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9 FOREWORD
And now the Northern Lights begin to burn, faintly at
first, like sunbeams playing in the waters of the blue sea.
Then a soft crimson glow tinges the heavens. There is a
blush on the cheek of night. The colors come and go; and
change from crimson to gold, from gold to crimson. The
snow is stained with rosy light. Twofold from the zenith,
east and west, flames a fiery sword; and a broad band
passes athwart the heavens, like a summer sunset. Soft
purple clouds come sailing over the sky, and through their
vapory folds the winking stars shine white as silver. With
such pomp as this is Merry Christmas ushered in, though
only a single star heralded the first Christmas. And in
memory of that day the Swedish peasants dance on straw;
and the peasant girls throw straws at the timbered roof
of the hall, and for every one that sticks in a crack shall
a groomsman come to their wedding. Merry Christmas
indeed ! For pious souls there shall be church songs and
sermons, but for Swedish peasants, brandy and nut brown ale
in wooden bowls; and the great Yulecake crowned with a
cheese, and garlanded with apples, and upholding a
three-armed candlestick over the Christmas feast. They may tell
tales, too, of Jons Lundsbracka, and Lunkenfus, and the
great Riddar Finke of Pingsdaga.*
And now the glad, leafy mid-summer, full of blossoms
and the song of nightingales, is come! Saint John has taken
the flowers and festival of heathen Balder; and in every
village there is a May-pole fifty feet high, with wreaths
and roses and ribands streaming in the wind, and a noisy
weathercock on top, to tell the village whence the wind
cometh and whither it goeth. The sun does not set till ten
o’clock at night; and the children are at play in the streets
* Titlei of Swedish popular tales.
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