In the winter the days are so short and the cold is so intense that the children are almost shut off from out-door life, and are glad to take up with in-door games and plays. But they are very happy in spite of this, for they are a healthy, sturdy race, and like the ice and cold and snow. In the long winter evenings they gather around the fire and listen to the old stories that have been told in their land for hundreds of years, the stories of Odin and Thor and Baldur, for long, long ago the religion of the Northmen was very different from what it is now. Then they believed not in one god but many, of whom Odin was the chief, who dwelt in Valhalla, the Northmen's heaven. And no one could enter there who had not died fighting, which made the Norse heroes very anxious to die in battle. Perhaps you will remember this god better when you hear that one of the days of the week is named after him, for Wednesday means Woden's day, and Woden was only another name for Odin. Thursday is also named after one of the Norse gods, the great Thor, called the thunderer, who held a mighty hammer in his hand which no one else could lift, and of whom every one was afraid. But of all their gods the people loved best Baldur, the beautiful; they called him the fair white god, and not only was he beloved by the people but all things in nature loved him and had promised never to harm him, all things, that is, excepting the mistletoe. One day there was a great company gathered together, and they all agreed to shoot arrows at Baldur just to prove that nothing could hurt him; so they shot arrows of oak and hemlock and pine, and they threw great stones at him, but he remained unharmed amid it all, for all things loved him and refused to do him injury; and Baldur smiled upon the people and they raised their hands above their heads and vowed that they would worship him forever. And now entered Hoerder, an evil spirit, who had found out the secret of the mistletoe; he asked permission to shoot an arrow at Baldur, and took up one made of the mistletoe, the one thing in the world that could harm the beautiful god. Hoerder took aim and the arrow sped on its way, and thus died Baldur the beautiful, by the hand of Hoerder the evil one. And the people mourned for him, and all things in nature wept over the death of the fair white god. And when hundreds of years had passed away, and the people had ceased to believe in Odin and Thor they still loved the memory of Baldur; and when they listened to the story of Christ and his death on the cross, they said He was like the beautiful one who had been slain by Hoerder; so the priests, to please the people, twined the cross with mistletoe, and to this day at Christmastime little English children, descendants of the fierce Norse rovers, gather the mistletoe, together with the holly and evergreen, and all bright and beautiful things, and deck the churches with them in honor of the birth of Him who came to destroy evil, and to