Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/178

 170 some parts they celebrate St. Nicolas Eve, New Year's Eve, or the Three Kings, instead of the 24th of December, and have no tree on these days.

Generally speaking, the custom of having a Christmas-tree is more common in the north of Germany, the part best known to English people, than in the south. Especially in Catholic districts, it is supplanted by the garden, containing the groups of Jesus in the manger, the Virgin Mary, Joseph, with the ox and ass. We find this Christmas-garden, as it is called, both at home and in the churches. For all that, the Christmas-tree has long since broken through the barrier of different creeds, and many Jewish families have adopted it to celebrate Yuletide.

In many homes, father or grandfather tell the children while sitting in the gloaming in the Christmas-room, filled with the pregnant odour of the fir-wood and wax-candles—a fragrance dear to every German—how it used to be when they were children, and listened with a beating heart for the sound of the bell which would admit them to all the joys and splendour dreamt of for so long. And so people think that it has always been thus, and that there never was a time when no bright tree graced merry Christmas-tide.

The most popular idea nowadays is, that the custom is a remnant of the old tree-worship. Others believe it to be of Christian origin. The 24th of December is the day of Adam and Eve. From there to the tree bearing the fruit of knowledge it is not far. In the New Testament, Jesus is often called a branch of the root of David. These pictures were familiar to all classes in the Middle Ages. Some sought for the origin in the seven-branched candlestick of the Jewish temple, but not one of these assumptions is well founded. In legend we also find many tales relating to it.

One Christmas Eve, Luther, so the story goes, was wandering across country. Clear and pure the night sky arched overhead, bright with thousands of stars. The