Brunetto Latini
Recently, you will remember, at an appropriate season we spoke of the story of Olaf Asteson, who slept through the days after Christmas and did not reawaken until the day of the Three Kings, the 6th of January. In this connection we remarked, that in the season when the outer physical rays of the Sun have the least power, the spiritual power enveloping the Earth is greatest. Therefore the Christmas Festival is rightly placed in the season when the darkness is physically greatest. Then it is that illumination comes over the soul that is capable of illumination. Therefore, the legend tells, it was just in this season that Olaf Asteson attuned his inner life of soul, so that it was taken hold of by those forces which as spiritual light pass from the Sun into the aura of the Earth, at the time when the outer forces of the Sun are weakest. Until the 6th of January he really underwent an entry into the spiritual world.