Christmas Mountains ten peaks are: The eight latter names commemorate Santa Claus's reindeer as named in the 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement Clarke Moore. The poem reads in part: With a little old driver so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles, his coursers they came, And he whistled and shouted and called them by name: Now Dasher! Now Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donder and Blitzen! To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall! Now dash away! Dash
A Visit from St. Nicholas a result, "New Yorkers embraced Moore's child-centered version of Christmas as if they had been doing it all their lives." In "An American Anthology, 1787–1900", editor Edmund Clarence Stedman reprinted the Moore version of the poem, including the German spelling of "Donder and Blitzen" that he adopted, rather than the earlier Dutch version from 1823 "Dunder and Blixem." Both phrases translate as "Thunder and Lightning" in English, though the German word for thunder is "Donner" and the words in modern Dutch would be "Donder en Bliksem." Modern printings frequently incorporate alterations that reflect changing linguistic and cultural sensibilities. For example,