【正文】
here is a legend that St Boniface, an English monk, came upon a group of pagans gathered around an oak tree who were preparing to sacrifice a child to the God Thor. In order to stop the sacrifice, and save the child’s life, St Boniface is said to have felled the tree with one blow of his fist. Later on, a fir tree grew in place of the oak and this, St Boniface told the pagans, was the Tree of Life and represented the Christ Child. Legend also suggests that, in the late 16th century, Martin Luther (the founder of the Protestant religion) was the first to decorate an indoor tree with candles when he attempted to recreate the stars shining over a fo