364 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
weather, when yellow leaves shower down under 
dark skies, it is truth, not only cheering but scien- 
tific. 
In those myths which were the nursery tales of 
the world’s childhood men were told, ages ago, 
and over and over again, that winter is the sleep, 
not the death of the fields) The winter world is 
Brunehild pricked by Odin’s sleep thorn. She is 
wrapped in slumber which seems as deep as that of 
death, yet she will wake at once to the kiss of 
Sigurd—the summer sunshine. 
The beautiful summer is Proserpine carried off in 
the flower of her loveliness by the grim Lord of 
Hell and mourned for by her mother, Ceres, the 
bountiful earth. And in the story of Alcestis the 
myth occurs again. In both cases despair is turned 
to joy. Proserpine, still young and fair, is restored 
to her mother’s arms, and Alcestis is brought in 
triumph to home, husband, and children, and her 
return is celebrated with feast and song. They are 
both stories of the sure return of spring—poetic 
ways of saying that winter seems to rob and slay, 
but in reality does neither. 
To one who goes into the autumn fields with 
eyes opened by Nature-study, they are ‘‘ happy 
autumn fields’’ indeed. The idea of death, which 
