A troubled voice of assent rose from the throng.  The people stirred uneasily.  Women covered their eyes.  Hunrad lifted his head and muttered hoarsely, “Thor! take vengeance!  Thor!”

Winfried beckoned to Gregor.  “Bring the axes, thine and one for me.  Now, young woodsman, show thy craft!  The king-tree of the forest must fall, and swiftly, or all is lost!”

The two men took their places facing each other, one on each side of the oak.  Their cloaks were flung aside, their heads bare.  Carefully they felt the ground with their feet, seeking a firm grip of the earth.  Firmly they grasped the axe-helves and swung the shining blades.

“Tree-god!” cried Winfried, “art thou angry?  Thus we smite thee!”

“Tree-god!” answered Gregor, “art thou mighty?  Thus we fight thee!”

Clang! clang! the alternate strokes beat time upon the hard, ringing wood.  The axe-heads glittered in their rhythmic flight, like fierce eagles circling about their quarry.

The broad flakes of wood flew from the deepening gashes in the sides of the oak.  The huge trunk quivered.  There was a shuddering in the branches.  Then the great wonder of Winfried’s life came to pass.

Out of the stillness of the winter night, a mighty rushing noise sounded overhead.

Was it the ancient gods on their white battle-steeds, with their black hounds of wrath and their arrows of lightning, sweeping through the air to destroy their foes?

A strong, whirling wind passed over the tree-tops.  It gripped the oak by its branches and tore it from its roots.  Backward it fell, like a ruined tower, groaning and crashing as it split asunder in four great pieces.

Winfried let his axe drop, and bowed his head for a moment in the presence of almighty power.

Then he turned to the people, “Here is the timber,” he cried, “already felled and split for your new building.  On this spot shall rise a chapel to the true God and his servant St. Peter.

“And here,” said he, as his eyes fell on a young fir-tree, standing straight and green, with its top pointing towards the stars, amid the divided ruins of the fallen oak, “here is the living tree, with no stain of blood upon it, that shall be the sign of your new worship.  See how it points to the sky.  Let us call it the tree of the Christ-child.  Take it up and carry it to the chieftain’s hall.  You shall go no more into the shadows of the forest to keep your feasts with secret rites of shame.  You shall keep them at home, with laughter and song and rites of love.  The thunder-oak has fallen, and I think the day is coming when there shall not be a home in all Germany where the children are not gathered around the green fir-tree to rejoice in the birth-night of Christ.”

So they took the little fir from its place, and carried it in joyous procession to the edge of the glade, and laid it on the sledge.  The horses tossed their heads and drew their load bravely, as if the new burden had made it lighter.