This is a wonderful book with a variety of European Christmas legends (the title refers to a Christmas season beginning with St. Thomas' Day on Dec. 21 and ending not with Twelfth Night on Jan. 5, but with Candlemas on Feb. 2). Each story is accompanied by a related poem. Many of the tales have specific from Spain, the Isle of Man (England), Ireland, Finland, the Tirol (Austria), Cantabria (Spain), Languedoc (France), the Dolomites (Italy), Brittany (France). I do wish there were more information on the provenance of each. In terms of the Christian content, varying degrees of orthodoxy are to be found, as is often the case with regional folktales.
