sweet, gentle voice was heard saying, "Blossoms you shall have,
little heather. You shall have many and many a flower, because you have
loved the lonely mountain, and have done all that you could to please
him and make him happy." Even before the sweet voice was still, the
little heather was bright with many blossoms, and blossoms she has had
from that day to this.

HOW FLAX WAS GIVEN TO MEN.

"You have been on the mountain a long time," said the wife of the
hunter.

"Yes, wife, and I have seen the most marvelous sight in all the world,"
replied the hunter.

"What was that?"

"I came to a place on the mountain where I had been many and many a time
before, but a great hole had been made in the rock, and through the hole
I saw--oh, wife, it was indeed a wonderful sight!"

"But what was it, my hunter?"

"There was a great hall, all shining and sparkling with precious
stones. There were diamonds and pearls and emeralds, more than we could
put into our little house, and among all the beautiful colors sat a
woman who was fairer than they. Her maidens were around her, and the
hall was as bright with their beauty as it was with the stones. One was
playing on a harp, one was singing, and others were dancing as lightly
and merrily as a sunbeam on a blossom. The woman was even more beautiful
than the maidens, and, wife, as soon as I saw her I thought that she was
no mortal woman."

"Did you not fall on your knees and ask her to be good to us?"

"Yes, wife, and straightway she said: 'Rise, my friend. I have a gift
for you. Choose what you will to carry to your wife as a gift from
Holda.'"

"Did you choose pearls or diamonds?"

"I looked about the place, and it was all so sparkling that I closed my
eyes. 'Choose your gift,' she said. I looked into her face, and then I
knew that it was indeed the goddess Holda, queen of the sky. When I
looked at her, I could not think of precious stones, for her eyes were
more sparkling than diamonds, and I said: 'O goddess Holda, there is no
gift in all your magic hall that I would so gladly bear away to my home
as the little blue flower in your lily-white hand.'"

"Well!" cried the wife, "and when you might have had half the pearls and
emeralds in the place, you chose a little faded blue flower! I did think
you were a wiser man."

"The goddess said I had chosen well," said the hunter. "She gave me the
flower and the seed of it, and she said, 'When the springtime comes,
pl