As if guided by an unseen hand, the boat pointed straight for the beach of this strangely beautiful land; and ere its prow cleaved the shallower waters, Norss saw a maiden standing on the shore, shading her eyes with her right hand, and gazing intently at him.  She was the most beautiful maiden he had ever looked upon.  As Norss was fair, so was this maiden dark; her black hair fell loosely about her shoulders in charming contrast with the white raiment in which her slender, graceful form was clad.  Around her neck she wore a golden chain, and therefrom was suspended a small symbol, which Norss did not immediately recognize.

“Hast thou come sailing out of the North into the East?” asked the maiden.

“Yes,” said Norss.

“And thou art Norss?” she asked.

“I am Norss; and I come seeking my bride,” he answered.

“I am she,” said the maiden.  “My name is Faia.  An angel came to me in my dreams last night, and the angel said:  ’Stand upon the beach to-day, and Norss shall come out of the North to bear thee home a bride.’  So, coming here, I found thee sailing to our shore.”

Remembering then the spirit’s words, Norss said:  “What symbol have you, Faia, that I may know how truly you have spoken?”

“No symbol have I but this,” said Faia, holding out the symbol that was attached to the golden chain about her neck.  Norss looked upon it, and lo! it was the symbol of his dreams,—­a tiny wooden cross.

Then Norss clasped Faia in his arms and kissed her, and entering into the boat they sailed away into the North.  In all their voyage neither care nor danger beset them; for as it had been told to them in their dreams, so it came to pass.  By day the dolphins and the other creatures of the sea gambolled about them; by night the winds and the waves sang them to sleep; and, strangely enough, the Star which before had led Norss into the East, now shone bright and beautiful in the Northern sky!

When Norss and his bride reached their home, Jans, the forge-master, and the other neighbors made great joy, and all said that Faia was more beautiful than any other maiden in the land.  So merry was Jans that he built a huge fire in his forge, and the flames thereof filled the whole Northern sky with rays of light that danced up, up, up to the Star, singing glad songs the while.  So Norss and Faia were wed, and they went to live in the cabin in the fir grove.

To these two was born in good time a son, whom they named Claus.  On the night that he was born wondrous things came to pass.  To the cabin in the fir grove came all the quaint, weird spirits,—­the fairies, the elves, the trolls, the pixies, the fadas, the crions, the goblins, the kobolds, the moss-people, the gnomes, the dwarfs, the water-sprites, the courils, the bogles, the brownies, the nixies, the trows, the stille-volk,—­all came to the cabin in the fir grove, and capered about and sang the strange, beautiful songs of the Mist-Land.  And the flames of old Jans’s forge leaped up higher than ever into the Northern sky, carrying the joyous tidings to the Star, and full of music was that happy night.