Christmas in Legend and Story Part 14

There was no sense of winter in the air, scarcely a touch of frost, and the only snow was that on the silver peaks against the sky. The shepherds, three men and one boy, lay sleeping soundly on the bare ground, with their sheepskin coats drawn closely around them. All about them the sheep were sleeping, too, but the solemn white sheep dogs were wide awake. If a stranger's foot had trod the gra.s.s never so softly, every dog would have barked, and every shepherd would have been on his feet in an instant. But the dogs trotted silently up to the Grey Brothers and rubbed against them, as if they said, "We are glad to see you again," for they knew the friendly feet of the Little Poor Man, and they had more than once helped him to eat the bread that was his only dinner. Followed by the dogs, Francis walked about among the shepherds, but they slept on, as only men who live out of doors can sleep, and Francis could not find it in his heart to waken them. The sheep lay huddled together in groups for more warmth. Around one small square of gra.s.s a net was stretched, and, inside it, were the mother sheep who had little lambs. There was no sound except the faint cry, now and then, of a baby lamb. The coals over which the shepherds had cooked their supper paled from dull red to grey, and there was only a thin column of smoke, white in the moonlight. Francis sat down on a stone, and the largest of the white dogs pressed up against his knee.

Another went dutifully back to his post beside the fold where the mothers and babies slept. The Italian hillside seemed to Francis to change to that of Bethlehem, which he had seen, perhaps, on his Eastern journey; the clear December night seemed like that of the first Christmas Eve. "How these shepherds sleep!" he thought; "how they would awaken if they heard the 'Peace on earth' of the angels' song!" Then he remembered sadly how the armies that called themselves Christian had, year after year, battled with the Saracens over the cradle and the tomb of the Prince of Peace. The moonlight grew misty about him, the silver heights of the mountains and the silver line of the river faded, for the eyes of Brother Francis were full of tears.

As the two Brothers went on their way, Francis grew light of heart again.

The sight of the shepherds sleeping on the gra.s.s had given him a new idea, and he was planning a surprise for his friends at Greccio. For at Greccio all were his friends, from Sir John, his host, down to the babies in the street. In the valley of Rieti he was almost as well known and as dearly loved as in his own valley of a.s.sisi. The children of Greccio had never heard of Christmas trees, nor, perhaps, of Christmas presents. I am not sure that, in the thirteenth century, Italians had the beautiful custom which they now have of giving presents at Twelfth Night, in memory of the coming of the three kings with their gifts to the Christ Child; but in the thirteenth century, even as now, Christmas was the happiest festival of the year. This year all the folk of Greccio, big and little, were happier than usual because their beloved Brother Francis was to help them keep their Christmas-tide. Next day Francis confided his plan to his friend, Sir John, who promised that all should be ready on Christmas Eve.

On the day before Christmas, the people came from all the country around to see and hear Brother Francis. Men, women and children, dressed in their holiday clothes, walking, riding on donkeys, crowding into little carts drawn by great white oxen, from everywhere and in every fashion, the country folk came toward Greccio. Many came from far away, and the early winter darkness fell long before they could reach the town. The light of their torches might be seen on the open road, and the sound of their singing reached the gates of Greccio before them. That night the little town was almost as crowded as was Bethlehem on the eve of the first Christmas. The crowds were poor folk, for the most part, peasants from the fields, charcoal burners from the mountains, shepherds in their sheepskin coats and trousers, made with the wool outside, so that the wearers looked like strange, two-legged animals. The four shepherds who had slept so soundly a few nights before were of the company, but they knew nothing of their midnight visitors. The white dogs knew, but they could keep a secret. The shepherds were almost as quiet as their dogs. They always talked and sang less than other people, having grown used to long silences among their sheep.

Gathered at last into the square before the church, by the light of flaring torches, for the moon would rise late, the people saw with wonder and delight the surprise which Brother Francis and Sir John had prepared for them. They looked into a real stable. There was the manger full of hay, there were a live ox and a live a.s.s. Even by torchlight their breath showed in the frosty air. And there, on the hay, lay a real baby, wrapped from the cold, asleep and smiling. It looked as sweet and innocent as the Christ Child Himself. The people shouted with delight. They clapped their hands and waved their torches.

Then there was silence, for Brother Francis stood before them, and the voice they loved so well, and had come so far to hear, began to read the old story of the birth of the Child Jesus, of the shepherds in the fields, and of the angels' song. When the reading was ended, Brother Francis talked to them as a father might speak to his children. He told of the love that is gentle as a little child, that is willing to be poor and humble as the Baby who was laid in a manger among the cattle. He begged his listeners to put anger and hatred and envy out of their hearts this Christmas Eve, and to think only thoughts of peace and good will. All listened eagerly while Brother Francis spoke, but the moment he finished the great crowd broke into singing. From the church tower the bells rang loud; the torches waved wildly, while voices here and there shouted for Brother Francis and for the Blessed Little Christ. Never before had such glorious hymns nor such joyous shouting been heard in the town of Greccio.

Only the mothers, with babies in their arms, and the shepherds, in their woolly coats, looked on silently and thought: "We are in Bethlehem."

THE SIN OF THE PRINCE BISHOP

WILLIAM CANTON

The Prince Bishop Evrard stood gazing at his marvellous Cathedral; and as he let his eyes wander in delight over the three deep sculptured portals and the double gallery above them, and the great rose window, and the ringers' gallery, and so up to the ma.s.sive western towers, he felt as though his heart were clapping hands for joy within him. And he thought to himself, "Surely in all the world G.o.d has no more beautiful house than this which I have built with such long labor and at so princely an outlay of my treasure." And thus the Prince Bishop fell into the sin of vainglory, and, though he was a holy man, he did not perceive that he had fallen, so filled with gladness was he at the sight of his completed work.

In the double gallery of the west front there were many great statues with crowns and sceptres, but a niche over the central portal was empty and this the Prince Bishop intended to fill with a statue of himself. It was to be a very small simple statue, as became one who prized lowliness of heart, but as he looked up at the vacant place it gave him pleasure to think that hundreds of years after he was dead people would pause before his effigy and praise him and his work. And this, too, was vainglory.

As the Prince Bishop lay asleep that night a mighty six-winged Angel stood beside him and bade him rise. "Come," he said, "and I will show thee some of those who have worked with thee in building the great church, and whose service in G.o.d's eyes has been more worthy than thine." And the Angel led him past the Cathedral and down the steep street of the ancient city, and though it was midday, the people going to and fro did not seem to see them. Beyond the gates they followed the shelving road till they came to green level fields, and there in the middle of the road, between gra.s.sy banks covered white with cherry blossom, two great white oxen, yoked to a huge block of stone, stood resting before they began the toilsome ascent.

"Look!" said the Angel; and the Prince Bishop saw a little blue-winged bird which perched on the stout yoke beam fastened to the horns of the oxen, and sang such a heavenly song of rest and contentment that the big s.h.a.ggy creatures ceased to blow stormily through their nostrils, and drew long tranquil breaths instead.

"Look again!" said the Angel. And from a hut of wattles and clay a little peasant girl came with a bundle of hay in her arms, and gave first one of the oxen and then the other a wisp. Then she stroked their black muzzles, and laid her rosy face against their white cheeks. Then the Prince Bishop saw the rude teamster rise from his rest on the bank and cry to his cattle, and the oxen strained against the beam and the thick ropes tightened, and the huge block of stone was once more set in motion.

And when the Prince Bishop saw that it was these fellow-workers whose service was more worthy in G.o.d's eyes than his own, he was abashed and sorrowful for his sin, and the tears of his own weeping awoke him. So he sent for the master of the sculptors and bade him fill the little niche over the middle portal, not with his own effigy but with an image of the child; and he bade him make two colossal figures of the white oxen; and to the great wonderment of the people these were set up high in the tower so that men could see them against the blue sky. "And as for me," he said, "let my body be buried, with my face downward, outside the great church, in front of the middle entrance, that men may trample on my vainglory and that I may serve them as a stepping-stone to the house of G.o.d; and the little child shall look on me when I lie in the dust."

Now the little girl in the niche was carved with wisps of hay in her hands, but the child who had fed the oxen knew nothing of this, and as she grew up she forgot her childish service, so that when she had grown to womanhood and chanced to see this statue over the portal she did not know it was her own self in stone. But what she had done was not forgotten in heaven.

And as for the oxen, one of them looked east and one looked west across the wide fruitful country about the foot of the hill-city. And one caught the first grey gleam, and the first rosy flush, and the first golden splendor of the sunrise; and the other was lit with the color of the sunset long after the lowlands had faded away in the blue mist of the twilight. Weary men and worn women looking up at them felt that a gladness and a glory and a deep peace had fallen on the life of toil. And then, when people began to understand, they said it was well that these mighty laborers, who had helped to build the house, should still find a place of service and honor in the house; and they remembered that the Master of the house had once been a Babe warmed in a manger by the breath of kine. And at the thought of this men grew more pitiful to their cattle, and to the beasts in servitude, and to all dumb animals. And that was one good fruit which sprang from the Prince Bishop's repentance.

Now over the colossal stone oxen hung the bells of the Cathedral. On Christmas Eve the ringers, according to the old custom, ascended to their gallery to ring in the birth of the Babe Divine. At the moment of midnight the master ringer gave the word, and the great bells began to swing in joyful sequence. Down below in the crowded church lay the image of the new-born Child on the cold straw, and at His haloed head stood the images of the ox and the a.s.s. Far out across the snow-roofed city, far away over the white glistening country rang the glad music of the tower. People who went to their doors to listen cried in astonishment: "Hark! what strange music is that? It sounds as if the lowing of cattle were mingled with the chimes of the bells." In truth it was so. And in every byre the oxen and the kine answered the strange sweet cadences with their lowing, and the great stone oxen lowed back to their kin of the meadow through the deep notes of the joy-peal.

In the fulness of time the Prince Bishop Evrard died and was buried as he had willed, with his face humbly turned to the earth; and to this day the weather-wasted figure of the little girl looks down on him from her niche, and the slab over his grave serves as a stepping-stone to pious feet.

Taken by permission of E.P. Dutton and Company from "A Child's Book of Saints," by William Canton, Everyman's Library.

EARL SIGURD'S CHRISTMAS EVE

HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN

Earl Sigurd, he rides o'er the foam-crested brine, And he heeds not the billowy brawl, For he yearns to behold gentle Swanwhite, the maid Who abides in Sir Burislav's hall.

"Earl Sigurd, the viking, he comes, he is near!

Earl Sigurd, the scourge of the sea; Among the wild rovers who dwell on the deep, There is none that is dreaded as he.

"Oh, hie ye, ye maidens, and hide where ye can, Ere the clang of his war-ax ye hear, For the wolf of the woods has more pity than he, And his heart is as grim as his spear."

Thus rang the dread tidings, from castle to hut, Through the length of Sir Burislav's land, As they spied the red pennon unfurled to the breeze, And the galleys that steered for the strand.

But with menacing brow, looming high in his prow Stood Earl Sigurd, and fair to behold Was his bright, yellow hair, as it waved in the air, 'Neath the glittering helmet of gold.

"Up, my comrades, and stand with your broadswords in hand, For the war is great Odin's delight; And the Thunderer proud, how he laughs in his cloud When the Nors.e.m.e.n prepare for the fight!"

And the light galleys bore the fierce crew to the sh.o.r.e, And naught good did their coming forebode, And a wail rose on high to the storm-riven sky As to Burislav's castle they strode.

Then the stout-hearted men of Sir Burislav's train To the gate-way came thronging full fast And the battle-blade rang with a murderous clang, Borne aloft on the wings of the blast.

And they hewed and they thrust, till each man bit the dust, Their fierce valor availing them naught.

But the Thunderer proud, how he laughed in his cloud, When he saw how the Nors.e.m.e.n had fought!

Then came Burislav forth; to the men of the North Thus in quivering accents spake he: "O, ye warriors, name me the ransom ye claim, Or in gold, or in robes, or in fee."

"Oh, what reck I thy gold?" quoth Earl Sigurd, the bold; "Has not Thor laid it all in my hand?

Give me Swanwhite, the fair, and by Balder I swear I shall never revisit thy land.

"For my vengeance speeds fast, and I come like the blast Of the night o'er the billowy brine; I forget not thy scorn and thy laugh on that morn When I wooed me the maid that was mine."

Then the chief, sore afraid, brought the lily-white maid To the edge of the blood-sprinkled field, And they bore her aloft o'er the sward of the croft On the vault of the glittering shield.

But amain in their path, in a whirlwind of wrath Came young Harold, Sir Burislav's son; With a great voice he cried, while the echoes replied: "Lo, my vengeance, it cometh anon!"

Hark ye, Nors.e.m.e.n, hear great tidings: Odin, Thor, and Frey are dead, And white Christ, the strong and gentle, standeth peace-crowned in their stead.

Lo, the blood-stained day of vengeance to the ancient night is hurled, And the dawn of Christ is beaming blessings o'er the new-born world.

"See the Cross in splendor gleaming far and wide o'er pine-clad heath, While the flaming blade of battle slumbers in its golden sheath.

And before the lowly Savior, e'en the rider of the sea, Sigurd, tamer of the billow, he hath bent the stubborn knee."

Now at Yule-tide sat he feasting on the sh.o.r.e of Drontheim fiord, And his stalwart swains about him watched the bidding of their lord.

Huge his strength was, but his visage, it was mild and fair to see; Ne'er old Norway, heroes' mother, bore a mightier son than he.

With her maids sat gentle Swanwhite 'neath a roof of gleaming shields, As the rarer lily blossoms 'mid the green herbs of the fields;

To and fro their merry words flew lightly through the torch-lit room, Like a shuttle deftly skipping through the mazes of the loom.

And the scalds with nimble fingers o'er the sounding harp-strings swept; Now the strain in laughter rippled, now with hidden woe it wept, For they sang of Time's beginning, ere the sun the day brought forth-- Sang as sing the ocean breezes through the pine-woods of the North.

Bolder beat the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of Nors.e.m.e.n--when amid the tuneful din Open sprang the heavy hall-doors, and a stranger entered in.

Tall his growth, though low he bended o'er a twisted staff of oak, And his stalwart shape was folded in a dun, unseemly cloak.

Straight the Earl his voice uplifted: "Hail to thee, my guest austere!