Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/183

 Rh to his sister, which generally mention all the news, do not contain an allusion to this matter, we may look upon it as authentic, as it is vouched for by two witnesses.

A few years later, 1770-71, Goethe stayed in Strasburg. If he had not yet known the Christmas-tree at that period, he would have been sure to have got acquainted with it here, in its old home.

From the year 1785 we have written testimony that the custom was at that time still in use in Strasburg.

In her Mémoires the Baroness Oberkirch relates as follows: "Nous passâmes l'hiver à Strasbourg, et à l'époque de Noël nous allâmes, comme de coutume, au Christkindelsmarkt. Cette foire, qui est destinée aux enfants, se tient pendant la semaine qui précède Noël et dure jusqu'à minuit. .... Le grand jour arrive, on prépare dans chaque maison le Tannenbaum, le sapin couvert de bougies et de bonbons, avec une grande illumination, on attend la visite du Christkindel (le petit Jésus) qui doit récompenser les bons petits enfants, mais on craint aussi le Hanstrapp, qui doit chercher et punir les enfants désobéissants et méchants." After staying in Strasburg Goethe went to Wetzlar, where it seems the Christmastree was as yet unknown. This is evident from Goethe's letters to Kestner, 1772-73.

In the year 1772 Goethe sent a parcel accompanied by a letter to his friend Kestner, the husband of Goethe's old love, Charlotte Buff, shortly before Christmas. In his writing he says, that if he were with them he would like to light many wax-tapers for the little boys (Lotte's brothers), so that it would be like a reflection of heaven in their little minds. But he mentions nothing of the Christmas-tree. So it appears that Goethe never saw Lotte under it, and it is purely a picture drawn from imagination which associated it with her in his work, Leiden des jungen Werther, and by that introduced it for the first time into German Literature. Already Werther loves Lotte passionately, his nerves arc unstrung and his suicide is imminent. It is the evening of