The most perfect descendant of this sun tree was the world-ash of the Scandinavian mythology, the "Yggsdrasil" of the Edda, in which it is described, with the many mystic rites which grew up about its worship. Hence in Western Europe the proper Yule log was the trunk of an ash tree bound with as many green hazel withes as possible, the hazel being also a sacred tree with these people. As late as thirty years ago, and I doubt not still, the Yule log was thus put to burn on Christmas Eve in many an English fireplace. There some part of it was to be kept smouldering, however low the fire might get, and the blaze of the next day was to be relighted from it for the twelve days of Christmas. Moreover, from a portion of this log should be relighted the Yule fire of the next year, that its magic might be perpetual and thus all evil spirits be warded from the house. Not a bad superstition this, the brand standing as a constant reminder of the spirit of peace and good will lighted in the Christmas fire, not to be forgotten till it is kindled anew by the relighting of the blaze on the hearth a year hence. Here in New England we come, little by little, back to these kindly old customs that mean so much when the outward observance is informed with the thought which it represents. The old fireplaces which were once ignominiously built up with bricks to give free draft to the air-tight stove in its hollow materialism are being reopened, and in them again we light our Yule fires. Nor is the spirit banished with the season. The blaze from the burning log on the open hearth is the kindliest welcome that a room can give to him who enters it. In it the rough rind of our puritanism burns away and the glow within shines forth as we sit about this primal altar of our race, fire-worshipping.