Oime two poor woodcutters were making their way hreat pi was winter,and a night of bitter cold.The snow lay thi the ground,and upon the brahe trees the frost kept snappiwigs oher side of them as they passed,ahey ountai she was hanging motionless in air,for the ig had kissed her.
So cold was it that even the animals and the birds did not know what to make of it.
“Ugh!” she ed through the brushwood with his tail betweehis is perfestrous weather.Why doesn’t the govero it?”
“eet!” twittered the greehe old earth is dead,and they have laid her out ie shroud.”
“The earth is going to be married,and this is her bridal dress.” whispered the turtle-doves to each other.Their little pie frost-bittehat it was their duty to take a romahe situation.
“Nonsense!” growled the wolf,“I tell you that it is all the fault of the gover,and if you don’t believe me I shall eat you.”The wolf had a thhly prad,a a lument.
“Well,for my own part,” said the woodpecker,hilosopher,“I doomic theory for explanations.If a thing is so,it is so,a is terribly cold.”
Terribly cold it ly was.The little squirrels,who lived iall firtree,kept rubbiher’s o keep themselves warm,as curled themselves up in their holes,and did ure even to look out of doors.The only people who seemed to ehe great horheir feathers were quite stiff with rime,but they did not mind and they rolled their large yellow eyes,ao each other across the forest:“Tu-hit!Tu-whoo!what delightful weather we are having!”
On awo w lustily upers,and stamping with their huge iron-shod boots upon the ow.Ohey sank i,a as white as millers are wherinding;ahey slipped on the hard smooth ice where the marsh-water was frozes fell out of their buhey had to pick them up and biher agaihought that they had lost their way,aerror seized ohey khe snow is cruel to those who sleep in her arms.But they put their trust i Martin,who watches over all travellers,aheir steps,a warily,and at last they reached the outskirts of the forest and saw,far down in the valley behe lights of the village in which they dwelt.
So overjoyed were they at their deliverahey laughed aloud,ah seemed to them like a flower of silver,and the moon like a flold.
Yet,after they had laughed they became sad,for they remembered their poverty,ahem said to the other:“Why did we make merry,seeing that life is for the riot for such as we are? Better that we had died of the forest,or that some wild beast had fallen upon us and slain us.”
“Truly,” answered his uch is givele is giveice has parcelled out the world,nor is there equal division of aught save of sorrow.”
But as they were bewailing their misery to each other this strahihere fell from heave aiful star.It slipped dowhe sky,passiars in its d,as they watched it w,it seemed to them to sink behind a clump of willow trees that stood hard by a little sheepfold hahrow away.
“Why!there is a crock of gold for whoever finds it!” they d they set ter were they fold.
Ahem rahastripped him,and forced his way through the willows,ahe other side,and lo!there was ihing of gold lyie seoing down placed his hands upon it,and it was a cloak of golden tissue,curiht with stars,and ed in many folds.Ao his rade that he had fouhat had fallen from the sky,and when his rade had e up,they sat them down in the snow,ahe folds of the cloak that they might divide the pieces of gold.But,alas!no gold was in it,nor silver,reasure of any kind,but only a little child .
Ahem said to the other: “This is a bitter ending to our hope,nor have we any good fortu doth a a us leave it here,and go our way,seeing that oor men and have of our own whose bread we may her.”
But his panion answered him: “Nay,but it were ahihe child to perish here in the snow,and though I am as poor as thou art,and have many mouths to feed and but little i will I brih me,and my wife shall have care of it.”
So very teook up the d ed the cloak around it to shield it from the harsh ade his way dowo the village,his arvelling much at his foolishness and soft.
Ahey came to the village,his rade said to him:“Thou hast the child,therefive me the eet that we should share.”
But he answered him: “Nay,for the either mihihe ly.” and he bade him Godspeed,ao his own house and knocked.
And whehe door and saw that her husbauro her,she put her arms round his ned kissed him,and took from his badle of faggots,ahe snow off his boots,and bade him e in.
But he said to her:“I have fouhi,a it to thee to have care of it.” airred not from the threshold.
“What is it?” she e,for the house is bare,and we have need of many things.” Ahe cloak bad showed her the sleeping child.
“Alaan!” she murmured,“have we nh of our own,that thou must needs bring a g to sit by the hearth? And ill n us bad fortune? And how shall we tend it?” Ah against him.
“Nay,but it is a Star-Child.” he answered aold her the strahe finding of it.
But she would not be appeased,but mocked at him,and spoke angrily and cried:“Our lack bread,and shall we feed the child of another? Who is there who careth for us? And who giveth us food?”
“Nay,but God careth for the sparrows evehem.” he answered.
“Do not the sparrows die of huhe winter?” she asked,“And is it not winter now?” And the mahing,but stirred not from the threshold.
And a bitter wind from the forest through the open door,aremble,and she shivered,and said to him: “Wilt thou he door? There eth a bitter wind into the house,and I am cold.”
“Into a house where a heart is hard eth there not always a bitter wind?” he asked.And the womahi closer to the fire.
Aime she turned round a him,and her eyes were full of tears.Aly,ahe her arms,and she kissed it,and laid it in a little bed where the youheir own was lying.Ahe woodcutter took the curious cloak of gold a i,and a ber that was round the eck his wife took ahe chest also.
So the Star-Child was brought up with the of the woodd sat at the same board with them,and laymate.And every year he became more beautiful to look at,so that all those who dwelt in the village were filled with wonder,for while they were swarthy and black-haired,he was white ae as sawn ivory,and his curls were like the rings of the daffodil.His lips,also,were like the petals of a red flower,and his eyes were like violets by a river of pure water,and his body like the narcissus of a field where the mower es not.
Yet did his beauty work him evil.Frew proud,and d selfish.The of the woodd the other of the village,he despised,saying that they were of meaage while he was noble,being sprung from a star,and he made himself master over them,ahem his servants.No pity had he for the poor,or for those who were blind or maimed or in any way afflicted,but would es at them ahem forth on to the highway,aheir bread elsewhere,so that laws came twice to that village to ask for alms.Indeed,he was as one enamoured of beauty,and would mock at the weakly and ill-favoured,ahem;and himself he loved,and ihe wiill,he would lie by the well i’s ord look down at the marvel of his own fad laugh for the pleasure he had in his fairness.
Ofteer and his wife chide him and say: “We did hee as thou dealest with those who are left desolate,ao su.Wherefore art thou so cruel to all who y?”
Often did the old priest send for him,aeach him the love of living things,saying to him: “The fly is thy brother.Do it no harm.The wild birds that rh the forest have their freedom.S for thy pleasure.God made the blind-worm and the mole,and each has its place.Who art th pain into God’s world? Evele of the field praise him.”
But the Star-Child heeded not their words,but would frown and flout,and go bapaniohem.And his panions followed him for he was fair,a,and d pipe,and make musid wherever the Star-Child led them they followed,aar-Child bade them do,that did they.And wheh a sharp reed the dim eyes of the mole,they laughed,aohey laughed also.And in all thihem,and they became hard of heart even as he was.
Now there passed ohrough the village a par-warmeed,a were bleeding frh road on which she had travelled,and she was in very evil plight.And being weary she sat her dow.
But whear-Child saw her,he said to his pahere sitteth a foul beggar-woma fair and greeree.e,let us drive her hence,for she is ugly and ill-favoured.”