342 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



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 per- 

 petual and thus all evil spirits be w^arded 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 re- 

 opened, 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 



