Copyright, 1916 By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. — Alfred Tennyson....

Thanks are due to the following publishers for permission to reprint poems: Houghton Mifflin Company for "King Olaf's Christmas" by H. W. Longfellow, "Night of Marvels" by Violante Do Ceo; Paul Elder & Company for "The Christmas Tree" by H. S. Russell, "At Christmas Time"; Edgar S. Werner & Company for "The Christmas Sheaf" by Mrs. A. M. Tomlinson; John Lane Company for "A Palm Branch from Palestine" by M. Y. Lermontov; American Ecclesiastical Review for "The Eve of Christmas" by

As early as two thousand years before Christ Yule-tide was celebrated by the Aryans. They were sun-worshipers and believed the sun was born each morn ing, rode across the upper world, and sank into his grave at night. Day after day, as the sun's power diminished, these primitive people feared that he would eventually be overcome by darkness and forced to remain in the under world. When, therefore, after many months, he apparently wheeled about and grew stronger and stronger, they felt that he ha

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow....

— Old Carol. No country has entered more heartily into Yule-tide observance than England. From the earliest known date her people have celebrated this festival with great ceremony. In the time of the Celts it was principally a religious observance, but this big, broad-shouldered race added mirth to it, too. They came to the festivities in robes made from the skins of brindled cows, and wearing their long hair flowing and entwined with holly. The Druids in the temples kept the consecrated fires b

— E. Matheson....

— Goethe. It was away back in the time of Alexander the Great that Germany was made known to the civilized world by an adventurous sailor named Pytheas, a man of more than ordinary talent, who was sailing northward and discovered a land inhabited by a then unknown people. He reported his discovery to the Romans, but the difficulty was that Pytheas had seen so much more than any of the Greeks or Romans of those days that they utterly refused to believe his statements. Time has proved that the sai

— Hattie S. Russell....

— Frithof's "Saga," Trans. Bayard Taylor. "To Norroway, to Norroway," the most northern limit of Scandinavia, one turns for the first observance of Christmas in Scandinavia, for the keeping of Yule -tide in the land of Odin, of the Vikings, Sagas, midnight sun, and the gorgeous Aurora Borealis. This one of the twin countries stretching far to the north with habitations within nineteen degrees of the North Pole, and the several countries which formed ancient Scandinavia, are one in spirit regardi

— Mrs. A. M. Tomlinson....

— Shenshin. In this enormous kingdom which covers one-sixth of the land surface of the globe, and where upwards of fifteen mil lion human beings celebrate in various ways the great winter festival of Yule-tide, it will be found that the people retain many traditions of the sun-worshipers, which shows that the season was once observed in honor of the renewal of the sun's power. With them, however, the sun was supposed to be a female , who, when the days began to lengthen, entered her sledge, ador

— Michael Yourievich Lermontov. ( Translated by Mrs. Rosa Newmarch. )...

— Carol. One would naturally imagine that such a pleasure-loving people as the French would make much of Christmas, but instead of this we find that with them, excepting in a few provinces and places remote from cities, it is the least observed of all the holidays. It was once a very gay season, but now Paris scarcely recognizes the day excepting in churches. The shops, as in most large cities, display elegant goods, pretty toys, a great variety of sweetmeats, and tastefully trimmed Christmas tr

- Edmondo de Amicis. Italy! the land of Dante, Petrarch, Bocaccio, Raphael, Michelangelo, and a host of other shining lights in literature and art! Can we imagine any one of them as a boy watching eagerly for Christmas to arrive; saving up money for weeks to purchase some coveted dainty of the season; rushing through crowded streets on Christmas Eve to view the Bambino, and possibly have an opportunity to kiss its pretty bare toe? How strange it all seems! Yet boys to-day probably do many of the

— Pope Leo XIII. (Translated by H. T. Henry.)...

In Spain, the land of romance and song, of frost and flowers, where at Yule-tide the mountains wear a mantle of pure white snow while flowers bloom gaily in field and garden, the season's observance approaches more nearly than in any other country to the old Roman Saturnalia. The Celts who taught the Spaniards the love of ballads and song left some traces of the sun-worshipers' traditions, but they are few in comparison with those of other European countries. Spain is a land apparently out of th

— Violante Do Ceo....

— James Russell Lowell. To people who go into a new country to live, Christmas, which is so generally a family day, must of necessity be a lonely, homesick one. They carry with them the memory of happy customs, of loved ones far away, and of observances which can never be held again. So many of the earliest Christmasses in America were peculiarly sad ones to the various groups of settlers; most especially was this the case with the first Christmas ever spent by Europeans in the New World. The in