Even in infancy Claus did marvellous things.  With his baby hands he wrought into pretty figures the willows that were given him to play with.  As he grew older, he fashioned, with the knife old Jans had made for him, many curious toys,—­carts, horses, dogs, lambs, houses, trees, cats, and birds, all of wood and very like to nature.  His mother taught him how to make dolls too,—­dolls of every kind, condition, temper, and color; proud dolls, homely dolls, boy dolls, lady dolls, wax dolls, rubber dolls, paper dolls, worsted dolls, rag dolls,—­dolls of every description and without end.  So Claus became at once quite as popular with the little girls as with the little boys of his native village; for he was so generous that he gave away all these pretty things as fast as he made them.

Claus seemed to know by instinct every language.  As he grew older he would ramble off into the woods and talk with the trees, the rocks, and the beasts of the greenwood; or he would sit on the cliffs overlooking the fiord, and listen to the stories that the waves of the sea loved to tell him; then, too, he knew the haunts of the elves and the stille-volk, and many a pretty tale he learned from these little people.  When night came, old Jans told him the quaint legends of the North, and his mother sang to him the lullabies she had heard when a little child herself in the far-distant East.  And every night his mother held out to him the symbol in the similitude of the cross, and bade him kiss it ere he went to sleep.

So Claus grew to manhood, increasing each day in knowledge and in wisdom.  His works increased too; and his liberality dispensed everywhere the beauteous things which his fancy conceived and his skill executed.  Jans, being now a very old man, and having no son of his own, gave to Claus his forge and workshop, and taught him those secret arts which he in youth had learned from cunning masters.  Right joyous now was Claus; and many, many times the Northern sky glowed with the flames that danced singing from the forge while Claus moulded his pretty toys.  Every color of the rainbow were these flames; for they reflected the bright colors of the beauteous things strewn round that wonderful workshop.  Just as of old he had dispensed to all children alike the homelier toys of his youth, so now he gave to all children alike these more beautiful and more curious gifts.  So little children everywhere loved Claus, because he gave them pretty toys, and their parents loved him because he made their little ones so happy.

[Illustration:  For he was so generous that he gave away all these pretty things as fast as he made them.]

But now Norss and Faia were come to old age.  After long years of love and happiness, they knew that death could not be far distant.  And one day Faia said to Norss:  “Neither you nor I, dear love, fear death; but if we could choose, would we not choose to live always in this our son Claus, who has been so sweet a joy to us?”