The Sons they were no longer visible to men, nor, in all 

 of the the long grey reaches of the years, has any since 

 W'd been seen of mortal eyes. How are they 

 known, these Sons of the North Wind ? They 

 were known of old, they are known still, only 

 by the white feet of one treading the waves of 

 the sea ; and by the white rustle and sheen of 

 a myriad tiny plumes as the other unfolds great 

 pinions above hills and valleys, woodlands and 

 garths, and the homes of men ; and by the white 

 silence of dream that the third lays upon 

 moving waters, and the windless boughs of 

 trees, upon the reed by the silent loch, upon 

 the grass by the silent tarn, upon the bracken 

 by the unfailing hill-stream hanging like a scarf 

 among; the rock and mountain-ash. We know 

 them no more by their ancient names or in 

 their immortal body, but only thus by the 

 radiance of their passing, and we call them the 

 Polar Wind, and Snow, and Ice. 



It is at this season, in all northern lands, that 

 the miracle of the snow-change, the new beauty 

 of the snow- world, is transcendent. Truly, it is 

 miraculous, that change : that new world, what 

 a revelation it is, showing us the familiar as we 

 have never known it or have of it but a dream- 

 like remembrance, showing it to us at times as 

 we can hardly conceive it. To the continual 

 element of surprise much has to be attributed, 



68 



