[Transcribers note: Several original spelling, punctuation and hyphenation inconsistencies have been rationalised.]

The Yule-log glow

IN THE
YULE-LOG GLOW

CHRISTMAS TALES FROM
'ROUND THE WORLD

"Sic as folk tell ower at a winter ingle"
Scott

EDITED BY

HARRISON S. MORRIS

THREE VOLUMES IN ONE.

Book I.

PHILADELPHIA

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

1900.

Copyright, 1891, by J. B. Lippincott Company.

Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.

THE THRESHOLD.

If, gentle reader, you will step across this threshold, now, as the moon rises in the keen Christmas air, and will find a place by the ruddy ingle within-doors, you may hear, if you will, a Babel of voices from many lands, telling over the adventures of the road and falling into the good-fellowship of the happy Christmas season.

Here from the north, with his ample furs thrown back, sits the Russian in friendly talk with a gay little wanderer from Sicilian valleys. There, with elbow crooked by a foaming tankard, leans the German, narrating his perils and pleasures to a gallant Frenchman and a sunbrowned Spaniard who smoke and chatter together as now and then Mynheer stops for a pull at his pipe.

A Swede, Norwegians, an Englishman or two, and even a happy-go-lucky American, are clustered about the Yule-log; for the place you have entered is the common-room of the wide world.

As you slip the latch and take your seat, some traveller calls out: A Merry Christmas! Another cries: A story, a story! and so they fall to, each from his own scrip taking forth a native tale,—and so they sit the midnight out listening and talking in turn; while the good cheer goes round in endless abundance and laughter and song make interludes for the varied narratives.

CONTENTS OF BOOK I.

ILLUSTRATIONS, BOOK I.