious.

The travellers paused for a moment at the edge of the thicket, and
took counsel together.

"It is the assembly of the tribe," said one of the foresters, "the
great night of the council. I heard of it three days ago, as we
passed through one of the