A CHRISTMAS LEGEND

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 101, 15 December 1939, Page 5 (Supplement)

A CHRISTMAS LEGEND

All around the wondrous story of Bethlehem and the first Christmas night have grown many qua'.nt legends most of them with a charm of their own-and"all containing some interesting thought.

In some part of Russia the peasants have a legend of a woman whom they call the Baboushka. The story runs that the Three Wise Men passed her house on their journey t.i

find the place where the Child lay. They stopped at her cottage do'M* and begged her to accompany them in their search. "We have seen His star in the East," they said. "Come with us, for wo arc going to worship Him." But the Baboushka was busy and would not join them. "I "will come some time," she said, "but not now." And the Wise Men went on without her. Then she was filled with a great longing to be with them, but it was too late, and though she followed them she never ••saw the Christ Child. But, the legend says, she is still living and still .searching", and it is she, in thosk Russian houses, who fills the children's stockings and hangs the lights and the presents on the Christmas trees, and on Christmas morning the children cry, 'Behold thp Baboushka' and rush out hoping they may see her. For she is always hoping that some day, in some home, she maj r find amongst the children, the Christ child she missed those hundred years ago. In another part of Russia a young girl is believed to bring the presents for the children on Christmas Eve. She is a white-clad maiden known as Kolyada, and she drives in a sledge from house to house distributing presents in the manner of our Santa Claus. So do the legends grow in every -country and of every kind, for out of every great event come stories, ■and it is small wonder that the stupendous event of Christmas should be decked with garlands of story and song.