danger beset them; for as it had been told to them in their dreams, so it
came to pass. By day the dolphins and the other creatures of the sea
gambolled about them; by night the winds and the waves sang them to sleep;
and, strangely enough, the Star which before had led Norss into the East,
now shone bright and beautiful in the Northern sky!
When Norss and his bride reached their home, Jans, the forge-master, and
the other neighbors made great joy, and all said that Faia was more
beautiful than any other maiden in the land. So merry was Jans that he
built a huge fire in his forge, and the flames thereof filled the whole
Northern sky with rays of light that danced up, up, up to the Star,
singing glad songs the while. So Norss and Faia were wed, and they went to
live in the cabin in the fir-grove.
To these two was born in good time a son, whom they named Claus. On the
night that he was born wondrous things came to pass. To the cabin in the
fir-grove came all the quaint, weird spirits,--the fairies, the elves, the
trolls, the pixies, the fadas, the crions, the goblins, the kobolds, the
moss-people, the gnomes, the dwarfs, the water-sprites, the courils, the
bogles, the brownies, the nixies, the trows, the stille-volk,--all came to
the cabin in the fir-grove, and capered about and sang the strange,
beautiful songs of the Mist-Land. And the flames of old Jans's forge
leaped up higher than ever into the Northern sky, carrying the joyous
tidings to the Star, and full of music was that happy night.
Even in infancy Claus did marvellous things. With his baby hands he
wrought into pretty figures the willows that were given him to play with.
As he grew older, he fashioned, with the knife old Jans had made for him,
many curious toys,--carts, horses, dogs, lambs, houses, trees, cats, and
birds, all of wood and very like to nature. His mother taught him how to
make dolls too,--dolls of every kind, condition, temper, and color; proud
dolls, homely dolls, boy dolls, lady dolls, wax dolls, rubber dolls, paper
dolls, worsted dolls, rag dolls,--dolls of every description and without
end. So Claus became at once quite as popular with the little girls as
with the little boys of his native village; for he was so generous that he
gave away all these pretty things as fast as he made them.
Claus seemed to know by instinct every language. As he grew older he would
ramble off into the woods and talk with the trees, the rocks, and the
beasts of the greenwood; or he would sit on the cliffs overlooking the
fiord, and listen to the stories that the waves of the sea loved to tell
him; then, too, he knew the haunts of the elves and the stille-volk, and
many a pretty tale he learned from these little people. When night came,
old Jans told him the quaint legends of the North, and his mother sang to
him the lullabies she had heard when a little child herself in the
far-distant East. And every night his mother held out to him the symbol in
the similitude of the cross, and bade him kiss it ere he went to sleep.
So Claus grew to manhood, increasing each day in knowledge and in wisdom.
His works increased too; and his liberality dispensed everywhere the
beauteous things which his fancy conceived and his skill executed. Jans,
being now a very old man, and having no son of his own, gave to Claus his
forge and workshop, and taught him those secret arts which he in youth had
learned from cunning masters. Right joyous now was Claus; and many, many
times the Northern sky glowed with the flames that danced singing from the
forge while Claus moulded his pretty toys. Every color of the rainbow were
these flames; for they reflected the bright colors of the beauteous things
strewn round that wonderful workshop. Just as of old he had dispensed to
all children alike the homelier toys of his youth, so now he gave to all