The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Part 46

At Christmas certain animals become more human, or express their joy at the birth of Christ in unmistakable fashion.

There was an old Scottish belief that "at the exact hour of the Saviour's birth bees in their hive emitted a buzzing sound" (246. 147).

According to a Breton folk-tale the ox and the a.s.s can converse for a single hour, "between eleven and twelve on Christmas night." At the same hour, in German folk-lore, all cattle stand up; another version, however, makes them devoutly kneel (462. IV. 1481).

Among the animals which folk-thought has brought into connection with the Christ-Child is the horse. A Russian legend tells us that the flesh of the horse is deemed unclean because "when the infant Saviour was hidden in the manger, the horse kept eating the hay under which the babe was concealed, whereas the ox not only would not touch it, but brought back hay on its horns to replace what the horse had eaten" (520. 334).

From a Spanish-American miracle-play, we learn that the oxen and a.s.ses around the manger kept the little babe warm with their breath. In Ireland the following folk-beliefs obtain regarding the a.s.s and the cow:--

"Joseph and Mary fled into Egypt with the infant Jesus, on an a.s.s. Since that date the a.s.s has had a cross on its back. This same a.s.s returned to Nazareth seven years later with them on its back, travelling in the night, since which time it has been the wisest of all animals; it was made sure-footed for Christ to ride on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and it remains the most sure-footed of all beasts. The a.s.s and cow are looked upon as sacred, because these animals breathed upon the infant Jesus in the manger and kept the child warm. Old women sprinkle holy water on these animals to drive away disease" (480 (1893) 264). In _I Henry IV._ (Act II. Sc. 4) Falstaff says: "The lion will not touch the true Prince," and the divinity which hedged about the princes of human blood was ever present with the son of Joseph and Mary, whose divinity sprang from a purer, n.o.bler fount than that of weak humanity.

_The Holy Family._

We have several word-pictures of the Holy Family from the mouth of the folk. Among the hymns sung by the Confraternities of the Virgin in Seville, is one in which occurs the following figure (_Catholic World,_ XXIV. 19):--

"Es Maria la nave de gracia, San Jose la vela, el Nino el timon; Y los remos son las buenas almas Que van al Rosario con gran devocion."

_i.e._

["Mary is the ship of grace, St. Joseph is the sail, The Child (Jesus) is the helm, And the oars are the pious souls who devoutly pray."]

One of the little Italian songs called _razzi neddu,_ recorded by Mrs. Busk, is even briefer:--

"Maruzza lavava, Giuseppe stinnia, Gesu si stricava Ca minna vulia."

["Sweet Mary was washing, Joseph was hanging out the clothes to dry, Jesus was stretching Himself on the ground, For so His mother willed."]

A popular Spanish lullaby recorded by De Gubernatis in his great study of birth customs and usages, runs as follows in translation (500. 310):--

"The Baby Child of Mary, Now cradle He has none; His father is a carpenter, And he shall make Him one.

"The Lady, good St. Anna, The Lord St. Joachim, They rock the Baby's cradle, That sleep may come to Him.

"Then sleep, thou too, my baby, My little heart so dear; The Virgin is beside thee, The Son of G.o.d is near."

Among the many versions and variants of the familiar child's prayer, "Now I lay me down to sleep," cited by the Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco (500. 202-213), is to be included the following, found among the Greeks of the Terra d'Otranto, in Italy:--

"I lay me down to sleep in my little bed; I lay me down to sleep with my Mamma Mary; the Mamma Mary goes hence and leaves me Christ to keep me company."

Some of the most nave legends are those which deal with the Child and His mother in the early years of life. "Our Lady's Thistle" (_Carduus Maria.n.u.s_) receives its name "because its green leaves have been spotted white ever since the milk of the Virgin fell upon it, when she was nursing Jesus, and endowed it with miraculous virtues." A German tradition tells the same story of the _Polypodium vulgare_ (Marienmilch), based upon an older legend of the G.o.ddess Freia, many of whose attributes, with the lapse of heathendom, pa.s.sed over to the central female figure of Christianity (448. 499). A similar origin of the white lily from the milk of Juno is given in Greek mythology (462.

IV. 1671).

In Devonshire, the custom of burning a f.a.ggot of ash at Christmas, is traced back to the fact that "the Divine Infant at Bethlehem was first washed and dressed by a fire of ash-wood" (448. 235).

In Spain the rosemary is believed to blossom on the day of Christ's pa.s.sion, and the legend accounting for this tells us that "the Virgin Mary spread on a shrub of rosemary the underlinen and little frocks of the infant Jesus." The peasantry believe that rosemary "brings happiness on those families who employ it in perfuming the house on Christmas night" (448. 526).

_Joseph and Mary._

The suspicions entertained by Joseph (as indicated in the narrative of St. Matthew i. 19), when the birth of the child of Mary was first announced, have found deep expression in folk-thought. According to one Oriental legend, the infant Christ himself spoke, declaring that "G.o.d had created Him by His word, and chosen Him to be His servant and prophet" (547. 254).

Another tradition, cited by Folkard, states that (448. 279): "Before the birth of our Saviour, the Virgin Mary longed extremely to taste of some tempting cherries which hung upon a tree high above her head; so she requested Joseph to pluck them. Joseph, however, not caring to take the trouble, refused to gather the cherries, saying sullenly, 'Let the father of thy child present thee with the cherries if he will!' No sooner had these words escaped his lips, than, as if in reproof, the branch of the cherry-tree bowed spontaneously to the Virgin's hand, and she gathered its fruit and ate it. Hence the cherry is dedicated to the Virgin Mary."

In Finland the white side of the flounder "is said to have been caused by the Virgin Mary's laying her hand upon it," and an Eastern legend states that "the Angel Gabriel restored a sole to life, to a.s.sure the Virgin Mary of the truth of the miraculous conception." Ralston cites from the Kherson Government in Russia the following:--

"At the time of the Angelic Salutation, the Blessed Virgin told the Archangel Gabriel that she would give credit to his words, if a fish, one side of which had already been eaten, were to come to life again.

That moment the fish came to life, and was put back into the water."

This legend, accounting for the shape of the sole, finds perhaps its origin in "the old Lithuanian tradition that the Queen of the Baltic Sea once ate half of it and threw the other half into the sea again"--another example of the transference of older stories to the cycle of the Virgin Mary (520. 334).

De Gubernatis records from Andalusia, in Spain, a legend which tells how the Holy Family, journeying one day, came to an orange-tree guarded by an eagle. The Virgin "begged of it one of the oranges for the Holy Child. The eagle miraculously fell asleep, and the Virgin thereupon plucked not one but three oranges, one of which she gave to the infant Jesus, another to Joseph, and the third she kept for herself. Then, and not till then, the eagle that guarded the orange-tree awoke" (448. 478).

A beautiful pendant to this Spanish tale is found in the Roumanian story cited by Folkard:--

"The infant Jesus, in the arms of the Blessed Virgin, becomes restless, will not go to sleep, and begins to cry. The Virgin, to calm the Holy Child, gives Him two apples. The infant throws one upwards and it becomes the Moon; He then throws the second, and it becomes the Sun.

After this exploit, the Virgin Mary addresses Him and foretells that He will become the Lord of Heaven" (448.222).

In his recent book on _Childhood in Literature and Art,_ Mr.

Scudder treats of the Christ-Child and the Holy Family in mediaeval and early Christian art and literature (350. 57-65, 83-99), calling special attention to a series of twelve prints executed in the Netherlands, known as _The Infancy of our Lord G.o.d and Saviour, Jesus Christ,_ in which we have "a reproduction of the childhood of the Saviour in the terms of a homely Netherland family life, the naturalistic treatment diversified by the use of angelic machinery" (350.91).

_Moslem Lore of the Christ._

In the _Toldoth Jesu,_ which Clouston terms "a scurrilous Jewish 'Life of Christ,'"--the Hebrew text with a Latin translation and explanatory notes, appeared at Leyden in 1705, under the t.i.tle _Historiae Jeschuce Nazareni,_--the many wonders admitted to have been performed by Christ are ascribed to his "having abstracted from the Temple the Ineffable Name and concealed it in his thigh,"--an idea thought to be of Indian origin. Clouston goes so far as to say: "Legends of the miracles of Isa, son of Maryam, found in the works of Muslim writers, seem to have been derived from the Kuran, and also from early Christian, or rather _quasi_-Christian traditions, such as those in the apocryphal gospels, which are now for the most part traceable to Buddhist sources." One belief of the Mohammedans was that "the breath of the Messiah had the virtue of restoring the dead to life" (422. II. 395, 408, 409).

In the first volume of the _Orientalist,_ Muhammed Casim Siddi Lebbe gives an account of the views of Arabian writers regarding the Virgin Mary and Jesus. Weil has also devoted a section of his work on Mussulman legends to "John, Mary, and Christ." When the child Jesus was born, we are told, the withered trunk of a date tree against which the Virgin leaned, "blossomed, and its withered branches were covered with fresh dates," while "a fountain of fresh water gushed forth from the earth at her feet" (547. 249-264).

_The Christ-Child To-day._

Folk-stories and churchly legends tell us that the Christ-Child still walks the earth, and appears unto the saints and sinners of this world.

Folkard reports a tradition from the Havel country in North Germany:--

"One Christmas Eve a peasant felt a great desire to eat cabbage and, having none himself, he slipped into a neighbour's garden to cut some.

Just as he had filled his basket, the Christ-Child rode past on his white horse, and said: 'Because thou hast stolen on the holy night, thou shalt immediately sit in the moon with thy basket of cabbage.'" And so, we are told, "the culprit was immediately wafted up to the moon," and there he can still be seen as "the man in the moon" (448. 265).

Brewer gives many of the churchly legends in which the Christ-Child appears to men and women upon earth, either in the arms of the Virgin, as he came to St. Agnes of Monte Pulciano and to Jeanne Marie de Maille, or as a glorious child, in which form he appeared alone to St. Alexander and Quirinus the tribune, in the reign of Hadrian; to St. Andrew Corsini, to call him to the bishopric of Fiesole; to St. Anthony of Padua, many times; to St. Cuthbert, to rebuke him (a child of eight years) for wasting his time in play; to St. Emiliana of Florence, with the same purpose; to St. Oxanna, and to St. Veronica of Milan (191. 59, 60). Among the rude peasantry of Catholic Europe belief in the visitations of the Christ-Child lingers, especially at the season of His birth. With them, as Milton thought,--"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth." Yet not unseen, but seen often of the good and wise, the simple and innocent, and greatest of these visitants of earth is the Child Jesus, ever occupied about His Father's business.

CHAPTER XXVII.