n and earth deities in the spring. The May-pole,
probably imported from Celtic countries, is used at Midsummer
because the spring does not begin in the north before June.

Yule-tide in December celebrated the sun's turning back, and was
marked by banquets and gayety. A chief feature of all these feasts
was the drinking of toasts to the gods, with vows and prayers.

By the sixth century Christianity had supplanted Druidism in the
British Isles. It was the ninth before Christianity made much
progress in Scandinavia. After King Olaf had converted his nation,
the toasts which had been drunk to the pagan gods were kept in
honor of Christian saints; for instance, those to Freya were now
drunk to the Virgin Mary or to St. Gertrude.

The "wetting of the sark-sleeve," that custom of Scotland and
Ireland, was in its earliest form a rite to Freya as the northern
goddess of love. To secure her aid in a love-affair, a maid would
wash in a running stream a piece of fine linen--for Freya was fond
of personal adornment--and would hang it before the fire to dry an
hour before midnight. At half-past eleven she must turn it, and at
twelve her lover's apparition would appear to her, coming in at the
half-open door.

"The wind howled through the leafless boughs, and there was every
appearance of an early and severe winter, as indeed befell. Long
before eleven o'clock all was hushed and quiet within the house,
and indeed without (nothing was heard), except the cold wind
which howled mournfully in gusts. The house was an old farmhouse,
and we sat in the large kitchen with its stone floor, awaiting
the first stroke of the eleventh hour. It struck at last, and
then all pale and trembling we hung the garment before the fire
which we had piled up with wood, and set the door ajar, for that
was an essential point. The door was lofty and opened upon the
farmyard, through which there was a kind of thoroughfare, very
seldom used, it is true, and at each end of it there was a gate
by which wayfarers occasionally passed to shorten the way. There
we sat without speaking a word, shivering with cold and fear,
listening to the clock which went slowly, tick, tick, and
occasionally starting as the door creaked on its hinges, or a
half-burnt billet fell upon the hearth. My sister was ghastly
white, as white as the garment which was drying before the fire.
And now half an hour had elapsed and it was time to turn.... Th