CHRISTMAS LEGEND.

One winter,  a bird broke its wing while she was flying  and was left behind. Soon frost and snow covered the forest and she was cold and hungry. So she asked the trees to help her and let her stay in their branches. The birch tree was proud of being beautiful and haughtily replied to the bird's pleas by saying that he could not possibly help her because he had to look after the birds of the forest first. The strong oak tree was reluctant because it was afraid that the bird would have to live there till spring time and would eat up some of its acorns. Even the willow tree that seemed to be gentle otherwise refused to help or even talk to the strangers. At that point, the bird was in much distress and tried to fly some more but she was still injured. By seeing her struggling like this, the spruce tree offered her the warmest branch to stay. Inspired by the kindness of spruce tree, the pine tree also volunteered to protect the spruce tree and the bird from the North Wind all through the winters. The little juniper tree also piped in to offer its berries to the bird to quench her hunger. So, the bird lived comfortably there and flew away again at springtime, when its wing healed again. The Frost King, who kept close note of the behavior of all trees, strictly instructed the North Wind not to touch even a single leaf of the kind spruce, pine and juniper trees; while he was free to play havoc with the leaves of other trees. The North Wind especially enjoyed in plucking the shining, green leaves of the willow, oak and bird trees and leaving them bare for the winters, with nothing to protect them from snow, rain and sleet. It is for this kindness that the leaves of the spruce, the pine, and the juniper are known as ''evergreen''  trees.