The Bird of Folklore

It was a most beautiful songbird, with the tuneful melodies of the thrush, the throbbing melodies of the human heart, songs of home, as the bird of passage hears them. The bird flew over hill, over valley, and over forest and meadow. It was the Bird of Folklore, which never dies."

We hear the song; we hear it now here in our room, in the winter evening, while the white bees swarm outside and the tempest tightens its strong grip. The Bird sings not only heroic songs; it sings soft, sweet love songs, rich and many; it sings of faithfulness in the North; it gives us fairy tales in melodies and words; it has proverbs and a language in song, and thereby, as if runes were laid on a dead man's tongue, it can speak to us of ancient times, and thus we know the homeland of the Bird of Folklore.

In ancient heathen days, in the times of the vikings, its nest was in the harp of the bard. In the days of knighthood, when iron fists held the scales of justice, and only might was right, when the peasant and the dog were of equal value, where then did the Bird find shelter? Brutality and narrow-mindedness alike had no thought for it. But over the balcony of the castle, where the lady sat before her parchment and wrote down the old records in song and story; in the humble green-turf hut, where the wandering peddler sat on the bench beside the good woman, telling her tales - there, above them, fluttered and flew, twittered and sang, the Bird that never dies so long as earth is green under the foot of man - the Bird of Folklore.

Now it sings for us in here. Outside are the snowstorm and the night. The Bird lays runes on our tongue; we know again our homeland, as God speaks to us in our mother tongue in the melodies of the Bird of Folklore, and the old memories rise within us; faded colors are bright again; song and tale give the joy of a blessed drink, lifting mind and soul until the evening seems like a Christmas festivity. The snow is drifting, and the ice is crackling; the storm reigns; it has great power; it is the lord, but not our Lord!